In the dining-room the ladies were already seated, one being Lady Caroline whom he had not yet seen; and whether it was merely the presence of a third person, or the silent claim of superiority on the part of that lady, the atmosphere appeared to have undergone a change. Life was no longer a river at high tide rolling to a triumphal march from 'the Caliph of Bagdad,' but a very ordinary stream indeed, oozing along between monotonous banks, over a flat and muddy bottom. Instead of a prized and congenial friend, he was now reduced to the part of stranger, and rather an unknown stranger too. Lady Caroline led the conversation as was her wont, but more interrogatively, and less as an exclusive monologue than when addressing persons with whom she was better acquainted. Having been called on to express his admiration for Scotland and the Scotch, on this his first visit to the country, he was next asked if he had been induced to attend any of the open-air conventicles which his friends so much affected, and how he liked them. He said he had been at one, and that it was a picturesque gathering in a stagy sort of way, and something very different from anything he had ever seen before. 'I should think so,' said Lady Caroline; 'it seems to me a species of madness which has fallen upon the people. I wonder the authorities do not put it down, for it is utterly subversive of order, and all good government. I feel quite ashamed whenever I hear of it coming under the notice of people from another country. They must form so strange an opinion of us. If you spend another Sunday in the neighbourhood you must persuade your friends to send you over to the parish church. It is not far from here.' Mr. Wallowby replied that he would be returning to England before another Sunday came round. 'But I was not aware,' he added, 'that there were any but Presbyterian chapels for many miles round here. I felt compunction about attending the ministrations of an unordained person, it seemed to me so much a burlesque on the offices of religion, but I was told that except in towns and a very few country places far north, there are no clergymen in Scotland at all. And yet the Scotch claim to be very religious. I did not know before that people could be religious without church or parson, and now I have seen it I do not like it.'