As Morris read he ceased to laugh. “Yes,” he thought to himself, “‘solitude in a wretched little boat’ does promote mutual understanding. I am not certain that it does not promote it too much.” Then, with an access of irritation, “Bother the people! I wish I could be rid of them; the whole thing seems likely to become a worry.” Next he took up a letter from his father, which, when perused, did not entertain him in the least. There was nothing about Lady Rawlins in it, of whom he longed to hear, or thought that he did; nothing about that entrancing personality, the bibulous and violent Sir Jonah, now so meek and lamblike, but plenty, whole pages indeed, as to details connected with the estate. Also it contained a goodly sprinkling of sarcasms and grumblings at his, Morris’s, bad management of various little matters which the Colonel considered important. Most of all, however, was his parent indignant at his neglect to furnish him with details sufficiently ample of the progress of the new buildings. Lastly, he desired, by return of post, a verbatim report of the quarrel that, as he was informed, had occurred on the school board when a prominent Roman Catholic threatened to throw an inkstand at a dissenting minister who, _coram populo_, called him the son of “a Babylonian woman.” By the time that Morris had finished this epistle, and two others which accompanied it, he was in no mood for further reflections of an unpractical or dreamy nature. Who can wonder when it is stated that they contained, respectively, a summary demand for the amount of a considerable bill which he imagined he had paid, and a request that he would read a paper before a “Science Institute” upon the possibilities of aerial telephones, made by a very unpleasing lady whom he had once met at a lawn-tennis party? Indeed it would not be too much to say that if anyone had given him the opportunity he would have welcomed a chance to quarrel, especially with the lady of the local Institute. Thus, cured of all moral distempers, and every tendency to speculate on feminine charms, hidden or overt, did he descend to the Sabbath breakfast. That morning Morris accompanied Stella to church, where the services were still being performed by a stop-gap left by Mr. Tomley. Here, again, Stella was a surprise to him, for now her demeanour, and at a little distance her appearance also, were just such as mark ninety-eight out of every hundred clergyman’s daughters in the country. So quiet and reserved was she that anyone meeting her that morning might have imagined that she was hurrying from the accustomed Bible-class to sit among her pupils in the church. This impression indeed was, as it were, certificated by an old-fashioned silk fichu that she had been obliged to borrow, which in bygone years had been worn by Morris’s mother.