She felt happy, but a little out of place, and looked it, perhaps, for the vicar, a stolid, white-bearded, dignified man, stared at her over the pulpit cushion, discreetly, while a thin, little, sharp-nosed lady, presumably of some authority in the congregation, did so, too, indiscreetly. Jane Anne, who played the harmonium, was discretion itself and never even glanced her way, but Mrs. Elles thought she read excommunication and condemnation in every turn of her not too supple wrist. “So you go to church every Sunday?” Mrs. Elles said to Rivers, as they walked down the path and away together. “Somehow I thought artists---- ” “Never went to church?” He finished her sentence for her. “Well, I don’t know. I don’t do it as a religious observance, exactly, I am afraid. I do it because I like it, here in the country. Besides,” he added, “it is a beautiful church!” Mrs. Elles, who considered herself an agnostic, was satisfied, by this speech, that Rivers’ church-going was the result of his indulgence of æsthetic needs rather than spiritual ones; though, indeed, she would have been quite ready to embrace any faith to which he should pronounce his adhesion. “How picturesque the Vicar’s white hair is!” she remarked, aloud. “Do you know him?” “Oh, yes; Mr. Popham. He will come now to call on you, since you have been to call on him.” “Good heavens! Does he go to see you?” she cried, with what would appear to be uncalled-for emphasis. “Yes; he comes now and again, but I am always out. We generally meet somewhere about the place, and then we get on very well. He had a tiresome habit of coming and looking over my shoulder at Brignal, but I have trained him not to stay very long.” “Is he married?” she enquired, eagerly. “Yes; that was his wife in the pew to the right.” “Does she come and look over your shoulder, too?” “She takes a tender interest in my work,” Rivers said, laughing. “She is by way of being an artist herself, you see.” “That little, starved, angular, high-cheek-boned woman, without a touch of artistic feeling about her, and bonnet strings of the wrong colour!” “You must not go by bonnet strings entirely. They are a matter of convention. Mrs. Popham has a very good eye for colour, let me tell you, only she is dreadfully shy of publicity, and would think it quite improper to exhibit. One never knows into what vessels the spirit will be poured. I go in in the evening sometimes and look over her sketches; she is very good to me. She walked all the way to Brignal once, with a cork mat for me to put my feet on!” “And did you use it? I never see you!” “It bores me--that sort of thing bores me. You will find it in my sketching bag, though.” “What is the good of carrying it there and back every day, if you don’t use it?” “Ah, but in case she were to come, I would hastily adjust it under my feet, so as not to hurt her feelings. But she is not likely to walk so far.” “I suppose she is perfectly devoted to you, like everybody else?”