Why the parishioners had come in such numbers it would be hard to say.

Perhaps even a temperance meeting was a change in the dreary monotony of rural life at Warpington.

Many of the faces bore the imprint of this monotony, Rachel thought, as she refused the conspicuous front seat pointed out to her by Mrs.Gresley, and sat down near the door with Hester.
Dick, who had been finishing his cigarette outside, entered a moment later, and stood in the gangway, entirely filling it up, his eye travelling over the assembly, and, as Rachel well knew, looking for her.
Presently he caught sight of her, wedged in four or five deep by the last arrivals.

There was a vacant space between her and the wall, but it was apparently inaccessible.

Entirely disregarding the anxious church-wardens who were waving him forward, Dick disappeared among the young men at the back, and Rachel thought no more of him until a large Oxford shoe descended quietly out of space upon the empty seat near her, and Dick, who had persuaded the young men to give him foot-room on their seats, and had stepped over the high backs of several "school forms," sat down beside her.
It was neatly done, and Rachel could not help smiling.