“Well, you’re out this time, Mr. Beaumont. The landlord—he’s people’s warden, you know, at the church and a most respectable man—turned Stokes out because, whenever he went of a Saturday night, he drank only one mug of small beer in a matter of three hours, and all the time discoursed of nothing but the evils of strong drink. He so frightened our undergardener, who was of the company, that he turned teetotaller, and got my maid to stitch him a piece of blue ribbon in the lapel of his Sunday coat.” “That was carrying the war into the enemy’s camp with a vengeance. Well, he won’t be able to corrupt the farm labourers any longer of a Saturday night now he’s ejected from the ‘Blue Boar.’” “Oh! they’ve started a club, and Joseph Arch came to open it. Papa was so upset he fled to Lincoln, and stopped a whole week at the Palace, though he does nothing but quarrel with the dear bishop.” “And I suppose the Vicarage set the fashion in tabooing this poor son of St. Crispin?” “Of course, papa cannot countenance atheism and arson” “Clearly. But if the man’s ill, the man’s ill, and atheist or no atheist the man’s a man. I’m sorry I didn’t know more about him when I went to have my boot stretched. However, the other boot isn’t very comfortable, that’s one consolation.” They walked on in silence for a time. Then, apropos of nothing, Eleanor said, very quietly: “The man must have some good about him or he wouldn’t be so fond of birds and animals. I think my boot is not very comfortable, Mr. Beaumont.” Edward laughed gaily. “What will the Archdeacon say?” “Oh! papa won’t mind. He’ll probably tell me I’m a goose for my pains.” “Ah! well; I don’t know. I think the Church makes a mistake in being so discriminating in its charity.” “You are a universal fault-finder, Mr. Beaumont. But I suppose that is what makes you a Radical. It must be a very unhappy state of mind—to be always seeing the imperfections of things.” “Somebody must do it, Miss St. Clair. Even critics have their uses. But when you announced so unexpectedly that your shoe pinched you, I was wondering how Sister Gertrude would have dealt with old Stokes.” “I didn’t know you had a sister. Do tell me about her.” “Well you see, I haven’t, except in a very broad sense. Sister Gertrude is the name of a young lady I met under rather interesting circumstances. Shall I tell you about her?” Then Edward narrated the story of the troubles of Patrick Sullivan. “Was she very beautiful?” “Very. It was a sort of awful beauty. You forgot the artistic delight inspired by her perfection of form, colour, and expression, in the sense that you gazed upon one who was superior to mere charm of person. There seemed something like sacrilege in thinking of her as beautiful. I suppose a devout Catholic does not let his thoughts dwell upon the physical charms of the Madonna.” “You cease to be critical, Mr. Beaumont, sometimes I see. And she was a lady, you say?” “Unquestionably, or I’m no judge.”