Of Nap no word was ever spoken in her presence.  He might have been dead, so completely had he dropped out of her life.  In fact, he was scarcely ever mentioned by anyone, a fact which aroused in Dot a curiously keen indignation, but upon which a certain shyness kept her from commenting.  She kept him faithfully in mind, praying for him as regularly as she prayed for old Squinny, who still lingered on with exasperating tenacity, and continued to enjoy such help, spiritual or otherwise, as he could extract from the parson’s daughter.

That Bertie strongly disapproved of his brother she was aware, but she held no very high opinion of Bertie’s judgment, though even he could scarcely have forbidden her to pray for the black sheep of the family.  She had not been brought up to rely upon anyone’s judgment but her own, and, deeply as she loved him, she could not help regarding her husband as headlong and inclined to prejudice.  He was young, she reflected, and doubtless these small defects would disappear as he grew older.  True, he was nearly four years her senior; but Dot did not regard years as in any degree a measure of age.  It was all a question of development, she would say, and some people—­women especially—­developed much more quickly than others.  She herself, for instance—­At which stage of the argument Bertie invariably said or did something rude, and the rest of her logic became somewhat confused.  He was a dear boy and she couldn’t possibly be cross with him, but somehow he never seemed to realise when she was in earnest.  Another of the deficiencies of youth!

Meanwhile she occupied herself in her new home with all the zest of the young housewife, returned calls with commendable punctuality, and settled down once more to the many parochial duties which had been her ever-increasing responsibility for almost as long as she could remember.

“You are not going to slave like this always,” Bertie said to her one evening, when she came in late through a November drizzle to find him waiting for her.

“I must do what I’ve got to do,” said Dot practically, suffering him to remove her wet coat.

“All very well,” said Bertie, whose chin looked somewhat more square than usual.  “But I’m not going to have my wife wearing herself out over what after all is not her business.”

“My dear boy!” Dot laughed aloud, twining her arm in his.  “I think you forget, don’t you, that I was the rector’s daughter before I was your wife?  I must do these things.  There is no one else to do them.”

“Skittles!” said Bertie rudely.

“Yes, dear, but that’s no argument.  Let’s go and have tea, and for goodness’ sake don’t frown at me like that.  It’s positively appalling.  Put your chin in and be good.”

She passed her hand over her husband’s face and laughed up at him merrily.  But Bertie remained grave.

“You’re wet through and as cold as ice.  Come to the fire and let’s get off your boots.”