self on these vigorous forms of speech, and the
squire's neighbourhood generally called out an unusual crop of them. The
squire was still sitting with his hands on the table, his great brows
bent, surveying his guests.

'Oh, of course all the sensible men are dead!' he said indifferently.
'But that is a pet saying of mine--the Church of England in a nutshell.'

Robert flushed, and after a moment's hesitation bent forward.

'What do you suppose,' he asked quietly, 'your Archbishop meant, Mr.
Wendover, by enthusiasm? Nonconformity, I imagine.'

'Oh, very possibly!' and again Robert found the hawk-like glance
concentrated on himself. 'But I like to give his remark a much wider
extension. One may make it a maxim of general experience, and take it as
fitting all the fools with a mission who have teased our generation--all
your Kingsleys, and Maurices, and Ruskins--every one bent upon making
any sort of aimless commotion, which may serve him both as an investment
for the next world, and an advertisement for this.'

'Upon my word, squire,' said Lady Charlotte, 'I hope you don't expect
Mr. Elsmere to agree with you?'

Mr. Wendover made her a little bow.

'I have very little sanguineness of any sort in my composition,' he said
drily.

'I should like to know,' said Robert, taking no notice of this by-play;
'I should like to know, Mr. Wendover, leaving the Archbishop out of
count, what _you_ understand by this word enthusiasm in this maxim of
yours?'

'An excellent manner,' thought Lady Charlotte, who, for all her
noisiness, was an extremely shrewd woman, 'an excellent manner and an
unprovoked attack.'

Catherine's trained eye, however, had detected signs in Robert's look
and bearing which were lost on Lady Charlotte, and which made her look
nervously on. As to the rest of the table, they had all fallen to
watching the 'break' between the new rector and their host with a good
deal of curiosity.

The squire paused a moment before replying,--

'It is not easy to put it tersely,' he said at last; 'but I may define
it, perhaps, as the mania for mending the roof of your right-hand
neighbour with straw torn off the roof of your left-hand neighbour; the
custom, in short, of robbing Peter to propitiate Paul.'

'Precisely,' said Mr. Wynnstay warmly; 'all the ridiculous Radical
nostrums of the last fifty years--you have hit them off exactly.
Sometimes you rob more and propitiate less; sometimes you rob less and
propitiate m