Not that we left our too tightly stuffed
seats for one moment, but as we sat or stood, unable to see anything
beyond the bombazine curtains (which, intervening between us and the
distant parson, made our hearing what he said next to impossible), we
amused ourselves by mentally "pretending" a good deal of domestic
drama, in which the pew represented a house; and we related our
respective "plays" to each other afterwards when we went home.
Wrong as it was, we did not intend to be irreverent, though I had the
grace to feel slightly shocked when after a cheerfully lighted evening
service, at which the claims of a missionary society had been
enforced, Polly confided to me, with some triumph in her tone, "I
pretended a theatre, and when the man was going round with the box
upstairs, I pretended it was oranges in the gallery."
I had more than once felt uneasy at our proceedings, and I now told
Polly that I thought it was not right, and that we ought to "try to
attend." I rather expected her to resent my advice, but she said that
she had "sometimes thought it was wrong" herself; and we resolved to
behave better for the future, and indeed really did give up our
unseasonable game.
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