Lady Lamerton likewise deserted her charges at the porch, and having consigned them to the clerk, returned on her course, entered the drive, and proceeded to meet his lordship, that they might make their solemn entrance into church together. Arminell had disappeared. “Where is the girl?” asked her ladyship when she took my lord’s arm. “Haven’t seen her, my dear.” “Really, Lamerton,” said my lady, “she frightens me. She is so impulsive and self-willed. She flares up when opposed, and has no more taste for Sunday-school than I have for oysters. I do my best to influence her for good, but I might as well try to influence a cocoa-nut. By the way, Lamerton, you really must build us a Sunday-school, the inconveniences to which we are subjected are intolerable.” “Have you seen Legassick, my dear?” “I believe he is standing by the steps.” “I must speak to him about the road, it has been stoned recently. Monstrous! It should have been metalled in the winter, then the stones would have worked in, now they will be loose all the summer to throw down the horses.” “And you will build us a Sunday-school?” “I will see about it. Won’t the keeper’s lodge do? The woman does not wash downstairs on a Sunday.” “I wish you kept school there one Sabbath day. You would discover how great are the discomforts. Now we are at the church gates and must compose our minds.” “Certainly, my dear. The lord-lieutenant is going to make Gammon sheriff.” “Why Gammon?” “Because he can afford to pay for the honour. The old squirearchy can’t bear the expense.” “Hush, we are close to the church, and must withdraw our minds from the world.” “So I will, dear. Eggin’s pigs have been in the garden again.” “There’ll be the exhortation to-day, Lamerton, and you must stand up for it. Next Sunday is Sacrament Sunday.” “To be sure. I’ll have a lower line of wire round the fences. Those pigs go where a hare will run.” “Have you brought your hymnal with you?” Lord Lamerton fumbled in his pocket, and produced his yellow silk kerchief and a book together. “That,” said his wife, “is no good; it is the old edition.” “It doesn’t matter. I will open the book, and no one will be the wiser.” “But you will be thinking during the hymn of Eggin’s pigs and Gammon’s sheriffalty.” “I’ll do better next Sunday. The gardener tells me they have turned up your single dahlias.” “Hush! we are in the church. Arminell is not in the pew. Where can she be?” Arminell was not in church. She was, in fact, walking away from it, and by the time her father had entered his pew and looked into his hat, had put a distance of half a mile between herself and the sacred building. A sudden fit of disgust at the routine of Sunday duties had come over her, and she resolved to absent herself that morning from church, and pay a visit to a deserted lime quarry, where she could spend an hour alone, and her moral and religious sense, as she put it, could recover tone after the ordeal of Sunday-school.