pect for oneself,' said Peter, 'to
discover such a relationship. One would always be taking care of
oneself, and not allowing one's feet to get wet, and thinking what one
owed to one's position, and whether one were being treated with
respect.'

'There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,' interpolated Miss
Abingdon. 'I let you know this, Peter, as Jane seems to have erased
our only _menu_. What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?' she went on.
'I don't think he is at all well; he was reading his Bible in bed, and
I 'm not sure that we ought not to send for some of his people.'

'Poor Toffy never had any people,' said Peter. 'They were all just as
unlucky as he is, and most of them died violent deaths when they were
young; and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer religion, so
perhaps Toffy takes after him in his Biblical researches.'

At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked into the room looking as
white as any ghost.

'Toffy, you lunatic!' said Peter, 'why can't you lie still?'

Sir Nigel apologized for being late and declined to have anything
brought back for him.

'How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Girgashites?' said Peter,
making room for his friend at the table.

'I don't like the Bible joked about,' said Miss Abingdon severely.

'Toffy should have been a parson,' said Peter; 'even at Eton he was
always wondering why Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when
he had only a father and mother and perhaps two or three little
brothers and sisters in the world. And he used to fret himself into a
fever wondering if the sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah
meant in the Psalms.'

'I think,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that such discussions are best left for
Sundays.'

'We will go on with our dance-list,' said Jane; 'Mrs. Wrottesley can
let us have several rooms at the vicarage, or, if the worst comes to
the worst, we might have tents in the garden.'

'The canon is always so good-natured!' said Miss Abingdon, who believed
that a man's house belonged to himself, and whose mind always reverted
with a sense of peaceful orthodoxy to thoughts of the vicar. She
decided mentally that he must not be asked to receive any of the guests
for the Bowshott ball, believing that visitors must always be more or
less disturbing to a host. She accepted as part of her gentle creed
that a man's writing-table must never be disturbed, that his dinner
must never be kept waiting, and that his