the letter.
It looked to me a very long one.

"I don't know," I said, "that Selby-Harrison's letter really matters
unless you read it out to the Archdeacon."

"We didn't get the chance," said Lalage, "although we meant to."

"Then you needn't read it to me."

"We must. Otherwise you won't know why we went to see the Archdeacon."

"Couldn't you give me in a few words a general idea of the contents of
the letter?"

"You do that, Hilda," said Lalage.

"It was nothing," said Hilda, "but a list of the things a bishop ought
to be."

"Qualifications for the office," said Lalage.

"And you went over to the Archdeacon to find out whether he came up to
the standard. I'm beginning to understand."

"I thought at the time," said Hilda, "that it was rather cheek."

"It was," I said, "but it doesn't seem to me, so far, to amount to
actual simony."

"It was a perfectly natural and straightforward thing to do," said
Lalage. "How could we possibly support the Archdeacon in the election
unless we'd satisfied ourselves that he had the proper qualifications?"

"Anyhow," I said, "whether the Archdeacon mistook it for cheek or
not--and I can quite understand that he might--it wasn't simony."

"That's just what bothers us," said Lalage. "Do you think that
dictionary of yours could possibly be wrong?"

"It might," I said. "Let's try another."

Hilda tried three others. The wording of their definitions varied, but
they were all in substantial agreement with the first.

"There must," I said, "have been something in the questions which you
put to the Archdeacon which suggested simony to his mind. What did you
ask him?"

"I didn't ask him anything. I intended to but I hadn't time. He was on
top of us with his old simony before I opened my mouth."

"You did say one thing," said Hilda.

"Then that must have been it," I said.

"It wasn't in the least simonious," said Lalage. "In fact it
wasn't anything at all. It was merely a polite way of beginning the
conversation."

"All the same," I said. "It was simony. It must have been, for there was
nothing else. What was it?"

"It wasn't of any importance," said Lalage. "I simply said--just in the
way you might say you hoped his cold was better without meaning anything
in particular--that I supposed if he was elected bishop he'd make father
archdeacon."

"Ah!" I said.

"He flew out at that straight away. Rather ridiculous of him, wasn't it?
He can't be both bishop and archdea