The two ladies were loud in their surprise then, while for a moment the curate sipped his tea in silence. The brass kettle hissed and bubbled on the hob. The tea-set twinkled cheerfully on the wicker table, and faint scents of flowers and fabrics filled the room with an atmosphere which he had long come to associate with Laura. It was Laura Hammond, indeed, who had introduced him to this new world. The son of an accountant living in a small Lincolnshire town, he owed his clerical profession to his mother’s ardent wish that he should rise in the world. His father was not wealthy, and, before he came as curate to Claversham, Mr. Clode had had no experience of society. Then, alighting: on a sudden in the midst of much such a small town as his native place, he found himself astonishingly transmogrified into a person of social importance. He found every door open to him, and among them the Hammonds’, who were admitted to be the first people in the town. He fell in easily enough with the “new learning,” but the central figure in the novel pleasant world of refinement continued throughout to be Laura Hammond. Much petting had somewhat spoiled him, and it annoyed him now, as he sat sipping his tea, to observe that the ladies were far from displeased with his tidings. “If he is a young man, he is sure not to be evangelical,” said Mrs. Hammond decisively. “That is well. That is a comfort, at any rate.” “He will play tennis, I dare say,” said Laura. “And Mr. Bonamy will be kept in some order now,” Mrs. Hammond continued. “Not that I am blaming you, Mr. Clode,” she added graciously—indeed, the curate was a great favorite with her, “but in your position you could do nothing with a man so impracticable.” “He really will be an acquisition,” cried Laura gleefully, her brown eyes shining in the firelight. And she made her tiny lace handkerchief into a ball and flung it up—and did not catch it, for, with all her talk of lawn-tennis, she was no great player. Her _rôle_ lay rather in the drawing-room. She was as fond of comfort as a cat, and loved the fire with the love of a dog, and was, in a word, pre-eminently feminine, delighting to surround herself with all such things as tended to set off this side of her nature. “But now,” she continued briskly, when the curate had recovered her handkerchief for her, “tell me what you think of him. Is he nice?” “Certainly; I should say so,” the curate answered, smiling.