And again the little old chapel was a bower, with
its famous sheaves of corn and corn-plaited pillars, its great bunches of
grapes, dangling like tassels from the pulpit corners, its marrows and
potatoes and pears and apples and damsons, its purple asters and yellow
Japanese sunflowers. Just as before, the red dahlias round the pillars
were dropping, weak-headed among the oats. The place was crowded and hot,
the plates of tomatoes seemed balanced perilously on the gallery front,
the Rev. Enderby was weirder than ever to look at, so long and emaciated
and hairless.
The Rev. Enderby, probably forewarned, came and shook hands with her and
welcomed her, in his broad northern, melancholy singsong before he
mounted the pulpit. Fanny was handsome in a gauzy dress and a beautiful
lace hat. Being a little late, she sat in a chair in the side-aisle
wedged in, right in front of the chapel. Harry was in the gallery above,
and she could only see him from the eyes upwards. She noticed again how
his eyebrows met, blond and not very marked, over his nose. He was
attractive too: physically lovable, very. If only--if only her _pride_
had not suffered! She felt he dragged her down.
'Come, ye thankful people come,
Raise the song of harvest-home.
All is safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin--'
Even the hymn was a falsehood, as the season had been wet, and half the
crops were still out, and in a poor way.
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