Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry, passing into a shy smile too, and then to something deeper. She had a sense of beauty, that child⁠—knew what was what! He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between them.

“ Mrs. Heron, Mam’zelle Beauce. Well, Mam’zelle⁠—good sermon?”

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest in church remained to him. Mam’zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand clad in a black kid glove⁠—she had been in the best families⁠—and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask: “Are you well-brrred?” Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her⁠—a not uncommon occurrence⁠—she would say to them: “The little Tayleurs never did that⁠—they were such well-brrred little children.” Jolly hated the little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them. “A thin rum little soul,” old Jolyon thought her⁠—Mam’zelle Beauce.