"Oh, Lord, yes! _All_ nightly, especially when the luck ran his way."

"Now, Mr. Blake, how you distort my meaning!"

"Madame, you do me wrong, notorious wrong! I did but echo the words you
spake a week agone. You marvel at my meaning. Nay, then, 'tis not less
strange and weird than the tongue in which you tell of his perfections;
less _bizarre_, if you _will_ have French."

"Mr. Blake, you tilt at wind-mills." ("Gad! that's neat!" quoth he,
_sotto voce_.) "I never said anything about a bazaar, though that
reminds me that every one of you gentlemen should go to town and do
something for the church before you leave. The fair has been going on
two days now, and not one of you has spent a cent there. And they so
need an organ----"

"Mrs. Whaling, tell them to have Jarley's waxworks, and you'll be Mrs.
Jarley--or Mrs. Partington; I'll be John or Ike,--I don't care
which,--and their fortune's made," said Blake, shaking with laughter;
so, too, was Mrs. Stannard behind the palm-leaf fan which concealed, at
least, her face. Miss Sanford, biting her lips, looked reproachfully at
Blake, and Mrs. Truscott hid her face in her hands.

"Now, _Mr._ Blake!" protested Mrs. Turner, "you never have been in town
to church since your coming here, and it's shocking the way you officers
neglect it. I'm sure I've offered to drive you in with me a dozen
times."

"True, fair lady; but those eminently safe animals of yours take an hour
to traverse the intermediate league. I have to get up too early."

"But Mr. Ray went once; though, to be sure, Miss Sanford and Mrs.
Stannard brought that about."

"Oh, yes! and came home sold. He never would have gone only he heard
that the text was to be from the Sermon on the Mount, and he thought it
was some new wrinkle in cavalry tactics."

"Mr. Blake, you are simply outrageous!" "Wretch!" "Shocking!" and a
volley of like exclamations greeted this outburst. Mrs. Stannard rose
from her chair and shook her fan at him.

"You shall not teach so irreverent a doctrine here! Mr. Ray went gladly,
and was far more devout and reverential in church than some of the
ladies."

"Any man could be devout sitting next to Miss Sanford," he persisted;
but seeing no sign of levity in her face, and that her blue eyes were
bent upon him "in pity rather than anger," he abruptly changed his tone
to one of melodramatic gravity.

"'Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
I cannot stand and face thy frown.'

I'm not appreci