head against the banisters.

"Of course you can't," said Mrs. Jobson admiringly; "and you wouldn't be
much of a man if you could." Then it was borne in upon me why he wore
his hat, and dined off cold chops in the passage.

The following summer they rented a picturesque old house in Berkshire,
and invited me down from a Saturday to Monday. Their place was near the
river, so I slipped a suit of flannels in my bag, and on the Sunday
morning I came down in them. He met me in the garden. He was dressed in
a frock coat and a white waistcoat; and I noticed that he kept looking at
me out of the corner of his eye, and that he seemed to have a trouble on
his mind. The first breakfast bell rang, and then he said, "You haven't
got any proper clothes with you, have you?"

"Proper clothes!" I exclaimed, stopping in some alarm. "Why, has
anything given way?"

"No, not that," he explained. "I mean clothes to go to church in."

"Church," I said. "You're surely not going to church a fine day like
this? I made sure you'd be playing tennis, or going on the river. You
always used to."

"Yes," he replied, nervously flicking a rose-bush with a twig he had
picked up. "You see, it isn't ourselves exactly. Maud and I would
rather like to, but our cook, she's Scotch, and a little strict in her
notions."

"And does she insist on your going to church every Sunday morning?" I
inquired.

"Well," he answered, "she thinks it strange if we don't, and so we
generally do, just in the morning--and evening. And then in the
afternoon a few of the village girls drop in, and we have a little
singing and that sort of thing. I never like hurting anyone's feelings
if I can help it."

I did not say what I thought. Instead I said, "I've got that tweed suit
I wore yesterday. I can put that on if you like."

He ceased flicking the rose-bush, and knitted his brows. He seemed to be
recalling it to his imagination.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I'm afraid it would shock her. It's my
fault, I know," he added, remorsefully. "I ought to have told you."

Then an idea came to him.

"I suppose," he said, "you wouldn't care to pretend you were ill, and
stop in bed just for the day?"

I explained that my conscience would not permit my being a party to such
deception

"No, I thought you wouldn't," he replied. "I must explain it to her. I
think I'll say you've lost your bag. I shouldn't like her to think bad
of us."

Later on a fou