"I _am_ glad to make your acquaintance!" he said cordially. Manvers took the outstretched hand with a few mumbled words, but an evident look of pleasure. "I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_," said Meynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess, with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of the man. Mrs. Flaxman shook her head. "I am an ignoramus--except about music. I make Mr. Manvers talk to me." "Oh, but you must read it! I hope you won't mind my quoting a long bit from it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clerical conference at Markborough next week, at which I am reading a paper. I want to make 'em all read you! What? Tea? I should think so!" Then, to his hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been down a pit--and the dust was pretty bad." "Not an accident, I hope?" said Mrs. Flaxman, as she handed him his cup. "No. But a man had a stroke in the pit while he was at work. They thought he was going to die--he was a great friend of mine--and they sent for me. We got him up with difficulty. He has a bedridden wife--daughters all away, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward, looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"how long are you going to be here--at Maudeley?" "We have taken the house for a year," said Rose, surprised. "Will you give me a parish nurse for that time? It won't cost much, and it will do a lot of good," said the Rector earnestly. "The people here are awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poor souls--and I can't get the sick folk properly looked after. Will you?" Mrs. Flaxman's manner showed embarrassment. Within a few feet of her sat the squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made Henry Barron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozen nurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, the newcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that the Rector was not exactly showing tact. "Won't Mr. Barron help?" She threw a smiling appeal toward him. Barron, conscious of an irritation and discomfort he had some difficulty in controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note as the rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was not really required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinion quite capable of nursing their husbands and sons.