ou ought to interfere with authority,
or even, perhaps, the rector."

"What is it? I always thought that old body had a turn for Dissent. She
will have got one of those people from Highcombe to come out and hold a
meeting: that is how they always begin."

"Oh no,--a great deal worse than that."

"Minnie means worse in our way of thinking," the younger sister explained.

"I don't know anything worse," said the clergyman's wife, "than the
bringing in of Dissent to a united parish such as ours has been. But I
know it will come. I am always expecting to hear of it every day; things
go so fast nowadays. What with radicalism, and the poor people all having
votes, and what you call progress, one never knows what to expect, except
the worst. I always look for the worst. Well, what is it then, if it
isn't Dissent?"

Then Miss Warrender gave an account of the real state of affairs. "The
letter was there on the table, dated the Elms, Underwood, Highcombe, as
if--as if it was a county family; just as we put it ourselves on our
paper."

"But far finer than ours,--gilt, and paper so polished and shining, and
a quarter of an inch thick. Oh, much finer than ours!"

"Ours, of course, will be black-edged for a long, long time to come;
there could not be any comparison," said Minnie, with a sigh. "But think
of the assurance of such people! I am so glad to have found you alone,
for we couldn't have talked about it before the rector. And I believe if
we hadn't gone there just at the right moment she would have accepted.
I told her mamma would never employ her again."

"I never had very much opinion of that little thing," said Mrs.
Wilberforce. "She is a great deal too fine. If her grandmother was a
sensible person, she would have put a stop to all those feathers and
flowers and things."

"Still," said Minnie, with some severity, "a young woman who is a
dressmaker and gets the fashion-books, and is perhaps in the way of
temptation, may wear a feather in her hat; but that is not to say that
she should encourage immorality, and make for anybody who asks her:
especially considering the way we have all taken her up."

"Who is it that encourages immorality?" said a different voice, over
Mrs. Wilberforce's head,--quite a different voice; a man's voice, for
one thing, which always changes the atmosphere a little. It was the
rector himself, who came across the lawn in the ease of a shooting-coat,
with his hands in his pockets. He wore a