would be engaging the reluctant attention of a ruridecanal
meeting.

He gave a sigh of relief as he became aware that Hester and Rachel were
the only occupants of the cool, darkened room. Mrs. Gresley, it seemed,
was also out.

Hester made tea, and presently the Bishop, who looked much exhausted,
roused himself. He had that afternoon attended two death-beds--one the
death-bed of a friend, and the other that of the last vestige of peace,
expiring amid the clamor of a distracted Low Church parish and High
Church parson, who could only meet each other after the fashion of
cymbals. For the moment even his courageous spirit had been
disheartened.

"I met a son of Anak the other night at the Newhavens'," he said to
Hester, "who claimed you as a cousin--a Mr. Richard Vernon. He broke the
ice by informing me that I had confirmed him, and that perhaps I should
like to know that he had turned out better than he expected."

"How like Dick!" said Hester.

"I remembered him at last. His father was the squire of Farlow, where I
was rector before I came to Southminster. Dick was not a source of
unmixed pleasure to his parents. As a boy of eight he sowed the parental
billiard-table with mustard and cress in his father's absence, and
raised a very good crop, and performed other excruciating experiments. I
believe he beat all previous records of birch rods at Eton. I remember
while he was there he won a bet from another boy who could not pay, and
he foreclosed on the loser's cricketing trousers. His parents were
distressed about it when he brought them home, and I tried to make him
see that he ought not to have taken them. But Dick held firm. He said it
was like tithe, and if he could not get his own in money, as I did, he
must collect it in trousers. I must own he had me there. I noticed that
he wore the garment daily as long as any question remained in his
parents' minds as to whether they ought to be returned. After that I
felt sure he would succeed in life."

"I believe he is succeeding in Australia."

"I advised his father to send him abroad. There really was not room for
him in England, and, unfortunately for the army, the examiners jibbed at
his strictly phonetic spelling. He tells me he has given up being an
A.D.C. and has taken to vine-growing, because if people are up in the
world they always drink freely, and if they are 'down on their luck'
they drink all the more to drown care. The reasoning appeared to me
sound."