Doctor Tutterville drew his chair back from the table, crossed his legs and prepared to enjoy himself, nothing being better for the digestion than quiet laughter. Madam deposited her basket, and selecting a snowy churchwarden pipe from the box that reposed upon the bench by the side of the pear-tree, proceeded to fill it with Bristol tobacco out of a brass pot. Very lightly did she stuff the bowl: for the Rector took his tobacco as he took his other pleasures—a few light whiffs, the best of the herb! “Once the freshness and fragrance gone,” he was wont to say, “you might as well drink wine after you had ceased to possess its flavour.” “Well, my love?” said he, as he took the brittle stem between his fore and second finger. “Well, Horatio,” said she, comfortably subsiding on the bench. “I have been to Bindon, and, oh, my dear Doctor, what a change has come over the place!” “I remarked the improvement,” said the parson, “both in sweetness and in light upon my visit three days ago. That daughter of brother Rickart’s seems a capable young woman.” “Bring up a child,” quoth Madam Sophia, complacently. “I flatter myself she does credit to my early training. You have not forgotten, Doctor, that ’twas I who (as the scripture bids us) directed that young idea how to shoot. I vow,” cried she, “I could not be setting about things better myself. But, oh, Horatio, how are the mighty humbled!... I refer to Margery Nutmeg.” “Mrs. Nutmeg’s manners are always so much too humble for my liking,” said the divine, “that I presume you allude thus rhetorically to her circumstances.” “Certainly, my dear Doctor—_ex cathedrum_, as you would say.” “I never should, my dear. But let it pass.” “You know what a thorn in the spirits these goings on of hers have been to me and you will therefore lift up your voice and rejoice, I feel sure, when I tell you that my dear niece has now all the keys in her possession. Margery has found her mistress again.” The divine laid down his pipe and the benign amusement of his expression gave way to a look of gravity. “No doubt,” he said, after a pause, “you good ladies know what you are doing. But personally, I should prefer not to retain Mrs. Nutmeg on the premises if it was my business to thwart her.” But madam, strong in a sense of victory over the dreaded enemy, scouted the suggestion. “That excellent girl, Ellinor, was actually having the meat weighed and apportioned,” she announced triumphantly, “at the very moment of my arrival this morning. So Mistress Margery’s retail business hath come to an end. A sheep killed every week, Horatio, and pork in the servants’ hall! The woman was an absolute Salomite! How often did I not remind her of Paul’s warning! ‘Serve ye your masters with flesh in fear and trembling.’” The gentle merriment that Madam Tutterville was happily wont to take as a token of approval in her lord, here shook his goodly form.