an instant close against her
bosom, tears and laughter together present in her eyes.

"Ah! you beautiful dear, you beautiful dear," Faircloth cried, brokenly,
as in pain, somewhat indeed beside himself. "Before God, I come near
blessing that blatant young fool and pharisee of a parson since he has
brought me to this."

Then he put her a little way from him, penetrated by fear lest the white
love which--in all honour and reverence--he was bound to hold her in,
should flush ever so faintly, red.

"For, after all, it is up to me," he said, more to himself than to her,
"to make very sure there isn't, and never--by God's mercy--shall be,
any cost."

And with that--for the avoidance of the congregation, now streaming
rather tumultuously out of church--they went on across the village green,
hissed at by slow waddling, hard-eyed, most conceited geese, to the lane
which leads down to the causeway and warren skirting the river-bank.

CHAPTER IV

WHEREIN MISS FELICIA VERITY CONCLUSIVELY SHOWS WHAT SPIRIT SHE IS OF

Her attraction consisted in her transparency, in the eager simplicity
with which she cast her home-made nets and set her innocuous springes.
To-day Miss Felicia was out to wing the Angel of Peace, and crowd that
celestial messenger into the arms of Damaris and Theresa Bilson
collectively and severally. Such was the major interest of the hour. But,
for Miss Felicia the oncoming of middle-age by no means condemned the
lesser pleasures of life to nullity. Hence the minor interest of the hour
centred in debate as to whether or not the thermometer justified her
wearing a coat of dark blue silk and cloth, heavily trimmed with ruchings
and passementerie, reaching to her feet. A somewhat sumptuous garment
this, given her by Sir Charles and Damaris last winter in Madrid. She
fancied herself in it greatly, both for the sake of the dear donors, and
because the cut of it was clever, disguising the over-narrowness of her
maypole-like figure and giving her a becoming breadth and fulness.

She decided in favour of the coveted splendour; and at about a
quarter-past twelve strolled along the carriage-drive on her way to the
goose green and the village street. There, or thereabouts, unless her
plot lamentably miscarried, she expected to meet her niece and that
niece's ex-governess-companion, herded in amicable converse by the
pinioned Angel of Peace. Her devious and discursive mind fluttered to and
fro, meanwhile, over a