by the hugeous collar.  Arabella felt a seizure of her hand from Adela’s side.  She placed her book open before her, and stared at the pulpit.  From neither of the three of Brookfield could Laura’s observation extract a sign of the utter astonishment she knew they must be experiencing; and had it not been for the ingenuous broad whisper of Mrs. Chump, which sounded toward the verge even of her conception of possibilities, the Tinleys would not have been gratified by the first public display of the prize they had wrested from the Poles.

“Mr. Paricles—­oh!” went Mrs. Chump, and a great many pews were set in commotion.

Forthwith she bent over Cornelia’s lap, and Cornelia, surveying her placidly, had to murmur, “By-and-by; by-and-by.”

“But, did ye see ’m, my dear? and a forr’ner in a Protestant Church!  And such a forr’ner as he is, to be sure!  And, ye know, ye said he’d naver come with you, and it’s them creatures ye don’t like.  Corrnelia!”

“The service commences,” remarked that lady, standing up.

Many eyes were on Mr. Pericles, who occasionally inspected the cornices and corbels and stained glass to right and left, or detected a young lady staring at him, or anticipated her going to stare, and put her to confusion by a sharp turn of his head, and then a sniff and smoothing down of his moustache.  But he did not once look at the Brookfield pew.  By hazard his eye ranged over it, and after the first performance of this trick he would have found the ladies a match for him, even if he had sought to challenge their eyes.  They were constrained to admit that Laura Tinley managed him cleverly.  She made him hold a book and appear respectably devout.  She got him down in good time when seats were taken, and up again, without much transparent persuasion.  The first notes of the organ were seen to agitate the bearskin.  Laura had difficulty to induce the man to rise for the hymn, and when he had listened to the intoning of a verse, Mr. Pericles suddenly bent, as if he had snapped in two:  nor could Laura persuade him to rejoin the present posture of the congregation.  Then only did Laura, to cover her failure, turn the subdued light of a merry smile upon the Brookfield pew.

The smile was noticed by Apprehension sitting in the corner of one eye, and it was likewise known that Laura’s chagrin at finding that she was not being watched affected her visibly.  At the termination of the sermon, the ladies bowed their heads a short space, and placing Mrs. Chump in front drove her out, so that her exclamations of wonderment, and affectedly ostentatious gaspings of sympathy for Brookfield, were heard by few.  On they hurried, straight and fast to Brookfield.  Mr. Pole was talking to Tracy Runningbrook at the gate.  The ladies cut short his needless apology to the young man for not being found in church that day, by asking questions of Tracy.  The first related to their brother’s