e had been a quarrel, the servants
had told her, and in spite of all his son and daughter-in-law could do, the
peppery Captain had left them, refusing to divulge the name of his
destination.

"And they do say," Mary Ellen declared, "that he's no more fit to be
wanderin' about the world alone than a babe unborn."

We smiled at the ignorance of women-servants, and speculated much on the
Captain's probable new adventure. We were confident that he would return
one day, loaded with fresh booty, and full of tales of the sea.

In the meantime, there was the Bishop. His house, as I have said stood
between us and the Cathedral. It was a benign house, like a sleepy mastiff,
and seemed to tolerate with lazy indifference the presence of its two
narrow, high-backed neighbours, which with their cold, unblinking windows,
looked like sinister, half-fed cats.

We had not been long at Mrs. Handsomebody's before we made friends with
Bishop Torrance. As he walked in his deep, green garden, one morning, we
three watched him enviously over the brick wall, that separated us. We were
balanced precariously on a board, laid across the ash barrel, and The
Seraph, losing his balance, fell headlong into a bed of clove pinks, almost
at the Bishop's feet.

When his yells had subsided and explanations asked, and given, Angel and I
were lifted over the wall, and shaken hands with, and given the freedom of
the garden. We were introduced to the Bishop's niece, Margery, who was his
sole companion, though we regarded, as one of the family, the Fountain Boy
who blew cool jets of water through a shell, and turned his laughing face
always upward toward the spires of the Cathedral.

Thus a quaint friendship sprang up, and, though the Bishop had not the
dash, and boldness of Captain Pegg, he was an understanding and
high-hearted playfellow.

I think The Seraph was his favourite. Even then, the dignified elegance of
the Bishop's life appealed to that infant's love of the comfortable, and it
tickled the Bishop immensely to have him pace solemnly up and down the
garden, at his side, hands clasped behind his back, helping, as he
believed, to "pwepare" the Bishop's sermon.

All three of us were permitted by Mrs. Handsomebody to join the Cathedral
choir.

II

Thus we had a feeling of proprietorship in the Bishop and his garden, and
his niece, Margery, and the Fountain Boy. Hence what was our astonishment
and chagrin to see one morning, from our schoolro