e on his knees and one on his
shoulders. "There is a sort of instinct in children," she said afterwards:
and most people would be in this respect of Mrs. Wilberforce's opinion.
And about noon the rector took his guest to call at the Warren. Though
this was not what an ordinary stranger would have been justified in
doing, yet when you consider that he had known Theo at Oxford and
entertained the ladies at Commem., you will understand why the rector
took this liberty. "I suppose I may ask the girls and Theo to come over
in the afternoon," said Mr. Wilberforce.

"Oh, certainly, Herbert, you may _ask_ them," she replied, but with a
feeling that if Minnie accepted it would be as if the pillars of the
earth were shaken; though indeed in the circumstances with a young
man on her hands to be amused for all the lingering afternoon, Mrs.
Wilberforce herself would have been very willing that they should come.
Dick Cavendish was a pleasant companion for a morning walk. He admired
the country in its fresh greenness, as they went along, though its
beauty was not striking. He admired the red village, clustering under
the warmth and fulness of the foliage, and pleased the rector, who
naturally felt his own _amour propre_ concerned in the impression made
by his parish upon a new spectator. "We must come to old England for
this sort of thing," said Dick, looking back upon the soft rural scene
with the half-patronising experience of a man _qui en a vu bien d'autres_.
And the rector was pleased, especially as it was not all undiscriminating
praise. When they got within the grounds of the Warren criticism came
in. "What does Warrender mean," Dick said, "by letting everything run up
in this wild way? the trees have no room to breathe."

"You must recollect that Theo has just come into it. And the old
gentleman was long feeble, and very conservative,--though not in
politics, as I could have wished."

"Ah, I thought Warrender was a bit of a radical: but they say a man
always becomes more or less a Tory when he comes into his property. I
have no experience," said Dick, with his light-hearted laugh. Had Mrs.
Wilberforce heard him, she would have found in it that absence of respect
for circumstances which she considered to be one of the signs of the
times; and it had a startling and jarring effect upon the individual
who did hear it, who was disturbed by it in the stillness of his
morning walk and thoughts. It broke the silence of the brooding