tewart Hendlam's leader and the Guild of St.
Matthew news. These proceedings are presently enlivened by the
appearance of Morell's curate, the Reverend Alexander Mill, a young
gentleman gathered by Morell from the nearest University settlement,
whither he had come from Oxford to give the east end of London the
benefit of his university training. He is a conceitedly well
intentioned, enthusiastic, immature person, with nothing positively
unbearable about him except a habit of speaking with his lips carefully
closed for half an inch from each corner, a finicking arthulation, and
a set of horribly corrupt vowels, notably ow for o, this being his
chief means of bringing Oxford refinement to bear on Hackney vulgarity.
Morell, whom he has won over by a doglike devotion, looks up
indulgently from The Church Reformer as he enters, and remarks) Well,
Lexy! Late again, as usual.

LEXY. I'm afraid so. I wish I could get up in the morning.

MORELL (exulting in his own energy). Ha! ha! (Whimsically.) Watch and
pray, Lexy: watch and pray.

LEXY. I know. (Rising wittily to the occasion.) But how can I watch and
pray when I am asleep? Isn't that so, Miss Prossy?

PROSERPINE (sharply). Miss Garnett, if you please.

LEXY. I beg your pardon--Miss Garnett.

PROSERPINE. You've got to do all the work to-day.

LEXY. Why?

PROSERPINE. Never mind why. It will do you good to earn your supper
before you eat it, for once in a way, as I do. Come: don't dawdle. You
should have been off on your rounds half an hour ago.

LEXY (perplexed). Is she in earnest, Morell?

MORELL (in the highest spirits--his eyes dancing). Yes. _I_ am going to
dawdle to-day.

LEXY. You! You don't know how.

MORELL (heartily). Ha! ha! Don't I? I'm going to have this day all to
myself--or at least the forenoon. My wife's coming back: she's due here
at 11.45.

LEXY (surprised). Coming back already--with the children? I thought
they were to stay to the end of the month.

MORELL. So they are: she's only coming up for two days, to get some
flannel things for Jimmy, and to see how we're getting on without her.

LEXY (anxiously). But, my dear Morell, if what Jimmy and Fluffy had was
scarlatina, do you think it wise--

MORELL. Scarlatina!--rubbish, German measles. I brought it into the
house myself from the Pycroft Street School. A parson is like a doctor,
my boy: he must face infection as a soldier must face bullets. (He
rises and claps Lexy on the shoulder.) Ca