ime, so I cannot quarrel with him for his
decision, but I only hope that his hand will be healed by the 24th.'

'He has a good mount,' said Peter, 'and I don't think it is much good
trying to persuade Toffy not to ride.'

'Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her fortune on him,' said
Jane, 'so let 's hope that will bring him luck.'

'I believe,' said the canon, in a manner distinctly beatific towards
the subject of his remarks, 'that I enjoy that little race-meeting at
Sedgwick as much as anything in the year. We must all have our little
outings once in a way.'

There is no doubt that the canon took his little outings, as often as
he could get them, with a healthy, boyish pleasure.

On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt known to himself but
hidden from the rest of the world, the vicar masqueraded in the
character of a patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsistent
with his circumstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite
unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other
times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most
inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she
never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was
not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept
inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a
disappointment to her. No one knew from his wife if the little god of
a somewhat small and feminine community had feet of clay or no.

Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place
of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile
absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when
addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's
sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him
for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to
see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends.

'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said.

The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut
overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is
nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that
either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local
function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in
Sedgwick Races.

On this particular day the sun flickered a