“Ain’t I the first to remember ut, Pole?  And didn’t I get up airly so as to go to church and have my conscience qui’t, and ’stead of that I come out full of evil passions, all for the sake o’ these ungrateful garls that’s always where ye cann’t find ’em.  Why, if they was to be married at the altar, they’d stare and be ’ffendud if ye asked them if they was thinking of their husbands, they would!  ’Oh, dear, no! and ye’re mistaken, and we’re thinkin’ o’ the coal-scuttle in the back parlour,’—­or somethin’ about souls, if not coals.  There’s their answer.  What did ye do with Mr. Paricles on board the yacht?  Aha!”

“What’s this about Pericles?” said Mr. Pole.

“Oh, nothing, Papa,” returned Adela.

“Nothing, do ye call ut!” said Mrs. Chump.  “And, mayhap, good cause too.  Didn’t ye tease ’m, now, on board the yacht?  Now, did he go on board the yacht at all?”

“I should think you ought to know that as well as Adela,” said Mr. Pole.

Adela interposed, hurriedly:  “All this, my dear Papa, is because Mr. Pericles has thought proper to visit the Tinleys’ pew.  Who would complain how or where he does it, so long as the duty is fulfilled?”

Mr. Pole stared, muttering:  “The Tinleys!”

“She’s botherin’ of ye, Pole, the puss!” said Mrs. Chump, certain that she had hit a weak point in that mention of the yacht.  “Ask her what sorrt of behaviour—­”

“And he didn’t speak to any of you?” said Mr. Pole.

“No, Papa.”

“He looked the other way?”

“He did us that honour.”

“Ask her, Pole, how she behaved to ’m on board the yacht,” cried Mrs. Chump.  “Oh! there was flirtin’, flirtin’!  And go and see what the noble poet says of tying up in sacks and plumpin’ of poor bodies of women into forty fathoms by them Turks and Greeks, all because of jeal’sy.  So, they make a woman in earnest there, the wretches, ’cause she cann’t have onny of her jokes.  Didn’t ye tease Mr. Paricles on board the yacht, Ad’la?  Now, was he there?”

“Martha! you’re a fool!” said Mr. Pole, looking the victim of one of his fits of agitation.  “Who knows whether he was there better than you?  You’ll be forgetting soon that we’ve ever dined together.  I hate to see a woman so absurd!  There—­never mind!  Go in:  take off bonnet something—­anything! only I can’t bear folly!  Eh, Mr. Runningbrook?”

“’Deed, Pole, and ye’re mad.”  Mrs. Chump crossed her hands to reply with full repose.  “I’d like to know how I’m to know what I never said.”

The scene was growing critical.  Adela consulted the eyes of her sisters, which plainly said that this was her peculiar scrape.  Adela ended it by going up to Mrs. Chump, taking her by the shoulders, and putting a kiss upon her forehead.  “Now you will see better,” she said.  “Don’t you know Mr. Pericles was not with us?  As surely as he was with the Tinleys this morning!”

“And a nice morning it is!” ejaculated Mr. Pole, trotting off hurriedly.