It never occurred to my present host and hostess to attend any church but their legitimate parish one, whither we all dutifully bent our steps to the appointed places. There was no waiting in the aisle, no pushing or crowding, however decorously veiled. The service now-a-days, no doubt, would strike most people as dull, and by no means soul-stirring, and perhaps to a great extent so it was! But all things in this world have their two sides. There was something dignified and reverent about the whole proceedings, which I have always remembered with a certain admiration; appreciative of, and I hope grateful, though I am, for the more abundant life and light which have in such things come to us in the latter half of the present century. I don't remember anything about the sermon, except that it was gentle and mildly instructive, the preacher giving one the impression of being a scholar and a gentleman of the old school. But whatever it was, it suited me that day. So did the whole course of things. The quiet little walk home across the square; the simple, though carefully served, cold luncheon; the afternoon in my own room, where, as the day was chilly, a nice little fire greeted me. Then the comfortable, somewhat "schoolroom-like" five o'clock tea, to which one or two intimate friends dropped in. Church again later, for those who felt equal to it, of which I was not one, and supper, followed by some favourite hymns, led by Mrs Payne's sweet voice, and accompanied by Rupert on a chamber-organ installed for the purpose in the library. I liked it all. I had no private talk with Clarence that day, and when I came down to breakfast on the Monday morning, though I had intended to be very early, I found he had already gone. I felt a little disappointed, but that was all. There was something about him which gave one a feeling of security and stability. I felt certain he would not forget a syllable of what had passed between us--that he was not the kind of character to do so, even if his own keen interest and sympathy had not been involved in the matter, as I knew that they so thoroughly were. That evening there was a little dinner-party in my honour. I was to leave the next morning, and Mrs Payne had exerted herself to get together a few friends whom she knew intimately enough to invite at short notice. There was one remarkably pretty girl, the daughter or niece of the senior partner in the Payne firm, whose death, a year or so ago, Rupert had told me of. She was something of an heiress, the same informant told me; in _his_ opinion the man she was just going to be married to was not "half good enough for her." "Had it been _Clarence_ now," he proceeded to say, with the funny little half-patronising air, which, in conjunction somehow with his literary aspirations, was so amusing, "one would not have wondered." "But she looks exceedingly happy," I ventured to remark.