rove away.

"Perhaps not," returned Elizabeth quickly, "but he is a very
conscientious clergyman, and his people's welfare is very near his
heart. He is a great etymologist and archaeologist, and at times he is
so immersed in his studies that but for the care of his excellent
housekeeper, Mrs. Finch, he would often forget to eat his dinner. Mr.
Carlyon often tells us amusing stories of the vicar's absence of mind."

"Could you not remember one of them, Betty?" suggested Cedric. But
Elizabeth was not to be cajoled into repeating them. She respected Mr.
Charrington far too highly, she remarked, to make merry at his expense.

"My friends' oddities are always sacred to me," she said quite
seriously. "Most people have their own little failings and
idiosyncrasies, but one need not make copy out of them. Don't you agree
with me, Mr. Herrick, that there is too little sense of honour in these
matters? To raise a laugh, or to sharpen their own wit, many people
will expose their best friend to ridicule."

"Oh, shut up, Betty," remonstrated her brother, "it is too bad to
moralise; and after all old Dr. Dryasdust is a capital subject for
sport."

"Perhaps so, but all the same your sister is right," returned Malcolm.
"We are a little thoughtless, as she says. We ought to refuse to give
our tongue such licence when a friend's crochets and whimsies are in
question. It is the easiest thing in the world to satirise and
caricature. You could poke fun at Milton or Shakespeare if you liked,
and make them utterly ridiculous. Don't you hate parodies, Miss
Templeton? To me they are utterly profane and detestable, and the
cleverer they are the more I abhor them."

"We think alike there," returned Elizabeth eagerly. "I remember that
Cedric read such capital parodies once on 'Excelsior' and 'Locksley
Hall,' and I have never been able to enjoy those poems since. I have
utterly refused to listen to any more. Oh," interrupting herself,
"there is Dinah on the look-out for us."

They caught sight of the trim little figure in gray silk waiting for
them in the porch. But if they had been an hour late Dinah would have
greeted them with the same kind smile, and hoped that they were not
tired.

That evening they sat out on the terrace again; but to Malcolm's
chagrin and disappointment, Elizabeth declared that her long day at
Rotherwood had deprived her of all voice for singing. "I have been
shouting to the children all the morning," she observed,