gasped. Never, no, never in all her long nursing experience
had she been so defied, so insulted.

Her teeth clicked as always when her temper was roused, the reason being
that thirty years ago the arts and accomplishments of dentistry had not
reached so fine a perfection as to-day can show.

She had, moreover, bought a cheap set. Her teeth clicked. She began:
"The moment your mother comes I give her notice. To think that all these
years I've slaved and slaved only to be told such things by a boy as--"

Then a very dramatic thing occurred. The door opened, just as it might
in the third act of a play by M. Sardou, and revealed the smiling faces
of Mrs. Cole, Miss Amy Trefusis and the Rev. William Jellybrand, Senior
Curate of St. James's, Orange Street.

Mr. Jellybrand had arrived, as he very often did, to tea. He had
expressed a desire, as he very often did, to see the "dear children."
Mrs. Cole, liking to show her children to visitors, even to such regular
and ordinary ones as Mr. Jellybrand, at once was eager to gratify his
desire.

"We'll catch them just before their tea," she said happily.

There is an unfortunate tendency on the part of our Press and stage to
caricature our curates; this tendency I would willingly avoid. It should
be easy enough to do, as I am writing about Polchester, a town that
simply abounds--and also abounded thirty years ago--in curates of the
most splendid and manly type. But, unfortunately, Mr. Jellybrand was
not one of these. I, myself, remember him very well, and can see him now
flinging his thin, black, and--as it seemed to me then--gigantic figure
up Orange Street, his coat flapping behind him, his enormous boots
flapping in front of him, and his huge hands flapping on each side of
him like a huge gesticulating crow.

He had, the Polchester people who liked him said, "a rich voice." The
others who did not like him called him "an affected ass." He ran up and
down the scale like this:

______________________________________________________________
Mrs.
______________________________________________________________
dear
______________________________________________________________
My
______________________________________________________________
Cole.
______________________________________________________________

and his blue cheeks looked co