and length of limb, but perfectly proportioned. She was young,
hardly more than twenty, St. George fancied, and of the peculiar
litheness which needs no motion to be manifest. Her clear skin was
of wonderful brown; and her eyes, large and dark, with something of
the oriental watchfulness, were like opaque gems and not more
penetrable. Her look was immovably fixed upon St. George as if she
divined that in some way his coming affected her.

"We will have our hymn first." Mrs. Manners' words were buzzing and
pecking in the air. "What can I have done with that list of numbers?
We have to select our pieces most carefully," she confided to St.
George, "so to be sure that _Soul's Prison_ or _Hands Red as
Crimson_, or, _Do You See the Hebrew Captive Kneeling?_ or anything
personal like that doesn't occur. Now what can I have done with that
list?"

Her words reached St. George but vaguely. He was in a fever of
anticipation and enthusiasm. He turned quickly to Mrs. Manners.

"During the hymn," he said simply, "I would like to speak with one
of the women. Have I your permission?"

Mrs. Manners looked momentarily perplexed; but her eyes at that
instant chancing upon her lost list of hymns, she let fall an
abstracted assent and hurried to the waiting organist. Immediately
St. George stepped quietly down among the women already fluttering
the leaves of their hymn books, and sat beside the mulatto woman.

Her eyes met his in eager questioning, but she had that temper of
unsurprise of many of the eastern peoples and of some animals. Yet