noblest sense of the word, a
gentleman, receives Mrs. Peckover as politely and cordially as he would
have received the best lady in Rubbleford. Mrs. Joyce comes forward with
him, very kind too, but a little reserved in her manner, nevertheless;
being possibly apprehensive that any woman connected with the circus
must be tainted with some slight flavor of Miss Florinda Beverley. The
young ladies drop down into the most charming positions on either side
of the child, and fall straightway into fits of ecstasy over her
beauty. The dog walks up, and pokes his great honest muzzle among them
companionably. Vance stands rigid against the wall, and disapproves
strongly of the whole proceeding.

Poor Mrs. Peckover! She had never been in such a house as the Rectory,
she had never spoken to a doctor of divinity before in her life. She was
very hot and red and trembling, and made fearful mistakes in grammar,
and clung as shyly to Mr. Blyth as if she had been a little girl. The
rector soon contrived, however, to settle her comfortably in a seat by
the table. She curtseyed reverentially to Vance, as she passed by him;
doubtless under the impression that he was a second doctor of divinity,
even greater and more learned than the first. He stared in return
straight over her head, with small unwinking eyes, his cheeks turning
slowly from deep red to dense purple. Mrs. Peckover shuddered inwardly,
under the conviction that she had insulted a dignitary, who was hoisted
up on some clerical elevation, too tremendous to be curtseyed to by such
a social atom as a clown's wife.

Mrs. Joyce had to call three times to her daughters before she could get
them to the luncheon-table. If she had possessed Valentine's eye for the
picturesque and beautiful, she would certainly have been incapable of
disturbing the group which her third summons broke up.

In the center stood the deaf and dumb child, dressed in a white frock,
with a little silk mantilla over it, made from a cast-off garment
belonging to one of the ladies of the circus. She wore a plain straw
hat, ornamented with a morsel of narrow white ribbon, and tied under
the chin with the same material. Her clear, delicate complexion was
overspread by a slight rosy tinge--the tender coloring of nature,
instead of the coarsely-glaring rouge with which they disfigured her
when she appeared before the public. Her wondering blue eyes, that
looked so sad in the piercing gas-light, appeared to have lost