Cargrim, insinuatingly, whereupon
Captain George pulled his moustache and looked savage.

'Oh, I won't tax your good nature so far,' rejoined Mab, laughing. 'What
is it, aunty?' for the wren was still fluttering and restless.

'My dear, you must content yourself with Captain Pendle till luncheon,
for I want Mr Cargrim to come into the garden and see my fig tree; real
figs grow on it, Mr Cargrim,' said Miss Whichello, solemnly, 'the very
first figs that have ever ripened in Beorminster.'

'I am glad it is not a barren fig tree,' said Cargrim, introducing a
scriptural allusion in his most clerical manner.

'Barren indeed! it has five figs on it. Really, sitting under its shade
one would fancy one was in Palestine. Do come, Mr Cargrim,' and Miss
Whichello fluttered through the door like an escaping bird.

'With pleasure; the more so, as I know we shall not be missed.'

'Damn!' muttered Captain Pendle, when the door closed on Cargrim's smile
and insinuating looks.

'Captain Pendle!' exclaimed Miss Arden, becomingly shocked.

'Captain Pendle indeed!' said the young man, slipping his arm round Mab;
'and why not George?'

'I thought Mr Cargrim might hear.'

'He ought to; like the ass, his ears are long enough.'

'Still, he is anything but an ass--George.'

'If he isn't an ass he's a beast,' rejoined Pendle, promptly, 'and it
comes to much the same thing.'

'Well, you need not swear at him.'

'If I didn't swear I'd kick him, Mab; and think of the scandal to the
Church. Cargrim's a sneaking, time-serving sycophant. I wonder my father
can endure him; I can't!'

'I don't like him myself,' confessed Mab, as they seated themselves in
the window-seat.

'I should--think--not!' cried Captain George, in so deliberate and
disgusted a tone that Mab laughed. Whereat he kissed her and was
reproved, so that both betook themselves to argument as to the
righteousness or unrighteousness of kissing on a Sunday.

George Pendle was a tall, slim, and very good-looking young man in every
sense of the word. He was as fair as Mab was dark, with bright blue eyes
and a bronzed skin, against which his smartly-pointed moustache appeared
by contrast almost white. With his upright figure, his alert military
air, and merry smile, he looked an extremely handsome and desirable
lover; and so Mab thought, although she reproved him with orthodox
modesty for snatching a kiss unasked. But if men had to request favours
of this sort, there would