speak of setting up his new plans in opposition to my
judgment. Indeed," she continued, lashing herself up with her own
recollections, "times are changed when the parson of a village comes to
beard the liege lady in her own house. Why, in my grandfather's days,
the parson was family chaplain too, and dined at the Hall every Sunday.
He was helped last, and expected to have done first. I remember seeing
him take up his plate and knife and fork, and say with his mouth full all
the time he was speaking: 'If you please, Sir Urian, and my lady, I'll
follow the beef into the housekeeper's room;' for you see, unless he did
so, he stood no chance of a second helping. A greedy man, that parson
was, to be sure! I recollect his once eating up the whole of some little
bird at dinner, and by way of diverting attention from his greediness, he
told how he had heard that a rook soaked in vinegar and then dressed in a
particular way, could not be distinguished from the bird he was then
eating. I saw by the grim look of my grandfather's face that the
parson's doing and saying displeased him; and, child as I was, I had some
notion of what was coming, when, as I was riding out on my little, white
pony, by my grandfather's side, the next Friday, he stopped one of the
gamekeepers, and bade him shoot one of the oldest rooks he could find. I
knew no more about it till Sunday, when a dish was set right before the
parson, and Sir Urian said: 'Now, Parson Hemming, I have had a rook shot,
and soaked in vinegar, and dressed as you described last Sunday. Fall
to, man, and eat it with as good an appetite as you had last Sunday. Pick
the bones clean, or by--, no more Sunday dinners shall you eat at my
table!' I gave one look at poor Mr. Hemming's face, as he tried to
swallow the first morsel, and make believe as though he thought it very
good; but I could not look again, for shame, although my grandfather
laughed, and kept asking us all round if we knew what could have become
of the parson's appetite."

"And did he finish it?" I asked.

"O yes, my dear. What my grandfather said was to be done, was done
always. He was a terrible man in his anger! But to think of the
difference between Parson Hemming and Mr. Gray! or even of poor dear Mr.
Mountford and Mr. Gray. Mr. Mountford would never have withstood me as
Mr. Gray did!"

"And your ladyship really thinks that it would not be right to have a
Sunday-school?" I asked, feeling very timid as