boards of its vertical pockets,
carrying the same funny little bag which he had taken to Rome and used
for his surplice at funerals, and mopping his forehead and flicking his
boots with a red print handkerchief, for the day was hot and the roads
were dusty.

He was as glad to see me as I to see him, and when I asked if he would
have tea, he said Yes, for he had walked all the way from the
Presbytery, after fasting the day before; and when I asked if he would
not stay overnight he said Yes to that, too, "if it would not be
troublesome and inconvenient."

So I took his bag and gave it to a maid, telling her to take it to the
guest's room on my landing, and to bring tea to my boudoir immediately.

But hardly had I taken him upstairs and we had got seated in my private
room, when the maid knocked at the door to say that the housekeeper
wished to speak with me, and on going out, and closing the door behind
me, I found her on the landing, a prim little flinty person with quick
eyes, thin lips and an upward lift of her head.

"Sorry, my lady, but it won't be convenient for his reverence to stay in
the house to-night," she said.

"Why so?" I said.

"Because Madame has ordered all the rooms to be got ready for the
house-party, and this one," (pointing to the guest's room opposite) "is
prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff, and we don't know how soon they may
arrive."

I felt myself flushing up to the eyes at the woman's impudence, and it
added to my anger that Alma herself was standing at the head of the
stairs, looking on and listening. So with a little spurt of injured
pride I turned severely on the one while really speaking to the other,
and said:

"Be good enough to make this room ready for his reverence without one
moment's delay, and please remember for the future, that I am mistress
in this house, and your duty is to obey me and nobody else whatever."

As I said this and turned back to my boudoir, I saw that Alma's deep
eyes had a sullen look, and I felt that she meant to square accounts
with me some day; but what she did was done at once, for going
downstairs (as I afterwards heard from Price) she met my husband in the
hall, where, woman-like, she opened her battery upon him at his weakest
spot, saying:

"Oh, I didn't know your wife was priest-ridden."

"Priest-ridden?"

"Precisely," and then followed an explanation of what had happened, with
astonishing embellishments which made my husband pale with fury.