"Thanks awfully. I shall value it for the giver's sake. And I promise you that when next we meet--such care shall it receive--even _you_ will be unable to discover a scratch on it." "Plantagenet, you are a bad boy," says Cecil. "I thought the choir rather good," Molly is saying; "but why must a man read the service in a long, slow, tearful tone? Surely there is no good to be gained by it; and to find one's self at 'Amen' when he is only in the middle of the prayer has something intolerably irritating about it. I could have shaken that curate." "Why didn't you?" says Sir Penthony. "I would have backed you up with the greatest pleasure. The person I liked best was the old gentleman with the lint-white locks who said 'Yamen' so persistently in the wrong place all through; I grew quite interested at last, and knew the exact spot where it was likely to come in. I must say I admire consistency." "How hard it is to keep one's attention fixed," Molly says, meditatively, "and to preserve a properly dismal expression of countenance! To look solemn always means to look severe, as far as I can judge. And did you ever notice when a rather lively and secular set of bars occur in the voluntary, how people cheer up and rouse themselves, and give way to a little sigh or two? I hope it isn't a sigh of relief. We feel it's wicked, but we always do it." "Still studying poor human nature," exclaims Sir Penthony. "Miss Massereene, I begin to think you a terrible person, and to tremble when I meet your gaze." "Well, at all events no one can accuse them of being High Church," says Mrs. Darley, alluding to her pastors and masters for the time being. "The service was wretchedly conducted; hardly any music, and not a flower to speak of." "My dear! High Church! How could you expect it? Only fancy that curate intoning!" says Cecil, with a laugh. "I couldn't," declares Sir Penthony; "so much exertion would kill me." "That's why he _isn't_ High Church," says Mr. Potts of the curate, speaking with a rather sweeping air of criticism. "He ain't musical; he can't intone. Take my word for it, half the clergy are Anglicans merely because they think they have voices, and feel what a loss the world will sustain if it don't hear them." "Oh, what a malicious remark!" says Molly, much disgusted. Here the scene is further enlivened by the reappearance of Mr. Amherst and the lawyer, which effectually ends the conversation and turns their thoughts toward the dining-room. CHAPTER XX. "Trifles light as air." --_Othello._ When luncheon is over, Sir Penthony Stafford retires to write a letter or two, and half an hour afterward, returning to the drawing-room, finds himself in the presence of Mr. Buscarlet, unsupported. The little lawyer smiles benignly; Sir Penthony responds, and, throwing himself into a lounging-chair, makes up his mind to be agreeable.