"Pray take a seat," he said, pushing forward an armchair, the leather cover and springs of which were decidedly tired. "I at once begged you to come in here, because in speaking of personal and parochial matters one cannot, I feel, be too careful. Mr. Wingate--the rector of Stoke Rivers, you know--wished, I am sure, to treat me with generosity when I undertook the duty here. He not only placed the whole of this house at my disposal, but he left two female servants--not on board wages--an elderly woman and a younger person as her assistant. The intention was generous, I feel sure; but I grieve to say they are not such staunch church-women as I could desire, and this has led to difficulties between us. I thought it my duty to admonish them, separately, of course, suiting my remonstrances to their respective ages and dispositions. But they did not receive my admonitions in a submissive spirit. Since then I have found it necessary to exercise great caution. There has been much gossip. Remarks of mine have been repeated, and that not in a manner calculated to improve my position with the parishioners. My actions are spied upon. There is a small, but bigoted, dissenting element in the village, and----" "Ah! yes, they're a nuisance, I dare say," Laurence put in, smiling. "Still, it's a charming place, all the same. I have just been poking round the church. There are some wonderfully quaint bits about it. And I like the churchyard." "I could wish to have the graves levelled, and the head and foot stones placed neatly in line on the confines of the enclosure." "Oh! no, no; that would destroy the character of the place. We can't carry anything away with us--granted--when we go. And so there's a certain subjective comfort in knowing we leave a little mound of earth and turf behind to mark our resting-place. That's hardly ostentatious, considering our pretensions during life--do you think so?" Mr. Beal shifted the position of his spectacles. He braced himself. "The churchyard has been levelled at Bishop's Pudbury," he said. "I had the privilege of being assistant priest there for five years. The archdeacon is considered a man of great taste." "I should have thought the parishioners would have objected now," Laurence remarked. "So they did," Mr. Beal replied. "I grieve to say some persons displayed a most illiberal spirit. They called meetings, and behaved in a really seditious manner. Many even became guilty of the sin of schism. They ceased to attend the church services, and frequented dissenting places of worship. The archdeacon was pained; but he felt a principle was at stake. He has long contended that the churchyard is legally the rector's freehold. He therefore felt it a duty to the Church to be firm." Laurence contemplated the young clergyman with a touch of good-natured amusement, wondering if, with that anæmic physique, he was capable of emulating the militant virtues of the archdeacon-rector of Bishop's Pudbury.