The supper-hour was supposed to be nine o’clock, and on returning from church the gentlemen had come straight to the dining-room. Mrs. Dulcimer and the two girls found them there when they came downstairs after taking off their bonnets. The Vicar was standing in front of the fire, caressing his favourite tabby cat with his foot, as that privileged animal rolled upon the hearth-rug. Sir Kenrick sat in cousin Simeon’s arm-chair, a deep velvet-covered chair, almost as large as a small house. Cyril stood looking dreamily down at the fire. ‘Welcome, young ladies!’ exclaimed the Vicar, cheerily. ‘I thought Mrs. Dulcimer was never going to give us our supper. Come, Beatrix, this is your place, at my right hand.’ ‘And Sir Kenrick will sit next Beatrix,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, on manœuvring intent. ‘Bella, my love, you next the Vicar, and Cyril must sit by me. I want to ask him about the next missionary meeting.’ They were all seated after good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer’s desire,--Kenrick by the side of Beatrix, gravely contemplative of the fine face with its rich un-English colouring; Cyril looking a little distrait as lively Miss Scratchell discussed his sermon in her bright appreciative way, and with an air of being quite as well read in theology as he was. A wonderful girl, Miss Scratchell, with a knack of picking up stray facts, and educating herself with the crumbs that fell from other people’s tables, just as her father’s poultry picked up their nourishment in the open street and in other people’s stable yards. ‘How did you like the sermon, Sir Kenrick?’ asked Bella, smiling across the chrysanthemums, and offering to the baronet’s contemplation an insignificant prettiness, all dimples and pale pink roses. ‘As much as I like any sermons, except the Vicar’s,’ answered Kenrick, coolly. ‘I like to hear Mr. Dulcimer preach, because he makes me think. I sit on tenter-hooks all the time, longing to stand up and argue the point with him. But as for Cyril’s moral battering-rams and catapults, and all the artillery which he brings to bear against my sinful soul, I’m afraid their chief effect is to make me drowsy.’ ‘They do other people good though,’ said Bella. ‘Mrs. Piper told me she never felt awakened till she heard Mr. Culverhouse’s Lent sermons.’ ‘Praise from Mrs. Piper is praise indeed,’ remarked the Vicar. ‘Oh, but she really does know a good deal about sermons,’ said Bella. ‘She is very fond of what she calls serious reading; she reads a sermon every morning before she goes to her cook to order the dinners.’