Elizabeth had looked forward with horror to the prospect of a Sunday shut in with the Arthur Townshend of her imagination, but the actual being so much less black than her fancy had painted she could view the prospect with equanimity, hoping only that such a spate of services might not prove too chastening an experience for a worldly guest. Sabbath morning was always rather a worried time for Elizabeth. For one thing, the Sabbath seemed to make Buff's brain more than usually fertile in devising schemes of wickedness, and then, her father _would_ not hurry. There he sat, calmly contemplative, in the study while his daughter implored him to remember the "intimations," and to be sure to put in that there was a Retiring Collection for the Aged and Infirm Ministers' Fund. Mr. Seton disliked a plethora of intimations, and protested that he had already six items. "Oh, Father," cried his exasperated daughter, "what _is_ the use of saying that when they've all to be made?" "Quite true, Lizbeth," said her father meekly. Mr. Seton always went off to church walking alone, Elizabeth following, and the boys straggling behind. "I'm afraid," said Elizabeth to Mr. Townshend, as they walked down the quiet suburban road with its decorous villa-residences--"I'm afraid you will find this rather a strenuous day. I don't suppose in Persia--and elsewhere--you were accustomed to give the Sabbath up wholly to 'the public and private exercises of God's worship'?" Mr. Townshend confessed that he certainly had not. "Oh, well," said Elizabeth cheeringly, "it will be a new experience. We generally do five services on Sunday. My brother Walter used to say that though he never entered a church again, his average would still be higher than most people's. What king was it who said he was a 'sair saunt for the Kirk'? I can sympathise with him." They drifted into talk, and became so engrossed that they had left the suburbs and had nearly reached the church before Elizabeth remembered the boys and stopped and looked round for them. "I don't see the boys. They must have come another way. D'you mind going back with me to see if they're coming down Cumberland Street?"