an of the tail of the meteor."

"Oh, Bertie, you have done that?"

"Why should I not do it?"

"But it is the only one in the world."

"Ah, that's just it. You are the only one in the world."

She laughed again, looking up to his face.

"Well, we'll have a look at it, anyway," said she.

They went into the shop to see the tail feathers of that wonderful
meteor-bird which Herbert Courtland had just brought back from New
Guinea with him--the most glorious thing that nature had produced and a
great explorer had risked his life to acquire, in order that Mrs. Linton
might have a unique feathered fan.

About the same time the Rev. George Holland met in the same thoroughfare
his friend and patron, the Earl of Earlscourt.

"By the Lord Harry, you've done for yourself now, my hearty!" cried the
earl. "What the blazes do you mean by attacking the Word of God in that
fashion?"

"Tommy," said the Rev. George Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at
his patron, "Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you'll not meddle
with what doesn't concern you. You're a peer; better leave the Word of
God to me. I'm not a peer, but a parson."

"I'll not leave it with you; it isn't safe," said the peer. "Anything
more damnably atheistical than that book of yours I never read."

"And you didn't read it, Thomas; you know you only read a screeching
review of it, and you didn't even read that through," said the parson.

"Who told you that?" asked the patron. "Well, at any rate I read what
you said about Ruth. It was quite scandalous! Ruth! Good Lord! what
character is safe nowadays? One of the loveliest of the women of the
Bible--my wife says so. She knows all about them. And the best painters
in the world have shown her standing among the field of oats. By the
Lord, sir, it's sheer blasphemy! and worse than that, it's making
people--good, religious people, mind, not the ruck--it's making them ask
why the blazes I gave you the living. It's a fact."

"I'm sorry for you, Tommy--very sorry. I'm also sorry for your good
religious people, and particularly sorry for the phraseology of their
earnest inquiries on what I am sure is a matter of life and death to
them--spiritually. That's my last word, Thomas."

"And you were doing so well at the Joss-house, too." Lord Earlscourt was
shaking his head sorrowfully, as he spoke. "We were all getting on so
comfortably. That was what people said to me--they said----"

"Pardon me, I'm a parson, t