ny? It is no end unmerciful, a day like this, as hot as ermine,
and without any of the glory."

"What does a curate do?" Reed queried. "Besides putting on the hood, I
mean, and lugging round the cakes for tea, in English novels."

"This one leads all the responses, and sometimes he leads them a little
bit ahead of time," Dolph enlightened him. "Besides that, he keeps his
lean forefinger on the word that Brenton happens to be reading, ready
to help him out on the pronunciation, if it is necessary. Between
whiles, he counts up the congregation and divides it by ten, to make
sure that he gets the right amount of offertory. Really, he works
hard."

"You might also mention that he preaches," Olive added.

Dolph chuckled.

"I wasn't sure that's what you'd call it. It seemed to me a long way
more like administering a verbal spanking. Is that his chronic method,
Olive?"

But Reed cut in.

"I can testify on that score. Sometimes he is only tenderly regretful,
and that is any amount worse. He came prowling in, one day; I suppose
he thought it ought to be his proper function, and the maid took fright
at his canonicals and let him up. Usually she heads off strangers; but
this fellow was too much for her."

"And you let him stay?" Dolph's voice was incredulous.

"What could I do? I couldn't very well arise and escort him to the
door; neither could I fling a boot at him, when he came in. No; I told
him I was very well, I thanked him--in reality, it was one of my
grilling days--and then, as soon as I heard his accent, I had the
brilliant inspiration of shouting to the maid to bring some tea. The
creature poured it for himself, with any amount of cream. Then he sat
down, with his toes turned in, and took his cup on his right knee and
prepared to make merry."

"And you joined in?"

"_Sotto voce_, as it were." Reed laughed at the memory. "You see, I had
to be properly lugubrious, to tally up to his impressions of what I
ought to be. He had been here just a week, then, and he had me down
pat. Somebody must have coached him grandly, and he's the sort who
revels in woe and in consequent and ghostly consolation."

Olive's eyes were fixed upon the view outside the window.

"Poor old Reed! And then?"

"Then?" Opdyke shot her a glance of merry mockery. "That night, after
he had trundled me off to bed, Ramsdell stood and gazed down at me with
a new respect. 'I must say, Mr. Hopdyke,' he told me; 'you 'ave been in
grand form, h