y--upon my conscience, I must confess that F. B. has done it.
I hope I may never do anything worse in this life, Clive. It ain't bad
to see him doing the martyr, sir: Sebastian riddled with paper pellets;
Bartholomew on a cold gridiron. Here comes the lobster. Upon my word,
Mary, a finer fish I've seldom seen."

Now surely this account of his uncle's affairs and prosperity was enough
to send Clive to Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, and it was not because Miss
Ethel had said that she and Lady Kew went there that Clive was induced
to go there too? He attended punctually on the next Sunday, and in the
incumbent's pew, whither the pew-woman conducted him, sate Mr. Sherrick
in great gravity, with large gold pins, who handed him, at the anthem, a
large, new, gilt hymn-book.

An odour of millefleurs rustled by them as Charles Honeyman accompanied
by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the vestry, and took
his place at the desk. Formerly he used to wear a flaunting scarf over
his surplice, which was very wide and full; and Clive remembered when as
a boy he entered the sacred robing-room, how his uncle used to pat and
puff out the scarf and the sleeves of his vestment, and to arrange the
natty curl on his forehead and take his place, a fine example of florid
church decoration. Now the scarf was trimmed down to be as narrow as
your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back; the ephod was
cut straight and as close and short as might be,--I believe there was a
little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and a slight arabesque
of tape, or other substance, round the edge of the surplice. As for the
curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than the Maypole in the
Strand, or the Cross at Charing. Honeyman's hair was parted down the
middle, short in front, and curling delicately round his ears and the
back of his head. He read the service in a swift manner, and with a
gentle twang. When the music began, he stood with head on one side, and
two slim fingers on the book, as composed as a statue in a mediaeval
niche. It was fine to hear Sherrick, who had an uncommonly good
voice, join in the musical parts of the service. The produce of the
market-gardener decorated the church here and there; and the impresario
of the establishment, having picked up a Flemish painted window from
old Moss in Wardour Street, had placed it in his chapel. Labels of faint
green and gold, with long Gothic letters painted thereon, meandered ov