"Dear me, yes," she said for Alicia. "His Excellency, the Viceroy, and
all his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies,
Secretaries to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under
Secretaries so thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bell stops.
'_And make thy chosen people joyful!_'" she intoned. "Not forgetting
Surgeon-Major and Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to
the right of the main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit."
"You know already what a humbug she is!" Alicia said, but Captain
Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation.
"Well, it would not be any attraction for me," she said, rising to go
through the little accustomed function of her departure. "I'll be going
now, I think. Ensign Sand has fever again and I have to take her place
at the Believers' Meeting." She took Hilda's hand in hers and held it
for an instant. "Good-bye, and God bless you--in the way you most need,"
she said, and turned to Alicia, for whose ears Hilda's protests against
the girl's going broke meaninglessly about the room. "Good-bye. I am
glad to know that we will be one in the glad hereafter, though our paths
may diverge"--her eye rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's
embroidered sleeves--"in this world.
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