The Rector was a shrewd and gentlemanlike, though not a very pretty, apostle, and had made a sufficient toilet before presenting himself, and snapped and gobbled his fish, in a glossy, single-breasted coat, with standing collar; a ribbed silk waistcoat, covering his ample chest, almost like a cassock, and one of those transparent muslin dog-collars which High Churchmen affect. "Well, Dives," cried Sir Jekyl, "how do the bells ring? I gave them a chime, poor devils" (this was addressed to Lady Blunket at his elbow), "by way of compensation, when I sent them Dives." "Pretty well; they don't know how to pull 'em, I think, quite," answered Dives, dabbing a bit of fish in a pool of sauce, and punching it into shape with his bit of bread. "And how is old Parson Moulders?" continued the Baronet, pleasantly. "I haven't heard," said the Hector, and drank off half his glass of hock. "Can't believe it, Dives. Here's Lady Blunket knows. He's the aged incumbent of Droughton. A devilish good living in my gift; and of course you've been asking how the dear old fellow is." "I haven't, upon my word; not but I ought, though," said the Rev. Dives Marlowe, as if he did not see the joke. "He's very severe on you," simpered fat Lady Blunket, faintly, across the table, and subsided with a little cough, as if the exertion hurt her. "Is he? Egad! I never perceived it." The expression was not clerical, but the speaker did not seem aware he had uttered it. "How dull I must be! Have you ever been in this part of the world before, Lady Jane?" continued he, turning towards General Lennox's wife, who sat beside him. "I've been to Wardlock, a good many years ago; but that's a long way from this, and I almost forget it," answered Lady Jane, in her languid, haughty way. "In what direction is Wardlock," she asked of Beatrix, raising her handsome, unfathomable eyes for a moment. "You can see it from the bow-window of your room--I mean that oddly-shaped hill to the right." "That's from the green chamber," said the Rector. "I remember the view. Isn't it?" "Yes. They have put Lady Jane in the haunted room," said Beatrix, smiling and nodding to Lady Jane. "And what fool, pray, told you that," said the Baronet, perhaps just a little sharply. "Old Gwynn seems to think so," answered Beatrix, with the surprised and frightened look of one who fancies she has made a blunder. "I--of course we know it is all folly." "You must not say that--you shan't disenchant us," said Lady Jane. "There's nothing I should so like as a haunted room; it's a charming idea--isn't it, Arthur?" she inquired of the General.