I spoke severely, in cold tones, with great stiffness of manner. Lalage
was not in the least snubbed.

"Have you any book in the house that would tell you?" she asked.

"I have a dictionary."

"Stupid of me," said Lalage, "not to have thought of a dictionary, and
frightfully stupid of you, Hilda. You ought to have thought of it. You
were always fonder of dictionaries than I was. There are two or three
of them in the rectory. We might have gone straight there and looked it
out. We'll go now."

"If it's a really pressing matter," I said, "you'll save a few minutes
by coming back with me. You're fully a quarter of a mile from the
rectory this minute."

"Right," said Lalage. "Let down the back of the trap and hop up. We'll
drive you."

I let down the seat and then hopped. I hopped quite a long way before
I succeeded in getting up. For Lalage started before I was nearly ready
and urged the pony to a gallop at once. When we reached the house I sent
the unfortunate animal round to the stable yard, with orders that he
was to be carefully rubbed down and then walked about until he was cool.
Lalage, followed by Hilda and afterward by me, went into the library.

"Now," she said, "trot out your best dictionary."

I collected five, one of them an immense work in four volumes, and laid
them in a row on the table.

"Hilda," said Lalage, "look it out."

Hilda chose, the largest dictionary and after a short hesitation picked
up the volume labelled "Jab to Sli." She stared at the word without
speaking for some time after she found it. Lalage and I looked over her
shoulder and, when we saw the definition, stared too. It was Lalage who
read it out in the end:

"Simony from Simon Magus, Acts VIII. The crime of buying or selling
ecclesiastical preferment or the corrupt presentation of any one to an
ecclesiastical benefice for money or reward."

I own that I was puzzled. Lalage is a person of great originality and
daring, but I did not see how even she could possibly have committed
simony. She and Hilda looked at each other. There was an expression of
genuine astonishment on their faces.

"Do you think," said Lalage at last, "that the Archdeacon could by any
chance have gone suddenly dotty in the head?"

"He was quite sane the day before yesterday," I said. "I was talking to
him."

"Well, then, I don't understand it. Whatever else we did we didn't do
that or anything like it. Did we, Hilda?"

"I didn't," said Hilda, who