But he was not entirely satisfied with them, as he had been in the old days, before he went into the Guards and began the real work of his life, raising himself in society.
Captain Pratt was a tall, pale young man--_assez beau garcon_--faultlessly dressed, with a quiet acquired manner.

He was not ill-looking, the long upper lip concealed by a perfectly kept mustache, but the haggard eye and the thin line in the cheek, which did not suggest thought and overwork as their cause, made his appearance vaguely repellent.
"Jesu, lover of my soul," sang the shrill voices of the choir-boys, echoed by Regie and Mary, standing together, holding their joint hymnbook exactly equally between them, their two small thumbs touching.
Fraeulein, on Hester's other side, was singing with her whole soul, accompanied by a pendulous movement of the body: "Cover my defenceless 'ead, Wiz ze sadow of Zy wing." Mr.Gresley, after baying like a blood-hound through the opening verses, ascended the pulpit and engaged in prayer.

The congregation amened and settled itself.

Mary leaned her blond head against her mother, Regie against Hester.
The supreme moment of the week had come for Mr.Gresley.
He gave out the text: "Can the blind lead the blind?
Shall they not both fall into the ditch ?" * * * * * All of us who are Churchmen are aware that the sermon is a period admirably suited for quiet reflection.
"A good woman loves but once," said Mr.Tristram to himself, in an attitude of attention, his fine eyes fixed decorously on a pillar in front of him.

Some of us would be as helpless without a Bowdlerized generality or a platitude to sustain our minds as the invalid would be without his peptonized beef-tea.
"Rachel is a good woman, a saint.