Dora's attitude before she had done became slightly permissive, but Mrs Milburn held on till she had accomplished her conception of conduct for the occasion; then she remembered a meeting in the schoolhouse.
"We are to have an address by an Indian bishop," she told them.

"He is on his way to England by China and Japan, and is staying with our dear rector, Mr Murchison.

Such a treat I expect it will be." "What I am dying to know," said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly way, "is whether he is black or white!" Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward Miss Filkin thought she could not miss the bishop either, conveying the feeling that a bishop was a bishop, of whatever colour.

She stayed three minutes longer than Mrs Milburn, but she went.

The Filkin tradition, though strong, could not hold out entirely against the unwritten laws, the silently claimed privileges, of youth in Elgin.