“I have known some very good cricketers that were not Anglicans.”

“Now you haven’t, my dear sir; you thought you have, but you haven’t; that’s the trouble with those who reject Church authority.  The Methodist plays rounder, what you call base-ball; the Independents and Baptists played croquet and lawn tennis after other people stopped playing them; the Presbyterian plays golf; and the Churchman plays cricket.”

“To argue with one who sweeps all experience aside with a wave of his hand,” said the schoolmaster, indignantly, “is not to argue at all.  It is a case of Roma locuta.”

“Ow, yes, just sow, you know, we down’t argue, we simply assert the truth.”

“How d’ye like the Durham mustard, Wilks, my boy?” put in Coristine from the rear, where he and Mr. Errol were laughing amusedly; “it’s hot, isn’t it, not much solid food, but lots of flavour?  It reminds me of The Crew, when he said what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen.  Mr. Perrowne is the owner of a splendid dog, and he is a splendid dogmatist.  What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.”

“Ow, thanks awfully, Mr. Coristine, you are really too flattering!” gravely and gratefully replied the parson.  Wilkinson was afraid that his friend’s banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the graduate of Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had the cleric quoting Virgil and Mrs. Hemans.

Meanwhile Coristine and Mr. Errol were taking one another’s measure.  The lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and himself relative to Timotheus.  He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders.  “She’s a comical little piece,” he said; “her Sunday school teacher asked her who killed Goliath? and what do you think was her reply!”

“Give it up.”

“It was ‘Jack,’ no less than Jack the Giant-Killer.”

“The darlin’!” cried the lawyer, with admiration, and straightway won the minister’s heart.

“Marjorie has a cousin stopping at the house of Mr. Carruthers, one of my elders, since last Tuesday night, as blithe and bonnie a young leddy as man could wish to see.  While she’s here, she’s just the light of the whole country side.”

Mr. Coristine did not care for this turn in the conversation.

“Tell me some more about little Marjorie,” he said.

“Ah,” replied the minister, “then you know that her cousin is called Marjorie, too!  Little Marjorie went to church once with Miss Du Plessis, whom Perrowne had got to sing in the choir, that was last summer, if I mind right, and, when the two rideeclus candles on the altar were lighted, and the priest, as he calls himself, came in with his surplice on, she put her face down in Miss Cecile’s lap.  ’What’s the trouble, Marjorie?’ asked Miss Du Plessis, bending over her.  ’He’s going to kiss us all good-night,’ sobbed the wee thing.  ’No he is not, Marjorie; he’s