“If he only knew how she despises him!”

“He is too vain to suspect it.  Besides, Gertrude despises everyone, even us.  Or, rather, she doesn’t despise anyone in particular, but is contemptuous by nature, just as you are stout.”

“Me!  I had rather be stout than stuck-up.  Ought we to bow?”

“I will, certainly.  I want to make Pharoah blush, if I can.”

The two parsons had been simulating an interest in the cloudy firmament as an excuse for not looking at the girls until close at hand.  Jane sent an eyeflash at Josephs with a skill which proved her favorite assertion that she was not so stupid as people thought.  He blushed and took off his soft, low-crowned felt hat.  Fairholme saluted very solemnly, for Agatha bowed to him with marked seriousness.  But when his gravity and his stiff silk hat were at their highest point she darted a mocking smile at him, and he too blushed, all the deeper because he was enraged with himself for doing so.

“Did you ever see such a pair of fools?” whispered Jane, giggling.

“They cannot help their sex.  They say women are fools, and so they are; but thank Heaven they are not quite so bad as men!  I should like to look back and see Pharaoh passing Gertrude; but if he saw me he would think I was admiring him; and he is conceited enough already without that.”

The two curates became redder and redder as they passed the column of young ladies.  Miss Lindsay would not look to their side of the road, and Miss Wilson’s nod and smile were not quite sincere.  She never spoke to curates, and kept up no more intercourse with the vicar than she could not avoid.  He suspected her of being an infidel, though neither he nor any other mortal in Lyvern had ever heard a word from her on the subject of her religious opinions.  But he knew that “moral science” was taught secularly at the college; and he felt that where morals were made a department of science the demand for religion must fall off proportionately.

“What a life to lead and what a place to live in!” exclaimed Agatha.  “We meet two creatures, more like suits of black than men; and that is an incident—­a startling incident—­in our existence!”

“I think they’re awful fun,” said Jane, “except that Josephs has such large ears.”

The girls now came to a place where the road dipped through a plantation of sombre sycamore and horsechestnut trees.  As they passed down into it, a little wind sprang up, the fallen leaves stirred, and the branches heaved a long, rustling sigh.

“I hate this bit of road,” said Jane, hurrying on.  “It’s just the sort of place that people get robbed and murdered in.”

“It is not such a bad place to shelter in if we get caught in the rain, as I expect we shall before we get back,” said Agatha, feeling the fitful breeze strike ominously on her cheek.  “A nice pickle I shall be in with these light shoes on!  I wish I had put on my strong boots.  If it rains much I will go into the old chalet.”