There was a gallery at one end, with a big organ in it.  The hall was paved with black and white stone, and there were some comfortable chairs, a cabinet or two, and some dim paintings on the walls.  Tea was spread at a small table by the fire, and four or five men, two of them quite young, the others rather older, were sitting about on chairs and sofas, or helping themselves to tea at the table.  On the hearth, with his back to the fire, stood a great, burly man with a short, grizzled beard and tumbled gray hair, rather bald, dressed in a rough suit of light-brown homespun, with huge shooting boots, whom I saw at once to be my host.  The talk stopped as I entered, and I was aware that I was being scrutinised with some curiosity.  Father Payne did not move, but extended a hand, which I advanced and shook, and said:  “Very glad to see you, Mr. Duncan—­you are just in time for tea.”  He mentioned the names of the men present, who came and shook hands very cordially.  Barthrop gave me some tea, and I was inducted into a chair by the fire.  I thought for a moment that I was taking Father Payne’s place, and feebly murmured something about taking his chair.  “They’re all mine, thanks!” he said with a smile, “but I claim no privileges.”  Someone gave a faint whistle at this, and Father Payne, turning his eyes but not his head towards the young man who had uttered the sound, said:  “All right, Pollard, if you are going to be mutinous, we shall have a little business to transact together, as Mr. Squeers said.”  “Oh, I’m not mutinous, sir,” said the young man—­“I’m quite submissive—­I was just betrayed into it by amazement!” “You shouldn’t get into the habit of thinking aloud,” said Father Payne; “at least not among bachelors—­when you are married you can do as you like!—­I hope you are polite?” he went on, looking round at me.  “I think so,” I said, feeling rather shy, “That’s right,” he said.  “It’s the first and only form of virtue!  If you are only polite, there is nothing that you may not do.  This is a school of manners, you know!” One of the men, Rose by name, laughed—­a pleasant musical laugh.  “I remember,” he said, “that when I was a boy at Eton, my excellent but very bluff and rough old tutor called upon us, and was so much taken up with being hearty, that he knocked over the coal-scuttle, and didn’t let anyone get a word in; and when he went off in a sort of whirlwind, my old aunt, who was an incisive lady, said in a meditative tone:  ’How strange it is that the only thing that the Eton masters seem able to teach their boys is the only thing they don’t themselves possess!’”

Father Payne uttered a short, loud laugh at this, and said:  “Is there any chance of meeting your aunt?” “No, sir, she is long since dead!” “Blew off too much steam, perhaps,” said Father Payne.  “That woman must have had the steam up!  I should have liked to have known her—­a remarkable woman!  Have you any more stories of the same sort about her?”

“Not to-day,” said Rose, smiling.