“Oh dear me!” murmured Mr. Waring, “we always act so much together that I never thought of interference in such a connection; pray excuse me, dear Mrs. Fellowes,” he entreated nervously. Mrs. Fellowes could have slain him and herself. She kept her eyes carefully turned from her husband but she felt his silent malicious laughter to the very tips of her fingers. “Mr. Waring, there is nothing whatever to excuse, it is only a little silly clerical point of etiquette. You have no idea how the clerical mind runs to trifles, I am only beginning to get any correct notions and I have been studying it now over eight years. It is much more interesting than geology,” she continued, turning to Mrs. Waring and awakening her out of her reverie, “and requires quite as much hammering to get anything worth having out of it. John quite agrees with me.” “Ah, Mrs. Fellowes, it is so easy for you to see fun in things,” said Mrs. Waring in a pretty wistful way; “it is quite a gift, I fear it has not been bestowed upon me.” “Good gracious, I should think it hadn’t!” said Mrs. Fellowes to herself, “if you had a spark of it you’d keep him in his right mind as well as yourself.” “Don’t you think Dacre looks rather idiotic?” whispered Gwen suddenly. He certainly did, with his mouth ajar and the bright red tip of his tongue visible through his teeth. “They always have that effect upon him,” continued Gwen, “a frequent course of it would very soon land him in an idiot asylum.” “Hush, dear!” Mr. Waring seemed now ill at ease and not at all satisfied at the way things were shaping. The affair was missing fire both for him and for his wife; they wanted, so to speak, a thorough microscopic examination of their children; they wanted them then and there put out on the table and carefully gone over as a preliminary proceeding, even if as yet no final and systematic classification of their contents could be attempted. Where was the result of research to come in if the one was to be shipped off to school the very next day, and the other to be turned over to Mr. Fellowes? Mrs. Waring’s mind also ran in this groove. “Will there not be an examination now at once?” she asked in pained surprise. “I quite understood this was our arrangement.” “I too, dear love; we must discuss the matter. Mr. Fellowes,—ahem, my wife and I thought it might be as well to examine the state of our children’s minds now at once; it seems important to ascertain clearly how far our plans have been successful, and in this we might be of some help to you.” Mr. Fellowes looked gravely annoyed. Dacre started violently and nearly took the tip off his tongue, and Gwen’s face fell; she straightened herself and a transfiguration fell upon her, her mouth hardened, her colour faded to a dull gray, and her eyes took on the masked look that Mrs. Fellowes so detested to see.