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"Me? O, Raymond! you've not been telling her so?" exclaimed Jenny, laughing heartily.

"A very superior coach in divinity, &c.," said Julius, in a tone half banter, half earnest.

But Jenny exclaimed in distress, "No, no, no; say nothing about that! It would never do for Herbert to have it known. Don't let him guess that you know."

"Quite right, Jenny; never fear," said Julius; "though it is tempting to ask you to take Frank in hand at the same time."

"Have you seen anything of the Vivians?" asked Raymond.

"Very little. I hoped to see something of Eleonora from hence."

"I can't understand that young lady," said Julius. "She was very friendly when first we met her; but now she seems absolutely repellant."

"Tant mieux," Raymond

"They seem inclined to take up all the good works in hand," said Jenny. "By the bye, what is all this story about Raymond affronting Wil'sbro' by stirring up their gutters? Papa has been quite in a state of mind for fear they should take offence and bring in Mr. Moy."

"Julius only thinks I have not stirred the gutters enough," said Raymond. "And after all, it is not I, but Whitlock. I was in hopes that matters might have been properly looked after if Whitlock had been chosen mayor this year; but, somehow, a cry was got up that he was going to bring down a sanitary commission, and put the town to great expense; and actually, this town-council have been elected because they are opposed to drainage."

"And Truelove, the grocer, is mayor?"

"Yes; one of the most impracticable men I ever encountered. One can't get him so much as to understand anything. Now Briggs does understand, only he goes by pounds s. d."

"Posterity has done nothing for me, and I will do nothing for posterity, is his principle," said Julius. "Moreover, he is a Baptist."

"No chance for the Church in his time," said Jenny.

"There's the less harm in that," said Raymond, "that the plan is intolerable. Briggs's nephew took the plan of what he calls a German Rat-house, for the town-hall, made in gilt gingerbread; and then adapted the church to a beautiful similarity. If that could be staved off by waiting for the bazaar, or by any other means, there might be a chance of something better. So poor Fuller thinks, though he is not man enough to speak out at once."

"Then the bazaar is really fixed?"

"So far as the resolution goes of the lady population, though Julius is sanguine, and hopes to avert it. After all, I believe the greatest obstructive to improvement is Moy."

"Old Mr. Proudfoot's son-in-law?" said Jenny. "I know he has blossomed out in great splendour on our side of the county, and his daughter is the general wonder. Papa is always declaring he will set up in opposition to you."

"Not much fear of that," said Raymond. "But the man provokes me, he has so much apparent seriousness."

"Even to the persecution of Dr. Easterby," put in Julius. "And yet he is the great supporter of that abominable public-house in Water Lane, the Three Pigeons-which, unluckily, escaped the fire. He owns it, and all those miserable tenements beyond it, and nothing will move him an inch towards doing any good there!"

"I remember," said Jenny, "papa came home very angry on the licensing day; the police had complained of the Three Pigeons, and the magistrates would have taken away the license, but that Mr. Moy made such a personal matter of it."

"You don't mean that he is a magistrate!" exclaimed Julius.

"Yes," said Raymond. "He got the ear of the Lord-Lieutenant."

"And since he has lived at the Lawn, they have all quite set up for county people or anything you please," said Jenny, a little bitterly. "Mrs. Moy drives about with the most stylish pair of ponies; and as to Miss Gussie, she is making herself into a proverb! I can't bear them."

"Well done, Jenny!" exclaimed Julius.

"Perhaps it is wrong," said Jenny, in a low voice. "I dare say I am not just. You know I always did think Mr. Moy could have cleared Archie if he would," she added, with a slightly trembling tone.

"So did I," said Raymond. "I gave him the opportunity after George Proudfoot's death; but when the choice lay between two memories, one could hardly wonder if he preferred to shield his brother-in-law."

"Or himself!" said Jenny, under her breath.

"Come, Jenny," said Julius, feeling that the moment for interruption had come, "it is time we should be off. Methinks there are sounds as if the whole canine establishment at Mrs. Hornblower's were prancing up to meet us."

So it proved; and Jenny had to run the gauntlet through the ecstasies of all the dogs, whose ecclesiastical propriety was quite overthrown, for they danced about her to the very threshold of the church, and had to have the door shut on their very noses. That drop of bitterness, which her sad brief story could not fail to have left in poor Joanna's heart, either passed out of mind in what followed, or was turned into the prayer, "And to turn their hearts;" and she was her bright self again for her promised assistance at the school.

Then Herbert's address was, "Come, Joan, I promised to take you to see the Reeves's pheasant at the Outwood Lodge. Such a jolly old woman!"

"The pheasant?"

"No; the keeper's mother. Tail a yard long! I don't see why we shouldn't turn them out at home. If father won't take it up, I shall write to Phil."

"Thank you, Herbs. Hadn't you better secure a little reading first? I could wait; I've got to write to Will."

"The post doesn't go till five."

"But I want to get it done. The mail goes to-morrow."

"You'll do it much better after a walk. I can't understand anything after the fumes of the school, unless I do a bit of visiting first; and that pheasant is a real stunner. It really is parish work, Jenny. Look here, this is what I'm reading her."

"Learn to die!" said Jenny, laughing heartily. "Nothing could be more appropriate, only you should have begun before October."

"You choose to make fun of everything!" answered Herbert, gruffly; and Jenny, deciding that she would see a specimen day, made her peace by consenting to share in the pastoral visit, whether to pheasant or peasant. Indeed, a walk with Herbert was one of the prime pleasures of her life-and this was delightful, along broad gravelled drives through the autumnal woods with tinted beech-leaves above, and brackens of all shades of brown, green, and yellow beneath. And it was charming to see Herbert's ways with the old woman-a dainty old dame, such as is grown in the upper ranks of service, whom he treated with a hearty, bantering, coaxing manner, which she evidently enjoyed extremely. His reading, for he did come to more serious matters, was very good-in a voice that without effort reached deaf ears, and with feeling about it that did a great deal to reassure his sister that there was something behind the big bright boy.

But by the time he had done the honours of all the pheasants, and all the dogs, and all the ferrets, and all the stuffed birds, and all the eggs (for the keeper was a bit of a naturalist), and had discussed Mr. Frank's last day's shooting, it was so late, that Jenny had only just time to walk back to the Hall at her best pace, to see Mrs. Poynsett for a few minutes before luncheon; and her reception was, "Is that Herbert's step? Call him in, my dear!-You must make the most of your sister, Herbert. Come in to all meals while she is here."

He heard with gratitude-his sister with consternation. If forenoon pastoral visits were to be on that scale, and he dined out whenever he was not at school or at church, how would his books fare? and yet she could not grudge his pleasure. She could not help looking half foolish, half sad, when she met the Rector's eye.

Julius thought so much of her advice, as to knock at Cecil's sitting-room door, and beg to ask her a question; and as she liked to be consulted, she welcomed him hospitably into that temple, sacred to culture and to Dunstone-full of drawings, books, and china.

"I was thinking," he said, "of offering Anne some parish work. I wanted to know if you saw any objection?"