‘My post of tutor,’ Peterborough hastened to explain, ’was almost entirely supernumerary.  The circumstances being so, I the more readily acquiesced in the title of private chaplain, prepared to fulfil such duties as devolved upon me in that capacity, and acting thereon I proffered my occasional services.  Lutheranism and Anglicanism are not, doubtless you are aware, divided on the broader bases.  We are common Protestants.  The Papacy, I can assure you, finds as little favour with one as with the other.  Yes, I held forth, as you would say, from time to time.  My assumption of the title of private chaplain, it was thought, improved the family dignity—­that is, on our side.’

‘Thought by Harry?’ said Janet; and my aunt Dorothy said, ’You and Harry had a consultation about it?’

‘Wanted to appear as grand as they could,’ quoth the squire.

Peterborough signified an assent, designed to modify the implication.  ‘Not beyond due bounds, I trust, sir.’

‘Oh! now I understand,’ Janet broke out in the falsetto notes of a puzzle solved in the mind.  ’It was his father!  Harry proclaiming his private chaplain!’

‘Mr. Harry’s father did first suggest—­’ said Peterborough, but her quickly-altered features caused him to draw in his breath, as she had done after one short laugh.

My grandfather turned a round side-eye on me, hard as a cock’s.

Janet immediately started topics to fill Peterborough’s mouth:  the weather, the walk to church, the probable preacher.  ‘And, grandada,’ said she to the squire, who was muttering ominously with a grim under-jaw, ‘His private chaplain!’ and for this once would not hear her, ’Grandada, I shall drive you over to see papa this afternoon.’  She talked as if nothing had gone wrong.  Peterborough, criminal red, attacked a jam-pot for a diversion.  ‘Such sweets are rare indeed on the Continent,’ he observed to my aunt Dorothy.  ‘Our homemade dainties are matchless.’

‘Private chaplain!’ the squire growled again.

‘It’s you that preach this afternoon,’ Janet said to Peterborough.  ’Do you give us an extempore sermon?’

’You remind me, Miss Ilchester, I must look to it; I have a little trimming to do.’

Peterborough thought he might escape, but the squire arrested him.  ‘You’ll give me five minutes before you’re out of the house, please.  D’ ye smoke on Sundays?’

‘Not on Sundays, sir,’ said Peterborough, openly and cordially, as to signify that they were of one mind regarding the perniciousness of Sunday smoking.

’See you don’t set fire to my ricks with your foreign chaplain’s tricks.  I spied you puffing behind one t’ other day.  There,’ the squire dispersed Peterborough’s unnecessary air of abstruse recollection, ’don’t look as though you were trying to hit on a pin’s head in a bushel of oats.  Don’t set my ricks on fire—­that ‘s all.’

‘Mr. Peterborough,’ my aunt Dorothy interposed her voice to soften this rough treatment of him with the offer of some hot-house flowers for his sitting-room.