ked across to the rectory after luncheon, intending to show my
letter and the composition on politeness to the Canon. I found him
seriously upset. He had received a letter from Lalage, and he had also
enjoyed a visit from the Archdeacon. He was ill-advised in showing the
letter to the Archdeacon. I should have had more sense. I suppose he
thought that, dealing as it did almost entirely with religious subjects,
it was likely to interest the Archdeacon. It did interest him. It
interested him excessively, to an extent which occasioned a good deal of
trouble.

"Dear Father: I have read nearly the whole of the 'Earthly Paradise'
since I came here. It is an awfully jolly book. ('Little Folks' is
Miss Campbell's idea of literature for the young; but that's all rot
of course.) Who wrote the Litany? If you do not know please ask the
Archdeacon when you see him. I've come to the conclusion that some of it
is very well written."

"I did ask the Archdeacon," said the Canon, looking up from the letter,
"and he said he'd hunt up the point when he went home."

"Lalage," I said, "has quite a remarkable feeling for style. See the way
she writes about the 'Earthly Paradise.' It must be the way you brought
her up on quotations from Horace. Miss Campbell hardly appreciates her,
I'm afraid. But of course you can't expect a mathematician to rise much
above 'Little Folks' in the way of literature. I suppose the Archdeacon
was greatly pleased with that conundrum about the Litany."

"It was what followed," said the Canon, "which excited him."

He began to read again:

"There is a clergyman who comes once a week to give us a scripture
lesson. He is only a curate and looks very shy. We had a most exciting
time with him yesterday. We all shied paper wads, and he moved nearly
every one up and sent one girl out of the room."

"He can't," I said, "have been as shy as he looked. But I'm beginning to
understand why the Archdeacon was shocked."

"He didn't mind that," said the Canon; "at least not much."

Lalage's letter went on:

"I was glad, that it wasn't me, who was just as bad, that he didn't what
he calls 'make an example of.' Even that didn't calm the excited
class and he said, 'Next person who laughs will be reported to Miss
Pettigrew.' It was not me, but the girl next me, Eileen Fraser. I was
the innocent cause of the offence. (A mere wink at Hilda when I had my
belt round her neck.) She was not, however, reported, even to Carpy."