"Ah, yes," said the brewer's daughter softly, as she thought of her own little flirtation with the sallow French master, whose classes she had attended. "They may be fascinating," said Mrs. Wurzel spitefully, "but they always smell of tobacco and never cut their nails." Alas! the accusation was too true as regards the French master, at all events, and the brewer's daughter was temporarily extinguished. "To a person in the position of Hephzibah Wallis," said the vicar's wife magisterially, "the length of their nails is of little importance; it's their want of principle that I object to; as for this creature Capt, like the rest of them he is, I suppose, an atheist, or perhaps worse, a Papist, for when he was here with his master he never once came inside the church. Goody Wallis has asked me to write to her, and I shall certainly do so at once, distinctly forbidding it. I haven't mentioned the matter to Anastatia, for she is so weak and romantic that she's quite capable of writing herself to the girl and inciting her to rebellion." Here she carefully folded the letter and replaced it in her writing desk. "And your sister-in-law's own affair, dear Mrs. Dodd, is it an indiscretion to ask you if it is settled yet?" said old Mrs. Wurzel with sympathetic interest. "Stacey Dodd, Mrs. Wurzel, is, I regret to say, of a secretive nature; she does not confide in me. No, her own sister-in-law is the last person whom she would trust. But I believe, mind I do not state it as a fact, but I have reason to believe that she has refused the squire; his age was an obstacle, you know, and then Lucy would have been a difficulty. I don't think it would quite have been a bed of roses; that girl would have been a very serious responsibility indeed." A discreet tap was heard at the door. The vicar never presumed to enter his wife's room without knocking; he evidently had something to communicate. He saluted the ladies and commenced his tale at once. "A dreadful thing has happened. I have just returned from The Warren, where I left the squire in a natural state of violent indignation." The ladies expressed their curiosity. The portly vicar continued: "Oh, there's no secret about it, the country is ringing with it." Then he read the paragraph in _The Sphere_, with which the reader is acquainted. "Then, Mr. Dodd, we may understand that Georgina is the wife of a murderer," said Mrs. Dodd. "Well, my dear, not exactly that; you see they say he received great provocation, so he was bound to go out with him, I suppose." "Then my husband, a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England, approves of duelling, and is actually the champion of the--the--the assassin." The vicar's wife was fond of strong words; this was the strongest one she knew of, so she used it. "Well, but, my dear, consider the circumstances."