Ella Carruthers found an opportunity before dinner was announced of confiding to Caroline and Beatrix that he had acquitted himself well. "Really I believe I'm going to pull it off," she said. "It's very good of me to take so much trouble about Denis because it means my saddling myself with Rhoda and Ethel, when I should so much like to get rid of them. Still, if I succeed in getting him firmly planted in the Rectory I shall set about finding him a wife, and then they'll have to go. They won't like it, and they'll make trouble, which I shall enjoy very much." "Was the Bishop pleased with his sermons?" asked Caroline. "He only preached one," she said. "My uncle performed in the afternoon, I think with the idea of showing him how much better he could do it himself. But of the two I liked Denis's sermon the better. It was more learned, and didn't take so long." "Was he pleased with Denis?" asked Beatrix. "It looked like it when we came in. I believe they were telling one another funny stories." "Oh, yes. He said he seemed an honest manly young fellow, and not too anxious to push himself." "Was that a dig at Rhoda and Ethel, do you suppose?" "I took it so. I said they were very tiresome in the way they tried to direct everything and everybody, but that Denis wasn't like them at all. All the people in the place loved his old father, and liked him too." "Do you think he took that in?" "I hope so, though, of course, he wouldn't commit himself. I think he's sized up Rhoda and Ethel, though, for he asked me when Mrs. Cooper died, and said that he had heard that she had been a very managing woman. I say, did you know that your Lord Salisbury actually came over here to church this afternoon?" "_Our_ Lord Salisbury!" exclaimed Beatrix. "I don't think he did any good for himself. I had to ask him to tea, as he hung about after church, and we were all walking up together. But I took care to let my uncle see that I was forced into it. He was quite friendly with him, but didn't give him the whole of his attention, as he seemed to expect. Oh, he sees into things all right, the clever old dear! I should say that Lord Salisbury's forcing himself in like that has put him out of the betting. I don't know what others there are running, but I'd stake a pair of gloves on Denis's chances, and I shall try to do a little more for him still before I've finished." The number of guests made a general conversation round the dinner-table of infrequent occurrence, though whenever the Bishop showed signs of wishing to address the assembly he was allowed to do so, and Lady Wargrave sometimes succeeded, more by the gaiety and wit of her speech than by its high-pitched note, in making herself listened to by everybody. It was fortunate, however, for what hung upon it, that a certain conversation in which she bore a leading part towards the end of the meal was confined to her end of the table.