“I’ve known some very charming French-women,” protested Edward. “We spent a month in Paris last autumn,” said the Archdeacon, “and I hadn’t a decent meal all the time I was there.” “Oh! Papa!” protested Eleanor. “The cooking is exquisite.” “A woman doesn’t understand cooking,” declared her father. “It is well known that if the matter had been left to Eve, we should never have progressed beyond tea and bread and butter.” “At any rate, Eve invented costumes,” suggested Edward. “The Palais-Royal was founded in Eden.” “Don’t speak disrespectfully of Eden,” said the Archdeacon. “I don’t. ’tis there we meet the first lawyer.” “You mean the serpent.” “_Teste_ Coleridge,” said Beaumont. “You remember the lines, Miss St. Clair?— ‘Cain and his brother Abel.’” “I never knew before how much we have to reproach you with, Mr. Beaumont.” “But if there had been no lawyers there would have been no—Archdeacons, shall we say?” “Oh, then, we’ll forgive them for the sake of the Archdeacons. You won’t keep me sitting by myself in the drawing-room too long, papa,” and Miss St. Clair swept through the door which Beaumont opened. “I declare we women have always to leave the table by the time men find their tongues.” “’Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance,” quoted Edward, as he bowed before her. “Fill up your glass, Wright,” said the Archdeacon. “That Burgundy’s all right, if you prefer it. But I’m for the vintage—what does our Lincolnshire bard sing?— ‘Whose father grape grew fat In Lusitanian summers.’ Did you see the _Standard_ this morning, Mr. Beaumont? I see the rumour grows more persistent that Gladstone may dissolve any day. He will go to the country, of course, on the Extension of the Franchise?” “And Parish Councils,” added Beaumont. “Cursed rot,” muttered the Squire. “That man will ruin the country. See if he don’t disestablish and disendow you, Archdeacon, before he dies.” “Mr. Gladstone’s a good Churchman, I always understood,” demurred Edward. “He’d rob his grandmother for power,” vowed the Squire. “Perhaps Mr. Beaumont is an admirer of his?” queried his host. “My grandfather was a Whig, my father a Liberal, and you may write me down a——” “‘Not an ass,’ that’s the correct quotation, I believe.” “No! a Radical.” “That’s worse!” said the Squire, with emphasis. “Radical lawyers are _raræaves_ are they not, Mr. Beaumont?” asked the Archdeacon. “Black swans. Black enough, I suppose, Mr. Wright thinks. Well, yes, in the country, men of my branch of the profession are generally Conservative. I don’t know why, except it be that they have the sense to know on which side their bread is buttered.” “Of course,” said the Squire; “the law and the land.” “But in my town,” said Edward, “there’s only one landlord and we can’t all live on him. But we manage to butter our bread pretty well all the same.” “No more wine, Mr. Beaumont? Then we’ll see if Miss St. Clair can give us a cup of tea.” CHAPTER IV.