“Say grace, Peter,” said Theresa, looking up from carving.
“I have just done so, my dear,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“Peter, you see the result of thirty years of your example,” said Bumpus, who was a cousin of Mr. Fletcher’s, and gave an impression of a faint Fletcher likeness embodied in a great difference.
“I think it is a beautiful result,” said Emily, who was a friend of Theresa’s. “Fancy just not noticing grace after thirty years!”
“Being so free from nervous hurry at the least,” said Bumpus.
“Oh, one does not offer oneself as an example to one’s elders and betters,” said Mr. Fletcher, giving his peculiar smile, in which he stretched his lips without parting them, so that his teeth were not displayed.
He was nine months younger than his wife.
“Ah, it is so difficult to have the control of oneself,” said Miss Lydia, in a mysterious undertone, with her hand over her mouth. “It seems that nothing is so small that we can do it without asking help.”
“Theresa does everything without help, doesn’t she?” said Bumpus.
“Of course nobody who does that, could do quite actually everything,” said Emily.
“No. Not without help, no. Without always asking help, perhaps,” murmured Miss Lydia. “For we can’t do things without help. No.”
“Is the farewell sermon ready, Peter?” said Theresa.
“A farewell sermon! I do hope you had help,” said Bumpus.
“A life of work, and extra work to round it off!” said Theresa.
“Lyddie, is it ready?” said Mr. Fletcher.
“The sermon is not my province,” said Miss Lydia, firmly on the truth.
“But couldn’t it be with help?” said Emily. “Oughtn’t you to get particular help, being inside things as you are? Or is everything just coldly fair?”
Miss Lydia looked at the table.
“Aunt Lyddie is to do the work to the end, isn’t she, Uncle Peter?” said Francis.
“Yes, yes, surely,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“It is not a woman’s business to preach,” said Miss Lydia.
“Of course not,” said Emily. “I did not think of that. I didn’t mean I thought it was.”
“Is it done, dear?” said Theresa.
“I have mapped it out in outline,” said Mr. Fletcher, leaning back with his finger tips together. “I have still two or three matters to look up.”
“You are self-important, Peter,” said Bumpus.
“Well, with a farewell sermon, that is just being open and above deceit,” said Emily.
“I shouldn’t trouble about it,” said Theresa. “The people who will hear it have never troubled about you.”
“I should denounce them at the last,” said Bumpus. “No, I should not. I should be very subtle and aloof.”
“I do envy you for retiring,” said Emily. “Fancy, if Nicholas could give up the school!”
“Ah, he is needed,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“Oh, he is not, Peter,” said Emily. “You should not have little ways of making yourself popular.”
“There is a great deal of ritualism in the town,” said Miss Lydia, rolling the “r.” “A great deal. It is so much we have to fight against. But we must be so thankful that we are allowed to do something.”
“The other side seems to be allowed to do more,” said Theresa. “I hope they are more thankful.”
“Lyddie,” said Bumpus, “have you been told about Theresa’s being made on purpose without charity, because of the double share of Peter, with whom she was to become one?”
“Ah, but these ritualists do harm. They do harm. They are not right. It is idolatrous,” said Miss Lydia, looking in front of her.
“The true reasons for the simpler service have possibly never even reached them,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“No, no, Peter; keep a hand on yourself,” said Bumpus. “That does not extend to us. We are more of a credit to you than that.”
“It is certainly time that Peter retired,” said Theresa.
“Where do your boys attend church?” said Miss Lydia to Emily, in a mysterious, piercing whisper.
“My boys?” said Emily. “How nice of you! Because that is the impression we want to make. At the chapel of the college where Nicholas used to be. Richard’s college.”
“Merry arranged it as a reminder to people that Herrick was a Fellow there,” said Bumpus.
“You are very nice people to be employed by,” said Miss Lydia, her voice suggesting unworthiness in Mr. Merry.
“Yes, we try to be grateful,” said Emily. “It is so generous to be employed. Nicholas and I really have to shirk our part of it.”
“Mrs. Merry is a good religious woman?” said Miss Lydia, raising her eyes but not her head.
“Yes. That is what she is. You are wonderful at descriptions.”
“I am sure, Aunt Lyddie, that Miss Herrick’s and Mr. Herrick’s influence is everywhere in the school,” said Francis. “I have so often heard about it in the town.”
“I wonder if that is all right,” said Bumpus. “Are we quite sure what Merry wants about that?”
“Mr. Merry is very happy in having no place in his life for criticism at all,” said Miss Lydia.
“Very happy?” said Emily. “I think it would be unhappy and difficult. And we can’t take everything, and give what is less than nothing. And that is what criticism seems to be. Peter, you do make me so jealous, sitting there. I wish Nicholas had a beard, and a kinder expression.”
“Sixty-eight years behind him, and not a respectable grey hair to show for it!” said Miss Lydia.
Mr. Fletcher passed his hand down his beard.
“Wouldn’t vanity seem to you a feeling incongruous with your calling?” said Bumpus.
“It would lack, I fear, what may be regarded as its necessities of life,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“I wish I had said that. I mean, I wish I had thought of it,” said Emily. “I mean, I wish I had thought of it just as a cleverness.”
“You see why he will not button his coat,” said Bumpus. “It would be taking thought for what he puts on, when he is provided as the lilies of the field.”
Francis looked grave.
Theresa rose and rang the bell.
“My dear,” said Mr. Fletcher, half rising himself, “why cannot you say when you want a thing done?”
“I
