On these excursions the Archdeacon felt he could not, even privately to his daughter, put an embargo, without giving them an importance which they might not deserve, and even suggesting to his daughter’s mind ideas that might never lodge there unless suggested. To be sure, the Archdeacon might accompany the young folk on these jaunts; but the archdeacon, like many less exalted individuals, liked to take his ease of an afternoon, and found himself on all the better terms with himself and mankind in general for forty winks in the armchair of his study, after luncheon of an afternoon, when it was a matter of faith in the household that he was meditating his next Sunday sermon, and must on no account be disturbed. And so it came about that if Edward spent many a long hour with the father over the wearying and irritating concerns of the Iron Works, or holding forth, as was his wont, upon topics of more general interest, sometimes startling, sometimes alarming, but always interesting the Vicar, he spent also hours that seemed neither long, tedious, nor irritating with Eleanor St. Clair, when we may be sure the subjects of conversation were neither law nor theology nor commerce. “This kind of thing, Miss St. Clair, is idyllic,” said Beaumont. “I have always had my mental picture of the Lady Bountiful of a village. She must, of course, be beautiful, with a soft, musical, tender voice, a heart quick to feel, and a soft and lily-white hand quick to help. Her path is strewn beneath her feet with the heartfelt blessings of the poor and afflicted. She moves a ministering angel among the hovels of the destitute.” “Ah! now, Mr. Beaumont, you are laughing at me. Surely you would have me help the sick and needy.” “It is the most priceless prerogative of the rich, and if I seem to mock I hasten to cry _peccavi_. But, seriously, this kind of parochial charity is but a dainty dilettantism, and you engage in it, Miss St. Clair, I beg you to confess, partly because it grieves you to see suffering without trying to relieve it and partly because it is picturesque.” “Then I shall confess nothing of the kind, Mr. Beaumont. It is my simple duty to visit the sick and to do what little I can to ease their pains.” “There’s Stokes the cobbler laid up with the lumbago, I am told. I went into his little shop the other day to get a trifling repair done, and the poor old fellow was nearly doubled up with pain, and, if I’m not very much mistaken, slowly dying of hunger. Shall we take Stokes the cobbler on our round?” “Stokes does not belong to us, Mr. Beaumont. Papa would not like me to visit him. And I’m not sure that Stokes would be over civil to me.” “He seemed a surly sort of customer, truly. I was chatting away quite comfortably with him when I mentioned casually that I was staying at the Vicarage. Then he seemed to shut himself up as I’ve seen a flower do in an east wind. Is there war between him and the Vicarage?”