d and Mary
everything personal. One thing was--

"My dear fellow, you should really put a check on your wife's
Methodistical ways!"

"I didn't know she had any."

"I have been told, on good authority, that she has a meeting every
Sunday in the wash-house."

Edmund laughed. "A dozen children for Sunday School, with the
President's full consent."

"It won't do, Edmund. You'll find it won't do! Why, old Selby told me
she was a pretty creature, only just like your good pious ladies,
running into all the dirtiest cottages."

And to Mary it was, "Let me give you a hint, my dear Mrs Carbonel. The
Duchess saw you in Poppleby, and asked who you were, and she said she
would like to visit you, if you did not live in such a hole."

"I don't think I want her," said Mary.

"Now, my dear, don't you be foolish! It would be so much to Edmund's
advantage! He was in the same regiment with Lord Henry, and you might
have the best society in the county, if only you would make your new
drive! Why, even Lady Hartman says she can't take her horses again
through that lane, or into the farm court. Miss Yates said it was quite
disgusting."

Mary Carbonel might laugh. She did not care for her own dignity, but
she did for Edmund's; and though she had been amused at Lady Hartman's
four horses entangled in the narrow sweep, and did not quite believe old
Captain Caiger, the lady herself had been very charming, and Mary did
not like to cut her husband and sisters off from the pleasantest houses
in the country.

But the words, "Love not the world," came up into her mind, and the
battle ended by her saying to her husband--

"Don't let us have the _ap_proach this year, dear Edmund. I don't want
it to be Mary's _re_proach."

"You are quite sure? In spite of Caiger?"

"Indeed I am; though I am afraid it is asking you to give up something."

"Not while I have my merry faces at home, Mary. And indeed, little
woman, I am glad of your decision. It is right."

"I am so glad!"

CHAPTER NINE.

THE SCREEN.

"There is no honesty in such dealing."--_Shakespeare_.

One day when Sophy had been trusted to go out alone to carry a few veal
cutlets from luncheon to Judith, she found the door on the latch, but no
one in the room downstairs, the chair empty, the fire out, and all more
dreary than usual, only a voice from above called out, "Please come up."

Sophy, pleased with the adventure, mounted the dark and rickety stairs,