"For shame, Julius!" said Rosamond. "Don't you know that one afternoon, when Nora had cried for forty minutes over her sum, she declared that she wanted to make her eyes as beautiful as Mr. Charnock's. Well, what was the effect?" "Startling," said Raymond. "He came down in shades of every kind of crimson and scarlet. A fearful object, with his pink-and-white face glowing under it." "And what I had to undergo from Susan!" added Julius. "She washed me, and soaped me, and rubbed me, till I felt as if all the threshing-machines in the county were about my head, lecturing me all the time on the profanity of flying against Scripture by trying to alter one's hair from what Providence had made it. Nothing would do; her soap only turned it into shades of lemon and primrose. I was fain to let her shave my head as if I had a brain fever; and I was so horribly ashamed for years after, that I don't think I have set foot in Long Street since till to-day." "Pettitt is a queer little fellow," said Herbert. "The most truculent little Radical to hear him talk, and yet staunch in his votes, for he can't go against those whose hair he has cut off from time immemorial." "I hope he has not lost much," said Julius. "His tenements are down, but they were insured; and as to his stock, he says he owes its safety entirely to you, Julius. I think he would present you with both his models as a testimonial, if you could only take them," said Raymond. Cecil had neither spoken nor laughed through all this. She was nursing her wrath; and after marching out of the dining-room, lay in wait to intercept her husband, and when she had claimed his attention, began, "Rosamond ought not to be allowed to say such things." "What things?" "Speaking in that improper way about a gown." "She seems to have said what was the fact." "It can't be! It is preposterous! I never heard it before." "Nor I; but Bindon evidently is up in those matters." "It was only to support Rosamond; and I am quite sure she said it out of mere opposition to me. You ought to speak to Julius." "About what?" said Raymond. "Her laughing whenever I mention Dunstone, and tell them the proper way of doing things." "There may be different opinions about the proper way of doing things." Then as she opened her eyes in wonder and rebuke, he continued, in his elder-brotherly tone of kindness, "You know I told you already that you had better not interfere in matters concerning his church and parish." "We always managed things at Dunstone." Hang Dunstone! was with some difficulty suppressed; but in an extra gentle voice Raymond said, "Your father did what he thought his duty, but I do not think it mine, nor yours, to direct Julius in clerical matters. It can only lead to disputes, and I will not have them." "It is Rosamond. I'm sure I don't dispute."