Gilbert's house, however, afforded few excitements. Garna's big room you did not often enter, though you might on Sunday while she was putting on her veil and bonnet to take you to church. Gilbert did not care very much how the rest of the family got to church, but it was one of the most important things in his life that he should go with Garna. At nine o'clock the church-bell would begin to ring, gayly, quickly, sometimes the long peals almost falling over each other in their eagerness. Then it would stop, with a final long echo. Now the whole town knew that it was Sunday. Then at ten o'clock the great bell would ring again, not quite so gayly nor so quickly, to let people know that there would be church that day. Then at twenty minutes after ten the bell would begin its real earnestness,—slow and solemn strokes, each one ringing its full sonorous note and dying away before the next one began.
At the first stroke of the ten-o'clock bell, Gilbert would rush to Garna's room, where he would find her putting on her black silk dress and little lace collar. Her black bonnet with its long crêpe veil, which Gilbert soon learned meant that grandfather was dead, would be spread out on the bed. When the last bell began to ring, and Gama had not yet put on her bonnet, an icy fear gripped Gilbert's heart. They would be late! The maddening slowness with which Garna put the last touches to her bonnet used to send Gilbert into a delirium of anxiety. Finally they were out on the elm-shaded streets, Gilbert fairly tugging and straining to get them there before service began. Mother and Olga were: always late, but that was because Olga cried. He could abandon them. He did not know what would happen to Garna and him if they were late, but he felt that it would be something namelessly awful.
But they were never late. They would sit there in the pew several minutes while the organ played and the great bell boomed outside, up in the tower. Then the minister would come in, and a sense of security and peace would steal over Gilbert, listening to the hymn and looking up at Garna, so glossy and placid next him in the pew.
In prayer-time, Gilbert would have liked to put his head down on the pew-rail in front of him, just as Garna and all the other people did, but he could not reach it. So he had to be content with ducking his head into his hand, and holding his eyes very tightly shut until he heard the "Amen" which sent them all upright again. Why
