“Wish it were, do you?—­you find him so entertaining?  Has he got to talking of the fashions?”

“He talks properly; I don’t ask for more.”  Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of meekness under persecution.

“I thought you were Low Church.”

“Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought,” she corrected him.  “But, for that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me.”

“His elocution’s perfect,” said the squire; “that is, before dinner.”

“I have only to do with him before dinner, you know.”

“Well, I’ve ordered a carriage out for you.”

“That is very honourable and kind.”

“It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow.”

“Would it not be kinder to yourself,” Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him in all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of her soft eyes upon him pathetically, “if you took your paper and your slippers, and awaited our return?”

The squire felt the circulating smile about the room.  He rebuked the woman’s audacity with a frown; “Tis my duty to set an example,” he said, his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire.

“Since you are setting an example,” rejoined the exquisite widow, “I have nothing more to say.”

The squire looked what he dared not speak.  A woman has half, a beauty has all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her place; and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her advantages.

He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first.  Then his eyes rested upon Algernon.

“Well, here we are; which of us will you take?” he asked Mrs. Lovell in blank irony.

“I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as possible.”  Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile.

“I thought I hit upon the man,” growled the squire.  “You’re going in to Wrexby, sir!  Oh, go, by all means, and I shan’t be astonished at what comes of it.  Like teacher, like pupil!”

“There!” Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile.  “You have to bear the sins of your rector, as well as your own.  Can you support it?”

The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon’s level in the society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to support it, with Mrs. Lovell’s help, and this did well enough; after which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed, and ordinary topics were discussed.  The carriages came round to the door; gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped; whereupon the squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon seeing the party of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs. Lovell into her carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with serenity befitting the sacred hour.

“Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire,” she said, taking her seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she, presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps.  She was more than his match.