‘You will hear a long sermon,’ she warned him.

‘Forty minutes.’  Colonel Halkett smothered a yawn that was both retro and prospective.

‘It has been fifty, papa.’

‘It has been an hour, my dear.’

It was good discipline nevertheless, the colonel affirmed, and Cecilia praised the Rev. Mr. Brisk of Urplesdon vicarage as one of our few remaining Protestant clergymen.

‘Then he ought to be supported,’ said Beauchamp.  ’In the dissensions of religious bodies it is wise to pat the weaker party on the back—­I quote Stukely Culbrett.’

’I ‘ve heard him,’ sighed the colonel.  ’He calls the Protestant clergy the social police of the English middle-class.  Those are the things he lets fly.  I have heard that man say that the Church stands to show the passion of the human race for the drama.  He said it in my presence.  And there ’s a man who calls himself a Tory

You have rather too much of that playing at grudges and dislikes at Steynham, with squibs, nicknames, and jests at things that—­well, that our stability is bound up in.  I hate squibs.’

‘And I,’ said Beauchamp.  Some shadow of a frown crossed him; but Stukely Culbrett’s humour seemed to be a refuge.  ‘Protestant parson-not clergy,’ he corrected the colonel.  ’Can’t you hear Mr. Culbrett, Cecilia?  The Protestant parson is the policeman set to watch over the respectability of the middle-class.  He has sharp eyes for the sins of the poor.  As for the rich, they support his church; they listen to his sermon—­to set an example:  discipline, colonel.  You discipline the tradesman, who’s afraid of losing your custom, and the labourer, who might be deprived of his bread.  But the people?  It’s put down to the wickedness of human nature that the parson has not got hold of the people.  The parsons have lost them by senseless Conservatism, because they look to the Tories for the support of their Church, and let the religion run down the gutters.  And how many thousands have you at work in the pulpit every Sunday?  I’m told the Dissenting ministers have some vitality.’

Colonel Halkett shrugged with disgust at the mention of Dissenters.

’And those thirty or forty thousand, colonel, call the men that do the work they ought to be doing demagogues.  The parsonry are a power absolutely to be counted for waste, as to progress.’

Cecilia perceived that her father was beginning to be fretted.

She said, with a tact that effected its object:  ’I am one who hear Mr. Culbrett without admiring his wit.’

‘No, and I see no good in this kind of Steynham talk,’ Colonel Halkett said, rising.  ’We’re none of us perfect.  Heaven save us from political parsons!’

Beauchamp was heard to utter, ‘Humanity.’

The colonel left the room with Cecilia, muttering the Steynham tail to that word:  ‘tomtity,’ for the solace of an aside repartee.