The meal was a real success.  That some portion had been procured, ready dressed, at Backsworth, was evident, but all that had been done at home had a certain piquant Transatlantic flavour, in which the American Muse could be detected; and both she and her husband were polished, lively, and very agreeable, in spite of the twang in their voices.  Miss Moy, the Captain and his friend, talked horses at one end of the table, and Rosamond faltered her woman’s horror for the rights of her sex, increased by this supposed instance.

When the ladies rose at dessert, Mrs. Duncombe summoned him:  “Come, Rector!—­come, Professor! you’re not to sit over your wine.”

“We rise so far above the ordinary level of manhood!” said Julius, obediently rising.

“Once for all, Mr. Charnock,” said Mrs. Duncombe, turning on him with flashing eyes and her Elizabethan majesty, “if you come prepared to scoff, we can have nothing to do with you.”

Rosamond’s eyes looked mischievous, and her brow cocked, but Julius answered in earnest, “Really, I assure you I have not come in a spirit of sarcasm; I am honestly desirous of hearing your arguments.”

“Shall I stay in your stead?” added Miss Moy.  “They’ll be much more amusing here!”

“Come, Gussie, you’re on your good behaviour,” said Mrs. Duncombe.  “Bob kept you to learn the right way of making a sensation.”

As they entered the drawing-room two more guests arrived, namely, Joanna Bowater, and Herbert, who walked in with a kind of grim submission, till he saw Lady Tyrrell, when he lighted up, and, on a little gracious gesture with her hand, he sat down on the sofa beside her; and was there solaced by an occasional remark in an undertone; for indeed the boy was always in a trance wherever she was, and she had a fair amount of by-play wherewith to entertain herself and him during the discussion.

“You are just in time, Jenny,” said Rosamond; “the great question is going to be started.”

“And it is—?”

“The Equality of the Sexes,” pronounced Mrs. Duncombe.

“Ex cathedra?” said Julius, as the graceful Muse seated herself in a large red arm-chair.  “This scene is not an easy one in which to dispute it.”

“You see, Bessie,” said Mrs. Tallboys, “that men are so much afraid of the discussion that they try to elude it with empty compliment under which is couched a covert sneer.”

“Perhaps,” returned Julius, “we might complain that we can’t open our lips without compliments and sneers being detected when we were innocent of both.”

“Were you?” demanded Mrs. Tallboys.

“Honestly, I was looking round and thinking the specimens before us would tell in your favour.”

“What a gallant parson!” cried Miss Moy.

But a perfect clamour broke out from others.

“Julius, that’s too bad! when you know—­”

“Mr Charnock, you are quite mistaken.  Bob is much cleverer than I, in his own line—­”