age with Lucian's hints and dreams and note of haunting. And
here and there Mr. Ritson had made little alterations in the style of the
passages he had conveyed, and most of these alterations were amendments,
as Lucian was obliged to confess, though he would have liked to argue one
or two points with his collaborator and corrector. He lit his pipe and
leant back comfortably in the hedge, thinking things over, weighing very
coolly his experience of humanity, his contact with the "society" of the
countryside, the affair of the _The Chorus in Green_, and even some
little incidents that had struck him as he was walking through the
streets of Caermaen that evening. At the post-office, when he was
inquiring for his parcel, he had heard two old women grumbling in the
street; it seemed, so far as he could make out, that both had been
disappointed in much the same way. One was a Roman Catholic, hardened,
and beyond the reach of conversion; she had been advised to ask alms of
the priests, "who are always creeping and crawling about." The other old
sinner was a Dissenter, and, "Mr. Dixon has quite enough to do to relieve
good Church people."

Mrs. Dixon, assisted by Henrietta, was, it seemed, the lady high almoner,
who dispensed these charities. As she said to Mrs. Colley, they would end
by keeping all the beggars in the county, and they really couldn't afford
it. A large family was an expensive thing, and the girls _must_ have new
frocks. "Mr. Dixon is always telling me and the girls that we must not
_demoralize_ the people by indiscriminate charity." Lucian had heard of
these sage counsels, and through it them as he listened to the bitter
complaints of the gaunt, hungry old women. In the back street by which he
passed out of the town he saw a large "healthy" boy kicking a sick cat;
the poor creature had just strength enough to crawl under an outhouse
door; probably to die in torments. He did not find much satisfaction in
thrashing the boy, but he did it with hearty good will. Further on, at
the corner where the turnpike used to be, was a big notice, announcing a
meeting at the school-room in aid of the missions to the Portuguese.
"Under the Patronage of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese," was the imposing
headline; the Reverend Merivale Dixon, vicar of Caermaen, was to be in
the chair, supported by Stanley Gervase, Esq., J.P., and by many of the
clergy and gentry of the neighborhood. Senhor Diabo, "formerly a Romanist
priest, now an