"It does seem as if Providence was in it, after all," said Lady Kirwan piously. "No doubt, no doubt!" the banker answered jovially. "Just make the girl promise to make this house her home--she shall have perfect freedom to go and come as she pleases, of course--and everything will come right." They had settled it to their mutual satisfaction, and were about to send for Mary, when the butler entered the library and announced that the Reverend Mr. Persse had called and asked for her ladyship. Lady Kirwan was about to say that she was engaged, and could not see the clergyman, when Sir Augustus interposed. "I think I should see Mr. Persse, dear," he said. And then, when the man had gone: "We'll introduce him to this Joseph. It will be most amusing, and I want a little amusement, after being tied by the leg like this for nearly a fortnight. And besides, that humbug Persse will go and tell everyone in Mayfair, and it will give the whole thing a _cachet_ and a send-off! Don't say anything--leave it all to me." Sir Augustus did not like The Hon. Mr. Persse, the fashionable clergyman of Mayfair, and it was with a somewhat sardonic smile that he welcomed him a moment afterwards. The vicar of St. Elwyn's was a tall, clean-shaven priest, who would have been pompous had he not been so suave. His face was a smooth cream-color, his eyes ingratiating and perhaps a little furtive, while the mouth was mobile and clever. He occupied a somewhat peculiar position among the London clergy. He was an advanced Ritualist, inclining to many ceremonies that were purely Roman and Continental. But he had very little of the ascetic about him, and was as far removed from the patient, self-denying Anglican clergy of the slum districts in the East End, as four pounds of butter is from four o'clock. St. Elwyn's was one of the "smartest" congregations in London. The costly splendor of its ceremony, the perfection with which everything was done, attracted pleasure-loving people, who would go anywhere for a thrill that would act as the blow of a whip to jaded and enervated lives. Mr. Persse "catered"--the word exactly describes his methods--for precisely that class of people whom he was so successful in attracting.