“Oh, no,” answered Bride, with a quick earnestness and energy, “that will certainly not be. Poor Mr. Tremodart, he knows no better perhaps; but it is very, very sad. I suppose it was only found out last night or this morning. There was no sermon last Sunday, so I suppose the eggs collecting in the pulpit were not noticed. Of course they should have been taken away at once. But Mr. Tremodart is very fond of his animals, and he does not think of sacred things quite as--as--others do. Of course it will be done before next Sunday. Oh, I am sorry it has happened. I am sorry for the poor people.” Eustace could not understand her mood. He saw only the humorous side of the incident, but he would not say so to her. He was very anxious to approach nearer in thought and feeling to his beautiful cousin, who was as yet almost as much of a stranger to him as she had been upon the day of his arrival. Although he saw her daily, sat at table with her, and sometimes spent an hour over the piano with her in the evening (for both were good musicians, as things went in those days), he still felt as though she were a thing apart from him, wrapped in a world of her own of which he knew nothing. The barrier which divided them was at once impenetrable and invisible, yet he had never succeeded in discovering wherein its power lay, and what might be done to break it down and bring them together. “You will go to St. Erme’s Church to-day, I suppose?” he said next, without trying to solve the problem suggested by her speech. “I have never attended St. Erme for a service, although I have met Mr. St. Aubyn. Will you let me be your escort there? I suppose your father will hardly walk as far.” “No, I think not. He seldom goes out when there is no service at St. Bride. He does not care for Mr. St. Aubyn’s preaching as I do: he prefers that of Mr. Tremodart.” Eustace secretly thought it must be a queer sort of preaching that could be inferior to that of the parson of St. Bride’s; but he made no remark, and merely asked-- “Then you will let me be your escort?” “Thank you,” answered Bride quietly; “if you wish to go, I think you will be rewarded.”