"You really think so," said the vicar with an anxious little smile. "I should be very happy if I thought my wife would take that view of it." "Oh, she's sure to," said Beth. "But don't tell her about it until it's quite finished. It would be so much better if it comes to her as a surprise." "I won't open my lips," said Beth, "and you can count on Jimmy. He's most reliable." "And do you really think," said the vicar, appealing to Jimmy, "that I have succeeded at last in doing something for the parish?" "I can only say, sir," said Jimmy, rising from the bier, "that I wish I'd half your luck. I came up to your church this evening hoping to find something really useful to do, something which would redeem my life from mere fatuity----" "Oh, do shut up, Jimmy," said Beth. "I never said that." "Not in those words," said Jimmy, "not in nearly such nice words, though you are an author. But it's exactly what you meant. And now I find----" he turned to the vicar, "that you've been beforehand with me. I congratulate you." The vicar seemed puzzled. He looked inquiringly at Beth out of his colourless, watery eyes, while Jimmy shook his limp and earthy hand with painful heartiness. Chapter XVI Of the actual performance of the Hailey Compton pageant it is surely unnecessary to give any account here. Every newspaper in England devoted columns to the description of the brilliant scene. It is impossible for anyone to have escaped reading something about it and, knowing that it was an immense success, perhaps the most popular show since the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The least observant among us can scarcely have helped looking at the picture of the last Prime Minister, in a silk hat and frock coat, shaking hands with Lord Colavon, the helmsman of the lugger, who was attired, in spite of Sir Evelyn's antiquarian scruples, in white flannels and a yachting cap. Quite as widely reproduced was the photograph of the bishop patting the head of one of the pack horses, while the two girls responsible for it stood beside him with chaste smiles, as if they expected to have their heads patted when the bishop had done with the horse; which indeed happened to both of them, though the photographs of that patting were not published.