triumphantly. "I suppose that you don't set up to be any better than
him? And if he had a wife's mother, surely he had a wife, too? Come
on, Stancy, you see he has not a word to say. I have a mother, too,
and if she were here, she would not permit her daughter to be thus
insulted. She would have his eyes out with her knitting needles--the
crochet ones with the hooks on the top!"

"I shall not do any such thing, Harriet," said her sister calmly. "I
think you are very absurd. Please don't mind her, Mr. De la Poer. Sit
down, and help Mr. Ablethorpe to explain about the Council of Trent,
while Harriet gets Grace Rigley waked up to the idea that she is to
bring in tea for four."

But Mr. De la Poer had had enough. He had never been so treated in his
life before, and somehow, even Mr. Ablethorpe's exposition of the
Council of Trent was not quite the same thing with Mr. De la Poer
sitting sulking there with his palms pressed between his knees and his
eyes noting the pattern on the carpet.

So the two young men went out, and it was not till he was on his
bicycle, and mounting the hill toward Over Breckonton, that Mr. De la
Poer began to find excuses for that inexcusable girl. After all,
brought up as she had been in a Presbyterian household, without any
training, even in the catechism, what could one expect, he thought.

Well, as he entered his lonely lodgings, to find the fire out and the
smell of the hastily trimmed paraffin lamp turned low on the table, I
suppose he thought that it might have done no harm if, after all, he
had waited for tea in the comfortable house at "Yarrow's." And as he
was pouring the water into a cup of cocoa--which, when tasted, turned
out to be lukewarm and tasting of coal oil--maybe Mr. De la Poer began
to think that a bright young person in a house to see to things in
general would be a decided acquisition--as a sister.

Since, however, owing to the prejudices of society, it would be
difficult to propose this arrangement to Miss Harriet Caw and her
parents, Mr. De la Poer finished his butterless bread (he was severe
with himself in matters of fasting), and arranged a paper shade cut
from a church newspaper, so that it fell at the right angle. He then
set himself dolefully enough to compose a Sunday's sermon, which, as
may be supposed, did not enliven the scanty company of Over
Breckontoners who listened to it on Sunday.

After he was gone, Mr. Ablethorpe came round to the office