“Ah! quite right then, but you are a married woman now, and that is quite a different thing.  The stall of the three brides.  What an attraction!  I shall come and talk about it when I make my call in full form!  Good-bye again.”

Cecil’s balance was more than restored by this entire recognition to be prime lady-patroness of everything.  To add to her satisfaction, when her husband came home to dinner, bringing with him both the curates, she found there was to be a meeting on Tuesday in the Assembly-room, of both sexes, to consider of the relief of the work-people, and that he would be glad to take her to it.  Moreover, as it was to be strictly local, Rosamond was not needed there, though Raymond was not equally clear as to the Rector, since he believed that the St. Nicholas parishioners meant to ask the loan of Compton Poynsett Church for one service on a Sunday.

“Then I shall keep out of the way,” said Julius.  “I do not want to have the request made to me in public.”

“You do not mean to refuse?” said Cecil, with a sort of self-identification with her constituents.

“The people are welcome to attend as many of our services as they like; but there is no hour that I could give the church up to Mr. Fuller on a Sunday.”

“Nor would the use of St. Nicholas be very edifying for our people,” added Mr. Bindon.

His junior clenched it by saying with a laugh, “I should think not!  Fancy old Fuller’s rusty black gown up in our pulpit!”

“I rejoice to say that is burnt,” rejoined Mr. Bindon.

“What bet will you take that a new one will be the first thing subscribed for?” said the deacon, bringing a certain grave look on the faces of both the elder clergy, and a horror-stricken one upon Anne’s; while Cecil pronounced her inevitable dictum, that at Dunstone Mr. Venn always preached in a gown, and “we” should never let him think of anything nonsensical.

Rosamond was provoked into a display of her solitary bit of ecclesiastical knowledge—­“A friar’s gown, the most Popish vestment in the church.”

Cecil, thoroughly angered, flushed up to the eyes and bit her lips, unable to find a reply, while all the gentlemen laughed.  Frank asked if it were really so, and Mr. Bindon made the well-known explanation that the Geneva gown was neither more nor less than the monk’s frock.

“I shall write and ask Mr. Venn,” gasped Cecil; but her husband stifled the sound by saying, “I saw little Pettitt, Julius, this afternoon, overwhelmed with gratitude to you for all the care you took of his old mother, and all his waxen busts.”

“Ah! by the bye!” said Charlie, “I did meet the Rector staggering out, with the fascinating lady with the long eyelashes in one arm, and the moustached hero in the other.”

“There was no pacifying the old lady without,” said Julius.  “I had just coaxed her to the door, when she fell to wringing her hands.  Ah! those lovely models, that were worth thirty shillings each, with natural hair—­that they should be destroyed!  If the heat or the water did but come near them, Adolphus would never get over it.  I could only pacify her by promising to go back for these idols of his heart as soon as she was safe; and after all, I had to dash at them through the glass, and that was the end of my spectacles.”