"If you did you would mistake him for your husband." "How awful!" shuddered Leah. "As though one Jim wasn't enough to be bothered with. But can't we talk of something more interesting--your sermon, for instance?" "I trust you found that interesting," said Lionel, smiling. "Oh yes--it wasn't too long." "I see"--dryly--"you judge the interest of a sermon by its length." "Oh no--really, I quite enjoyed your preaching." "I don't preach that people may enjoy, but that they may think seriously of what they are." "I'm sure I think seriously enough, Lionel. Have you spoken to the Duke? No? I wish you would." "To-morrow. This is Christmas Day, remember." "As if I could forget, with all the nonsense that's going on here," retorted Lady Jim, glancing superciliously round at the decorations. "Every one is overdoing the brotherly business. I quite expected my maid to tell me that she loved me. And I don't see why you shouldn't ask the Duke to-day. You'll squeeze the money out of him the more easily while he's got this Christmassy emotion on." "I don't squeeze money out of people," said Kaimes, stiffly. "What a large income you must have, then." "I live within it." "That's nothing to boast of. I'd live within mine, if I had ten thousand a year." "I doubt it," replied Lionel, who could not help laughing at her coolness; "you'd spend fifty thousand if you had it." "Rather--if I were the Duchess of Pentland. But there's no chance of such luck. Frith's too healthy. Do smile again, Lionel--you've got such nice teeth, and look quite a good sort when you let yourself go." "What am I to smile at?" asked the curate, with deliberate austerity. "At me, and on me. I put ten shillings into the plate this morning." Lionel was a thoroughly good young man, and had a great sense of the dignity of his cloth and the responsibility of his position. But he also possessed humour, and could not help retorting after the style of a certain witty bishop. "That's the smallest fire insurance I ever heard of," said he, genially, and moved away, leaving Lady Jim amused. "I didn't think he had so much fun in him," she thought, making for the library; "but the speech is too clever to be original"--which showed that Leah suspected the existence of the witty bishop. But the word insurance put her mind on Jim's mad idea to pretend death and cheat the company out of twenty thousand pounds, with accumulations. Leah devoutly wished that the trick could be managed. Its success meant a clearance of debt and of Jim, when the millennium would come, and, as Mrs. Nickleby's admirer put it, "all would be gas and gaiters." She resolved to have another chat with Jim on the subject, and meantime went to seek for a novel. After boring herself with Mrs. Arthur and Lionel, she wished to read away a well-earned hour of peace.