“What can induce my lady to take a class every Sunday?” questioned Arminell in her thought. “It does no good to the children, and it maddens the teachers. But, oh! what a woman mamma is! Providence must have been hard up for ideas when it produced my lady. How tiresome!” These last words were addressed to a bramble that had caught in her skirt. She shook her gown impatiently and walked on. The bramble still adhered and dragged. “What a nuisance,” said Arminell, and she whisked her skirt round and endeavoured to pick off the brier, but ineffectually. “Let me assist you,” said a voice; and in a moment a young man leaped the park wall, stepped on the end of the bramble, and said, “Now, if you please, walk on, Miss Inglett.” Arminell took a few steps and was free. She turned, and with a slight bow said, “I thank you, Mr. Saltren.” Then, with a smile, “I wish I could get rid of all tribulations as easily.” “And find them whilst they cling as light. You are perhaps not aware that ‘tribulation’ derives from the Latin _tribulus_, a bramble.” “So well aware was I that I perpetrated the joke which you have spoiled by threshing it. Why are you not at church, Mr. Saltren, listening for the rector’s pronunciation of the Greek names of St. Paul’s acquaintances, in the hopes of detecting a false quantity among them?” “Because Giles has a cold, and I stay at my lady’s desire to read the psalms and lessons to him.” “I wonder whether schooling Giles is as intolerable as taking Sunday class; if it be, you have my grateful sympathy.” “Your sympathy, Miss Inglett, will relieve me of many a tribulus which adheres to my robe.” “Is Giles a stupid boy and troublesome pupil?” “Not at all. My troubles are not connected with my little pupil.” “Class-taking in that Sunday-school is a sort of mental garrotting,” said Arminell. “I wonder whether a teacher always feels as if his brains were being measured for a hat when he is giving instruction.” “Only when there is non-receptivity in the minds of those he teaches, or tries to teach. May I ask if you are not going to church, Miss Inglett?” “I have done the civil by attending the Sunday-school, and the articles disapprove of works of supererogation. I am going to worship under the fresh green leaves, and to listen to the choir of the birds—blackbird, thrush, and ouzel. I am too ruffled in temper to sit still in church and listen to the same common-places in the same see-saw voice from the pulpit. Do you know what it is to be restless, Mr. Saltren, and not know what makes you ill at ease? To desire greatly something, and not know what you long after?” The young man was walking beside her, a little in the rear, respectfully, not full abreast. He was a pale man with an oval face, dark eyes and long dark lashes, and a slight downy moustache.