It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting at home comfortably, and reading off the week’s chronicle of sport while he nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old cause of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the detestable doctrine of Wrexby’s rector?

Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after breakfast.  The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests, listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the hills, and of Fenhurst, Northeast.  The squire came in to them, groaning over his boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for satire, except to receive it.

“How difficult it is to be gouty and good!” murmured Mrs. Lovell to the person next her.

“Well,” said the squire, singling out his enemy, “you’re going to that fellow, I suppose, as usual—­eh?”

“Not ‘as usual,’” replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; “I wish it were!”

“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!”