“Her mouth was large, and her teeth a little prominent.  But you shall not abuse Emily any more.  You would have been very happy with her, I can tell you,” asserted Mrs. Ketchum.  “You would have got over her mouth.”

“I might in time have got around it, and I could easily have got into it, but I should never have got over it in the world,” affirmed Mr. Ketchum, with decision.  “I would rather be married to that Puseyite there, unhappy as I am.”

This closed the little duel between the mother and son, and another laugh drowned Mabel’s remark to Miss Noel, which was, “Husband is in one of his joking moods, and does not mean that he is really unhappy at all.  He should not say such things, they are so very misleading.”

When quiet was restored, a discussion followed about the parties in the English Church, and, the question being raised as to who was the head of the Low Church party, Mr. Ketchum had just said, “Why, Lucifer, of course,” when, amid general merriment, Miss Brown walked in, saying, “I never heard of such an uproarious Sunday party.  Are you ready, Ethel?  We ought to be off,”—­which practically ended the meal, for first Mr. Ramsay and then the others left the table, he to talk to Bijou, they to get ready for church.  Job’s eyes followed Mr. Ramsay, and he said to Sir Robert, “What a charming girl Mrs. De Witt was in the old Cheltenham days!  Heathcote didn’t make the landing there, and I’m sorry.”

“So am I. She is an immense favorite of mine,” said Sir Robert.  “As charming as ever!  It was a more serious thing than I thought it would be.  I doubt whether he ever marries.”

“She was a born enchantress, Jenny was,” he replied.  “Some women are like poison oak,—­once get them in your system, and they will break out on you every spring for fifty years, if you live that long, fresh and painful as ever.  But as for his marrying, some one of our girls will enter for the Consolation stakes, very likely, and he will be married before he knows what has hurt him.”

“A consummation devoutly to be wished,” said Sir Robert.  “He is my heir, you know.”

In a few minutes Ethel joined Bijou, who looked at her rather hard, as she felt.  Ethel wore a simple serge dress, heavy boots, a stout frieze jacket, and a hat of a shape unknown in America, that seemed to be all cocks’ plumes.  Her eyes being weak, she had put on her smoked glasses.  The day being damp, and her chest delicate, she had added her respirator.  “I am nicely protected, am I not?” she said contentedly.  “I had a severe cold last winter, from which I am not quite recovered, and auntie thinks I had best be prudent.  Are you ready?”

“Not quite,” said Bijou.  “I want to see Mrs. Ketchum a moment.”  She ran off, accordingly, into the library in search of the old lady, whom she found there looking out the lessons, it being her practice to verify every word the clergyman read, and no small satisfaction to catch him tripping.  “Do, Mrs. Ketchum, speak to Ethel and get her to take off those machines and put on something stylish,” said Bijou.  “I am really ashamed to take her into our pew; people will stare so.  She is a perfect fright.  The idea of a girl making herself look like that!”