The list was a depressing one, and not only because it included the names of Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver.  “It makes my heart sink,” Mrs Steele confessed.  “I hadn’t realised till now, dear, how lonely we are—­after five years, too—­in this parish.  Three out of every four are Nonconformists.  It seems absurd, my taking the chair,” she added wistfully.  “Most likely they will wonder—­even if they don’t ask outright—­what business I have to be showing the lead in this way.”

The Vicar kissed his wife.  “Let them wonder.  And if they ask—­but they won’t, being west-country and well-mannered—­I shall be here to answer.”

“I wish you would answer them before they start to ask.  That would be running no risks.  A few words from you, just to explain and put them at their ease—­”

He laughed.  “Cunning woman!” said he, addressing an invisible audience.  “She means, ‘to put her at her ease,’ by my taking over the few well-chosen remarks expected of the chairwoman. . . .  My dear, I know you will be horribly nervous, and it would be easy enough for me to do the talking.  But I am not going to, and for two reasons.  To begin with, you will do it better—­”

“My dear Robert!”

“Twice as effectively—­and all the more effectively if you contrive to break down. That would conciliate them at once; for it would be evident proof that you disliked the job.”

“I don’t quite see.”

“The religion of these good people very largely consists in shaping their immortal souls against the grain:  and I admire it, in a sense, though on the whole it’s not comparable with ours, which works towards God by love through a natural felicity.  Still, it is disciplinary, and this country will have great use for it in the next few months.  To do everything you dislike, and to do it thoroughly, will carry you quite a long way in war-time.  The point at which Protestantism becomes disreputable is when you so far yield to loving your neighbour that you start chastising his sins to the neglect of your own.  I have never quite understood why charity should begin at home, but I am sure that discipline ought to:  and I sometimes think it ought to stay there.”

“That Mrs Polsue has such a disapproving face! . . .  I wonder she ever brought herself to marry.”

“If you had only been following my argument, Agatha, you would see that probably she had no time for repugnance, being preoccupied in getting the poor fellow to do what he disliked. . . .  Secondly—­”

“Oh!  A sermon!”

“Secondly,” pursued the Vicar with firmness, “this War is so great a business that, to my mind, it just swallows up—­effaces—­all scruples and modesties and mock-modesties about precedence and the like.  If any one sees a job that wants doing, and a way to put it through, he will simply have no time to be humble and let another man step before him.  The jealousies and the broken pieces