"Are you going to church? It's worth anything to hear Uncle Bob read the
Lessons, especially when he loses his place. No; you're not to put on
your long coat till just before church time. I won't have it!"

Obediently Pierson resigned his long coat.

"Now, you see, you can have my rose. Your nose is better!" She kissed
his nose, and transferred her rose to the buttonhole of his short coat.
"That's all. Come along!" And with her arm through his, they went down.
But he knew she had come to say something which she had not said.



2

Bob Pierson, in virtue of greater wealth than the rest of the
congregation, always read the Lessons, in his high steamy voice, his
breathing never adjusted to the length of any period. The congregation,
accustomed, heard nothing peculiar; he was the necessary gentry with the
necessary finger in the pie. It was his own family whom he perturbed. In
the second row, Noel, staring solemnly at the profile of her father in
the front row, was thinking: 'Poor Daddy! His eyes look as if they were
coming out. Oh, Daddy! Smile! or it'll hurt you!' Young Morland beside
her, rigid in his tunic, was thinking: 'She isn't thinking of me!'
And just then her little finger crooked into his. Edward Pierson was
thinking: 'Oh! My dear old Bob! Oh!' And, beside him, Thirza thought:
'Poor dear Ted I how nice for him to be having a complete rest! I must
make him eat he's so thin!' And Eve was thinking: 'Oh, Father! Mercy!'
But Bob Pierson was thinking: 'Cheer oh! Only another three verses!'