The evening meal on Sunday at the vicarage was of a strictly Sabbatical order, and consisted of cold things to eat and no waiting on the part of servants. It took place late after evening church and had, to Martin’s mind, a dreariness of its own, an individuality (to which Frank would have said it undoubtedly had a right) which marked it off from all other meals. Every one was fatigued with the exercises of the day, and though they were religious exercises which had produced that fatigue, it brought with it a tendency which made cheeriness difficult. However, cheeriness was not a quality exactly encouraged by Mr. Challoner on Sunday, so perhaps that was all for the good. But this evening, Martin, who had spent the whole afternoon at his uncle’s, coming back only just before supper, was conscious of a Sunday easily got through, and was chattering on with a good deal of rather thoughtless enjoyment about Lady Sunningdale, every now and then mimicking, with extreme fidelity, some more than usually incoherent speech of hers in which Wagner, her dogs, South Italy, her husband, egg-shell china, and scandal were about equal ingredients, without noticing a somewhat ominous gravity that was deepening on his father’s face. At length Mr. Challoner spoke, interrupting him. “There, dear Martin, is not that enough? It is Sunday evening, remember. Cannot we find something rather more suitable to the day to talk about? And you would scarcely like Lady Sunningdale, who is so good to you, to know that you imitate her.” “Oh, she is always insisting that I should do it to her face,” said Martin. “I often do. She shrieks.” “That is enough, I think, Martin,” said his father again, mindful of their compact of the evening before, and determining to be gentle. “Have you only just come back?” “Half an hour ago,” said Martin, the gleam in his eye suddenly quenched, for he knew what the next question must be. “Then, you did not go to church this evening?” asked his father. “No; I had been twice.” Now, Mr. Challoner had been from church to Sunday-school and from Sunday-school to church practically since eight that morning, and it not in the least unreasonable that he should be tired with so many busy hours in ill-ventilated places on so hot a day. The effect of this tiredness on him, as on most of us, was shewn in a tendency to that which, when it occurs in children, their elders label “crossness.” And he answered in a tone in which that very common emotion was apparent. “I was not asking you to justify your absence,” he said, and the meal proceeded in rather dreary silence.