The final "hunc" was a life-like imitation of one of the Earl’s prize pigs. The verse in question happened to be shorter than Lady Valeria’s, and she finished after the congregation. The curate turned purple, and the vicar’s voice trembled. The Countess blushed redder than before, and, stooping down, whispered, "You mustn’t say _anything_, darling!" Lady Valeria looked up in pained surprise. "Every one else is talking, mammy dear. I’m sure God wouldn’t mind." Her mother shook her head again, and Lady Valeria relapsed into a wondering and somewhat injured silence. Why should those Sunday-school children be allowed to bawl out all sorts of seemingly irrelevant remarks, while she was checked for one little tiny rhyme? Truly, church was a puzzling place. She sighed, and pulled off her gloves, then she rolled them into a neat ball and played catch with them. But she was no hand at catch, and the gloves fell with a soft "plop" into the aisle. Her mother looked up at the little sound and again shook her head. Lady Valeria yawned. Then something happened. There was a scuffling at the back, and the vicar’s wife, who is a strict disciplinarian, marched up the aisle propelling a small boy in front of her—the very small boy who was the cause of the disturbance. Lady Valeria nearly fell off her stool in her excitement. The procession of two, the pusher and the pushed, passed the Earl’s pew, and reached the big brass bird, whose classification had been puzzling Lady Valeria for the last ten minutes. The vicar’s wife left the small boy just beside the big bird, and marched down the aisle again. The hymn finished, the vicar went into the pulpit and gave out the text. Thomas Beames, the culprit, stuffed his fists into his eyes, and wept copiously, but silently. There he would have to stand, publicly disgraced, with his back in full view of the congregation for the rest of the service. "I’ll turn dissenter, I will!" vowed Thomas, in his miserable soul. "I’ll vote yallow when I be growed a man. I won’t cap she, when I do meet her in the street." The vicar’s voice exhorting the children to industry, sobriety, and universal charity fell on deaf ears as far as Thomas was concerned. But what he did hear was the soft patter of little feet behind him, then came a pull at his arm by two small impatient hands. He took his fists out of his eyes, and looked down to see Lady Valeria standing beside him. Her blue eyes were full of pity, and she said very softly and distinctly, "Don’t ky, little boy! there’s plenty of room in our seat!" and before the astonished Thomas could demur, one of the imperative little hands had seized his, and pulled him into the Earl’s pew, where he sat crimson and desperately uncomfortable for the rest of the service; but he was not quite so sure that he would vote "yallow when he were growed a man." The sermon was long. The vicar felt this flying in the face of law and order must be lived or preached down.