Shall I carry them downstairs?"
"No," said Angela. "I'd rather look at them here. It's like staring at
flowers in the night. The colours come up to your eyes in the most
wonderful way."
Seeing that she meant to kneel by the open chest Nick whipped off his coat
to lay under her knees, and she laughed as she named him Sir Walter
Raleigh. Hilliard and Billy stood behind her, Nick stooping sometimes to
examine a stole or altar-cloth she wished to show him, Billy frankly
bored, until a faint sound somewhere made him prick up his ears.
"Maybe that's the Padre now," said he. "Shall I go and look?" Then he
pattered down the steep stairway without waiting to be answered.
Angela and Nick forgot him for a moment, until his nasal young voice
called excitedly from below the gallery:
"Say, Mr. Hilliard, we're locked in!"
"What!" exclaimed Nick, straightening himself up and dropping the end of
an embroidered stole.
"Some fellow's been to the door and locked it on the outside."
XV
THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK
It was very dim in the Mission church. Angela had not realized how dim
until she heard the news announced through Billy's nose. They were locked
in!
Somebody had been to the door, somebody had locked it on the outside, and
it was deep twilight, almost night.
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