"But now tell me, my dear," said old Mrs Proctor, "who's Mr Wodehouse?" With despairing calmness, the Rector approached his voice to her ear. "He's a churchwarden!" cried the unfortunate man, in a shrill whisper. "He's what?--you forget I don't hear very well. I'm a great deal deafer, Morley, my dear, than I was the last time you were in Devonshire. What did you say Mr Wodehouse was?" "He's an ass!" exclaimed the baited Rector. Mrs Proctor nodded her head with a great many little satisfied assenting nods. "Exactly my own opinion, my dear. What I like in your manner of expressing yourself, Morley, is its conciseness," said the laughing old lady. "Just so--exactly what I imagined; but being an ass, you know, doesn't account for him coming here so often. What is he besides, my dear?" The Rector made spasmodic gestures towards the door, to the great amusement of his lively mother; and then produced, with much confusion and after a long search, his pocketbook, on a leaf of paper in which he wrote--loudly, in big characters--"He's a churchwarden--they'll hear in the kitchen." "He's a churchwarden! And what if they do hear in the kitchen?" cried the old lady, greatly amused; "it isn't a sin. Well, now, let me hear: has he a family, Morley?" Again Mr Proctor showed a little discomposure. After a troubled look at the door, and pause, as if he meditated a remonstrance, he changed his mind, and answered, "Two daughters!" shouting sepulchrally into his mother's ear. "Oh so!" cried the old lady--"_two daughters_--so, so--that explains it all at once. I know now why he comes to the Rectory so often. And, I declare, I never thought of it before. Why, you're always there!--so, so--and he's got _two daughters_, has he? To be sure; now I understand it all." The Rector looked helpless and puzzled. It was difficult to take the initiative and ask why--but the poor man looked so perplexed and ignorant, and so clearly unaware what the solution was, that the old lady burst into shrill, gay laughter as she looked at him. "I don't believe you know anything about it," she said. "Are they old or young? are they pretty or ugly? Tell me all about them, Morley." Now Mr Proctor had not the excuse of having forgotten the appearance of the two Miss Wodehouses: on the contrary, though not an imaginative man, he could have fancied he saw them both before him--Lucy lost in noiseless laughter, and her good elder sister deprecating and gentle as usual. We will not even undertake to say that a gleam of something blue did not flash across the mind of the good man, who did not know what ribbons were. He was so much bewildered that Mrs Proctor repeated her question, and, as she did so, tapped him pretty smartly on the arm to recall his wandering thoughts.