ui fondent devant la raison comme la neige an feu, et
qu'on ne peut saisir, des arguments absurdes et triomphants, de
cure de campagne qul demontre Dieu.--Guy DE MAUPASSANT.

Sybell's party broke up on Saturday, with the exception of Rachel and
Mr. Tristram, who had been unable to finish by that date a sketch he was
making of Sybell. When Doll discovered that his wife had asked that
gentleman to stay over Sunday he entreated Hugh, in moving terms, to do
the same.

"I am not literary," said Doll, who always thought it necessary to
explain that he was not what no one thought he was. "I hate all that
sort of thing. Utter rot, I call it. For goodness' sake, Scarlett, sit
tight. I must be decent to the beast in my own house, and if you go I
shall have to have him alone jawing at me till all hours of the night in
the smoking-room."

Hugh was easily persuaded, and so it came about that the morning
congregation at Warpington had the advantage of furtively watching Hugh
and Mr. Tristram as they sat together in the carved Wilderleigh pew,
with Sybell and Rachel at one end of it, and Doll at the other. No one
looked at Rachel. Her hat attracted a momentary attention, but her face
none.

The Miss Pratts, on the contrary, well caparisoned by their man
milliner, well groomed, well curled, were a marked feature of the sparse
congregation. The spectator of so many points, all made the most of,
unconsciously felt with a sense of oppression that everything that could
be done had been done. No stone had been left unturned.

Their brother, Captain Algernon Pratt, sitting behind them, looked
critically at them, and owned that they were smart women. But he was not
entirely satisfied with them, as he had been in the old days, before he
went into the Guards and began the real work of his life, raising
himself in society.

Captain Pratt was a tall, pale young man--_assez beau
garcon_--faultlessly dressed, with a quiet acquired manner. He was not
ill-looking, the long upper lip concealed by a perfectly kept mustache,
but the haggard eye and the thin line in the cheek, which did not
suggest thought and overwork as their cause, made his appearance vaguely
repellent.

"Jesu, lover of my soul,"

sang the shrill voices of the choir-boys, echoed by Regie and Mary,
standing together, holding their joint hymnbook exactly equally between
them, their two small thumbs touching.

Fraeulein, on Hester's other side, was singing wi