All the Herst party conduct themselves with due discretion save Mr. Potts, who, being overcome by the novelty of the situation and the length of the sermon, falls fast asleep, and presently, at some denunciatory passage, pronounced in a rather distinct tone by the rector, rousing himself with a precipitate jerk, sends all the fire-irons with a fine clatter to the ground, he having been most unhappily placed nearest the grate. "The ruling passion strong in death," says Luttrell, with a despairing glance at the culprit; whereupon Molly nearly laughs outright, while the school-children do so quite. Beyond this small _contre-temps_, however, nothing of note occurs; and, service being over, they all file decorously out of the church into the picturesque porch outside, where they stand for a few minutes interchanging greetings with such of the county families as come within their knowledge. With a few others too, who scarcely come within that aristocratic pale, notably Mrs. Buscarlet. She is a tremendously stout, distressingly healthy woman, quite capable of putting her husband in a corner of her capacious pocket, which, by the bye, she insists on wearing outside her gown, in a fashion beloved of our great-grandmothers, and which, in a modified form, last year was much affected by our own generation. This alarming personage greets Marcia with the utmost _bonhommie_, being apparently blind to the coldness of her reception. She greets Lady Stafford also, who is likewise at freezing-point, and then gets introduced to Molly. Mrs. Darley, who even to the uninitiated Mrs. Buscarlet appears a person unworthy of notice, she lets go free, for which favor Mrs. Darley is devoutly grateful. Little Buscarlet himself, who has a weakness for birth, in that he lacks it, comes rambling up to them at this juncture, and tells them, with many a smirk, he hopes to have the pleasure of lunching with them at Herst, Mr. Amherst having sent him a special invitation, as he has something particular to say to him; whereupon Molly, who is nearest to him, laughs, and tells him she had no idea such luck was in store for her. "You are the greatest hypocrite I ever met in my life," Sir Penthony says in her ear, when Buscarlet, smiling, bowing, radiant, has moved on. "I am not indeed; you altogether mistake me," Molly answers. "If you only knew how his anxiety to please, and Marcia's determination _not_ to be pleased, amuse me, you would understand how thoroughly I enjoy his visits." "I ask your pardon. I had no idea we had a student of human nature among us. Don't study _me_, Miss Massereene, or it will unfit you for further exertions; I am a living mass of errors." "Alas that I cannot contradict you!" says Cecil, with a woful sigh, who is standing near them.