Larkin smiled benignantly, and would have said something no doubt worth hearing, but at that moment the door opened, and his old cook and elderly parlour-maid--no breath of scandal ever troubled the serene fair fame of his household, and everyone allowed that, in the prudential virtues, at least, he was nearly perfect--and Sleddon the groom, walked in, with those sad faces which, I suppose, were first learned in the belief that they were acceptable to their master. 'Oh!' said Mr. Larkin, in a low, reverential tone, and the smile vanished; 'prayers!' 'Well, then, if you permit me, being a little tired, I'll go to my bed-room.' With a grave and affectionate interest, Mr. Larkin looked in his face, and sighed a little and said:-- 'Might I, perhaps, venture to beg, just this one night----' That chastened and entreating look it was hard to resist. But somehow the whole thing seemed to Lake to say, 'Do allow me this once to prescribe; do give your poor soul this one chance,' and Lake answered him superciliously and irreverently. 'No, thank you, no--any prayers I require I can manage for myself, thank you. Good-night.' And he lighted a bed-room candle and left the room. 'What a beast that fellow is. I don't know why the d-- I stay in his house.' One reason was, perhaps, that it saved him nearly a guinea a day, and he may have had some other little reasons just then. 'Family prayers indeed! and such a pair of women--witches, by Jove!--and that rascally groom, and a hypocritical attorney! And the vulgar brute will be as rich as Croesus, I dare say.' Here soliloquised Stanley Lake in that gentleman's ordinary vein. His momentary disgust had restored him for a few seconds to his normal self. But certain anxieties of a rather ghastly kind, and speculations as to what might be going on in London just then, were round him again, like armed giants, in another moment, and the riches or hypocrisy of his host were no more to him than those of Overreach or Tartuffe. CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH CAPTAIN LAKE VISITS HIS SISTER'S SICK BED. I suspect there are very few mere hypocrites on earth. Of course, I do not reckon those who are under compulsion to affect purity of manners and a holy integrity of heart--and there are such--but those who volunteer an extraordinary profession of holiness, being all the while conscious villains. The Pharisees, even while devouring widows' houses, believed honestly in their own supreme righteousness.