PROSERPINE (relieved). Oh, is that all? MORELL (with a sadness which is a luxury to a man whose voice expresses it so finely). Ah, you don't believe it. Everybody says it: nobody believes it--nobody. (Briskly, getting back to business.) Well, well! Come, Miss Proserpine, can't you find a date for the costers? What about the 25th?: that was vacant the day before yesterday. PROSERPINE (referring to diary). Engaged--the Fabian Society. MORELL. Bother the Fabian Society! Is the 28th gone too? PROSERPINE. City dinner. You're invited to dine with the Founder's Company. MORELL. That'll do; I'll go to the Hoxton Group of Freedom instead. (She enters the engagement in silence, with implacable disparagement of the Hoxton Anarchists in every line of her face. Morell bursts open the cover of a copy of The Church Reformer, which has come by post, and glances through Mr. Stewart Hendlam's leader and the Guild of St. Matthew news. These proceedings are presently enlivened by the appearance of Morell's curate, the Reverend Alexander Mill, a young gentleman gathered by Morell from the nearest University settlement, whither he had come from Oxford to give the east end of London the benefit of his university training. He is a conceitedly well intentioned, enthusiastic, immature person, with nothing positively unbearable about him except a habit of speaking with his lips carefully closed for half an inch from each corner, a finicking arthulation, and a set of horribly corrupt vowels, notably ow for o, this being his chief means of bringing Oxford refinement to bear on Hackney vulgarity. Morell, whom he has won over by a doglike devotion, looks up indulgently from The Church Reformer as he enters, and remarks) Well, Lexy! Late again, as usual. LEXY. I'm afraid so. I wish I could get up in the morning. MORELL (exulting in his own energy). Ha! ha! (Whimsically.) Watch and pray, Lexy: watch and pray. LEXY. I know. (Rising wittily to the occasion.) But how can I watch and pray when I am asleep? Isn't that so, Miss Prossy? PROSERPINE (sharply). Miss Garnett, if you please. LEXY. I beg your pardon--Miss Garnett. PROSERPINE. You've got to do all the work to-day. LEXY. Why? PROSERPINE. Never mind why. It will do you good to earn your supper before you eat it, for once in a way, as I do. Come: don't dawdle. You should have been off on your rounds half an hour ago. LEXY (perplexed). Is she in earnest, Morell? MORELL (in the highest spirits--his eyes dancing). Yes. _I_ am going to dawdle to-day. LEXY. You! You don't know how. MORELL (heartily). Ha! ha! Don't I? I'm going to have this day all to myself--or at least the forenoon. My wife's coming back: she's due here at 11.45. LEXY (surprised). Coming back already--with the children? I thought they were to stay to the end of the month. MORELL. So they are: she's only coming up for two days, to get some flannel things for Jimmy, and to see how we're getting on without her.