"I wanted to see him particularly," said the Vicar. "An old friend of mine, who has somewhat broken down in health, needs an assistant priest to go to him and do just the work that Denis has been doing here for your dear father. It would be the very place for him, if--if he were free to take it." He mentioned the name of his friend, of the pretty village in Devonshire of which he was Rector, and the stipend offered, while Rhoda and Ethel listened politely with meaning smiles on their faces, and wondered how they could ever have liked this man. Mrs. Mercer saw the smiles, and though she did not understand their full import divined something of their source. "Of course, dear," she said, "we know it is _possible_ that Denis may be preferred to this living. In that case this offer would be of no use to him. We only thought that if he _wasn't_--! And my husband hasn't told you that there's a charming little house, big enough for all three of you." "There was never really any chance of Denis's appointment here," said the Vicar, not without annoyance. "It was quite right to humour the poor old gentleman, as he so set his heart upon it; but Rhoda and Ethel are far too sensible to have any such ideas themselves; and it would be wrong too." Rhoda had once boasted that there was nothing of the cat in her, but she enquired very sweetly, "And why wrong, Mr. Mercer?" "My dear girl," said the Vicar, "you know as well as I do. It would be a job, and Bishops dare not perpetrate jobs in these days. And if you are inclined still to cherish hopes of that sort, as it is perhaps not altogether unnatural that you should, as you had to persuade your dear father of it for so long, let me tell you at once that the appointment has already been made, I am not at liberty to say in what quarter. But you will hear about it very soon." It was Ethel who said, "Oh, really, Mr. Mercer! Did the Bishop tell you that himself?" "You never told _me_, Albert, when you came back from the Palace yesterday," said Mrs. Mercer in an aggrieved voice. "It was not the Bishop himself, of course," said the Vicar. "But I had it on the best authority. Please don't ask me any more. The conversation was confidential." "It wasn't _you_ it was offered to, dear, was it?" enquired his wife. "No, I'm sure you would have told me that. I suppose Mr. Burgoyne must have told you." Mr. Burgoyne was the Bishop's chaplain.