ng creature. Mrs.
Thornburgh--much recovered in mind since Dr. Baker had praised the
pancakes by which Sarah had sought to prove to her mistress the
superfluity of naughtiness involved in her recourse to foreign
cooks--watched the young man and maiden with a face which grew more and
more radiant. The conversation in the garden had not pleased her. Why
should people always talk of Catherine; Mrs. Thornburgh stood in awe of
Catherine and had given her up in despair. It was the other two whose
fortunes, as possibly directed by her, filled her maternal heart with
sympathetic emotion.

Suddenly in the midst of her satisfaction she had a rude shock. What on
earth was the vicar doing? After they had got through better than any
one could have hoped, thanks to a discreet silence and Sarah's
makeshifts, there was the master of the house pouring the whole tale of
his wife's aspirations and disappointment into Mrs. Seaton's ear! If it
were ever allowable to rush upon your husband at table and stop his
mouth with a dinner napkin, Mrs. Thornburgh could at this moment have
performed such a feat. She nodded and coughed and fidgeted in vain!

The vicar's confidences were the result of a fit of nervous
exasperation. Mrs. Seaton had just embarked upon an account of 'our
charming time with Lord Fleckwood.' Now Lord Fleckwood was a distant
cousin of Archdeacon Seaton, and the great magnate of the neighbourhood,
not, however, a very respectable magnate. Mr. Thornburgh had heard
accounts of Lupton Castle from Mrs. Seaton on at least half a dozen
different occasions. Privately he believed them all to refer to one
visit, an event of immemorial antiquity periodically brought up to date
by Mrs. Seaton's imagination. But the vicar was a timid man, without the
courage of his opinions, and in his eagerness to stop the flow of his
neighbour's eloquence he could think of no better device, or more
suitable rival subject, than to plunge into the story of the drunken
carrier, and the pastry still reposing on the counter at Randall's.

He blushed, good man, when he was well in it. His wife's horrified
countenance embarrassed him. But anything was better than Lord
Fleckwood. Mrs. Seaton listened to him with the slightest smile on her
formidable lip. The story was pleasing to her.

'At least, my dear sir,' she said when he paused, nodding her diademed
head with stately emphasis, 'Mrs. Thornburgh's inconvenience may have
one good result. You can now make