"I hope Mr Proctor is going to stay with us for a day or two," said Mrs Morgan. "I was just saying it must look like coming home to come to the house he used to live in, and which was even furnished to his own taste," said the Rector's wife, shooting a little arrow at the late Rector, of which that good man was serenely unconscious. All this time, while they had been talking, Mrs Morgan had scarcely been able to keep from asking who could possibly have suggested such a carpet. Mr Proctor's chair was placed on the top of one of the big bouquets, which expanded its large foliage round him with more than Eastern prodigality--but he was so little conscious of any culpability of his own in the matter, that he had referred his indignant hostess to one of the leaves as an illustration of the kind of diaper introduced into the new window which had lately been put up in the chapel of All-Souls. "A naturalistic treatment, you know," said Mr Proctor, with the utmost serenity; "and some people objected to it," added the unsuspicious man. "I should have objected very strongly," said Mrs Morgan, with a little flush. "If you call that naturalistic treatment, I consider it perfectly out of place in decoration--of every kind--" Mr Proctor happened to be looking at her at the moment, and it suddenly occurred to him that Miss Wodehouse never got red in that uncomfortable way, which was the only conclusion he drew from the circumstance, having long ago forgotten that any connection had ever existed between himself and the carpet on the drawing-room in Carlingford Rectory. He addressed his next observation to Mr Morgan, who had just come in. "I saw Mr Wodehouse's death in the 'Times,'" said Mr Proctor, "and I thought the poor young ladies might feel--at least they might think it a respect--or, at all events, it would be a satisfaction to one's self," said the late Rector, who had got into a mire of explanation. "Though he was far from being a young man, yet having a young daughter like Miss Lucy--" "Poor Lucy!" said Mr Morgan. "I hope that wretched fellow, young Wentworth"--and here the Rector came to a dead stop, and felt that he had brought the subject most to be avoided head and shoulders into the conversation, as was natural to an embarrassed man. The consequence was that he got angry, as might have been expected. "My dear, you must not look at me as you do. I have just been hearing all the evidence. No unbiassed mind could possibly come to any other decision," said Mr Morgan, with exasperation. Now that he had committed himself, he thought it was much the best thing to go in for it wholly, without half measures, which was certainly the most straightforward way.