his way.  Only once had it ever failed, and that was the only time he had cared.  But this time it was working fast as they walked and talked together quietly, and when they reached the open door that led from the fields into the little robing-room of Saint Peter’s, Eleanor had met her Waterloo.  Being six, it was easy to say so, and she did it with directness, yet without at all losing the dignity that was breeding, that had come to her from generations, and that she knew of as little as she knew the names of her bones.  Three steps led to the robing-room, and Eleanor flew to the top and turned, the childish figure in its worn pink cotton dress facing the tall powerful one in sober black broadcloth.

“I love you,” she said.  “I’ll kiss you,” and the long, strong little arms were around his neck, and it seemed to the Bishop as if a kiss that had never been given came to him now from the lips of the child of the woman he had loved.  As he put her down gently, from the belfry above tolled suddenly a sweet, rolling note for service.

When the Bishop came out from church the “peace that passeth understanding” was over him.  The beautiful old words that to churchmen are dear as their mothers’ faces, haunting as the voices that make home, held him yet in the last echo of their music.  Peace seemed, too, to lie across the world, worn with the day’s heat, where the shadows were stretching in lengthening, cooling lines.  And there at the vestry step, where Eleanor had stood an hour before, was Dick Fielding, waiting for him, with as unhappy a face as an eldest scion, the heir to millions, well loved, and well brought up, and wonderfully unspoiled, ever carried about a country-side.  The Bishop was staying at the Fieldings’.  He nodded and swung past Dick, with a look from the tail of his eye that said:  “Come along.”  Dick came, and silently the two turned into the path of the fields.  The scowl on Dick’s dark face deepened as they walked, and that was all there was by way of conversation for some time.  Finally: 

“You don’t know about it, do you, Bishop?” he asked.

“A very little, my boy,” the Bishop answered.

Dick was on the defensive in a moment.  “My father told you—­you agree with him?”

“Your father has told me nothing.  I only came last night, remember.  I know that you made Madge cry, and that Eleanor wasn’t allowed to punish you.”

The boyish face cleared a little, and he laughed.  “That little rat!  Has she been talking?  It’s all right if it’s only to you, but Madge will have to cork her up.”  Then anxiety and unhappiness seized Dick’s buoyant soul again.  “Bishop, let me talk to you, will you please?  I’m knocked up about this, for there’s never been trouble between my father and me before, and I can’t give in.  I know I’m right—­I’d be a cad to give in, and I wouldn’t if I could.  If you would only see your way to talking to the governor, Bishop!  He’ll listen to you when he’d throw any other chap out of the house.”