pillars of the saloon during the psalms.
This young lady would be little less than a rebuke to them. I surveyed
her approach; she positively walked as if it were Sunday.

'My dear,' I said, 'how endimanchee you look! The bishop will be very
pleased with you. This gentleman is Mr. Tottenham, who administers
Her Majesty's pleasure in parts of India about Allahabad. My daughter,
Dacres.' She was certainly looking very fresh, and her calm grey eyes
had the repose in them that has never known itself to be disturbed about
anything. I wondered whether she bowed so distantly also because it was
Sunday, and then I remembered that Dacres was a young man, and that
the Farnham ladies had probably taught her that it was right to be very
distant with young men.

'It is almost eleven, mamma.'

'Yes, dear. I see you are going to church.'

'Are you not coming, mamma?'

I was well wrapped up in an extremely comfortable corner. I had 'La
Duchesse Bleue' uncut in my lap, and an agreeable person to talk to. I
fear that in any case I should not been inclined to attend the service,
but there was something in my daughter's intonation that made me
distinctly hostile to the idea. I am putting things down as they were,
extenuating nothing.

'I think not, dear.'

'I've turned up two such nice seats.'

'Stay, Miss Farnham, and keep us in countenance,' said Dacres, with
his charming smile. The smile displaced a look of discreet and amused
observation. Dacres had an eye always for a situation, and this one was
even newer to him than to me.

'No, no. She must run away and not bully her mamma,' I said. 'When she
comes back we will see how much she remembers of the sermon;' and as
the flat tinkle from the companion began to show signs of diminishing,
Cecily, with one grieved glance, hastened down.

'You amazing lady!' said Dacres. 'A daughter--and such a tall daughter!
I somehow never--'

'You knew we had one?'

'There was theory of that kind, I remember, about ten years ago. Since
then--excuse me--I don't think you've mentioned her.'

'You talk as if she were a skeleton in the closet!'

'You DIDN'T talk--as if she were.'

'I think she was, in a way, poor child. But the resurrection day hasn't
confounded me as I deserved. She's a very good girl.'

'If you had asked me to pick out your daughter--'

'She would have been the last you would indicate! Quite so,' I said.
'She is like her father's people. I can't help that.'

'I shouldn