Stephen and himself were then left in possession, and the work went on till early in the afternoon, when dinner was announced by Unity of the vicarage kitchen running up the hill without a bonnet.
Elfride did not make her appearance inside the building till late in the afternoon, and came then by special invitation from Stephen during dinner.

She looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came into the old silent place, that young Smith's world began to be lit by 'the purple light' in all its definiteness.

Worm was got rid of by sending him to measure the height of the tower.
What could she do but come close--so close that a minute arc of her skirt touched his foot--and asked him how he was getting on with his sketches, and set herself to learn the principles of practical mensuration as applied to irregular buildings?
Then she must ascend the pulpit to re-imagine for the hundredth time how it would seem to be a preacher.
Presently she leant over the front of the pulpit.
'Don't you tell papa, will you, Mr.Smith, if I tell you something ?' she said with a sudden impulse to make a confidence.
'Oh no, that I won't,' said he, staring up.
'Well, I write papa's sermons for him very often, and he preaches them better than he does his own; and then afterwards he talks to people and to me about what he said in his sermon to-day, and forgets that I wrote it for him.

Isn't it absurd ?' 'How clever you must be!' said Stephen.

'I couldn't write a sermon for the world.' 'Oh, it's easy enough,' she said, descending from the pulpit and coming close to him to explain more vividly.