Cecily's kind, firm little hand, still wearing the cotton gloves of convent days, crept over the carriage rug, and closed for a moment over her new cousin's fingers. Mrs. Robinson went on: 'Philip Hammond is the salt of the earth, and Mrs. Pomfret is an angel, but I never see them without being told something I would rather not hear. Now, David Winfrith, who has so much to do with the many responsibilities connected with the Settlement, never worries me in that way. Perhaps if he did,' she concluded in a lower tone, 'I should see him as seldom as I do the others.' 'And who,' asked Cecily with some eagerness--'who is David Winfrith?' 'Like Daphne's,' answered Mrs. Robinson, 'his is an inherited friendship. His father, who is a clergyman, was one of my father's oldest friends.' Then quickly she added: 'I should not have said that, for David Winfrith is one of my own best friends, the one person to whom I feel I can always turn when I want anything done. What will perhaps interest you more is the fact that he is becoming a really distinguished man. If you read the _Morning Post_ as regularly as I know your aunt reads it----' 'She has left off taking in a daily paper,' said Cecily quickly. 'She says it tries her eyes to read too much.' But Penelope went on, unheeding: 'You would know a great deal more about Mr. Winfrith and his doings than you seem to do now. Seriously, he is the kind of honest, plodding, earnest fellow whom the British public like to feel is looking after them, and each day he looks after them more than he did the day before. And he will go plodding on till in time--who knows?--he may become the Grand Panjandrum, the Prime Minister himself!' 'Then, he does not live at the Settlement?' 'Oh no! He has sometimes thought of spending a holiday there, but he very properly feels that he owes his free time to his father; but even when resting he works hard, for he is, and always has been, provokingly healthy. As for his connection with the Settlement, it has become his hobby. To please himself'--Mrs. Robinson spoke quickly, as if in self-defence--'no one ever asked him to do so--he looks after the business side of everything connected with the place. I am the Queen, and he is the Prime Minister; that is, he listens very civilly to all I have to say, and then he does exactly what he himself thinks proper! Of course, I get my way sometimes; for instance, he disapproved of Daphne Purdon.' 'I thought they were great friends,' said Cecily, surprised. 'He gave her the first Blue-Book she ever read.' 'Ah!' said Mrs. Robinson, 'did he? That was just like him, trying to make a pig's ear out of a silk purse! Still, even so, he will certainly be delighted to hear of her execution; for he saw from the very first that she was quite unsuited for the life, and, of course, like all of us, he likes to be proved right.'