He clapped his hat more firmly on his redundant red locks and clambered into the waiting waggonette. Sir Morton followed him, and the footman shut to the door of the vehicle with a bang as unnecessary as his master's previous 'Damn!' "Good-morning, Mr. Walden!" then shouted the knight of bone-melting prowess; "Much obliged to you, I'm sure!" Walden raised his hat with brief ceremoniousness, and then as the carriage rolled away addressed the Reverend Mr. Leveson, who was throwing himself with hippopotamus-like agility across his bicycle. "You follow, I suppose?" "Yes. I'm lunching at Badsworth Hall. The Duke wants to consult me about his family records. You know I'm a bit of an authority on such points!" Walden smiled. "I believe you are! But mind you calendar the ducal deeds carefully," he said. "A slip in the lineal descent of the Lumptons might affect the whole prestige of the British Empire!" A light shone in his clear blue eyes,--a flashing spark of battle. Leveson stayed his bicycle a moment, wobbling on it uneasily. "Lumpton goes back a good way," he said airily; "I shall take him up when I have gone through the history of the Vancourts. I'm on that scent now. I shall make a good bit of business directly Miss Vancourt returns; she'll pay for anything that will help her to stiffen her back and put more side on." "Really!" ejaculated Walden, coldly. "I should have thought her forebears would have saved her from snobbery." "Not a bit of it!" declared Leveson, beginning to start the muscles of his grand-pianoforte legs with energy; "Rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock! Ta!" And fixing a small cap firmly on the back of his very large head, he worked his wheel with treadmill regularity and was soon out of sight. Walden stood alone in the churchyard, lost for a brief space in meditation. The solemn strains of the organ which the schoolmistress was still playing, floated softly out from the church to the perfumed air, and the grave melodious murmur made an undercurrent of harmony to the clear bright warbling of a skylark, which, beating its wings against the sunbeams, rose ever higher and higher above him. "What petty souls we are!" he murmured; "Here am I feeling actually indignant because this fellow Leveson, who has less education and knowledge than my dog Nebbie, assumes to have some acquaintance with Miss Vancourt! What does it matter? What business is it of mine? If she cares to accept information from an ignoramus, what is it to do with me? Nothing! Yet,--what a blatant ass the fellow is! Upon my word, it does me good to say it--a blatant ass! And Sir Morton Pippitt is another!" He laughed, and lifting his hat from his forehead, let the soft wind breathe refreshing coolness on his uncovered hair.