it
(here Trix looked down and fidgeted with her Prayer-book) as a means of
promoting greater union between themselves and the less richly endowed,
and not--as, alas! had too often been the case--as though it were a new
barrier set up between them and their fellow-creatures (here Miss Trix
blushed slightly, and had recourse to her smelling-bottle). "You,"
said the curate, waxing rhetorical as he addressed an imaginary, but
bloated, capitalist, "have no more right to your money than I have. It
is intrusted to you to be shared with me." At this point I heard Lady
Queenborough sniff and Algy Stanton snigger. I stole a glance at Trix
and detected a slight waver in the admirable lines of her mouth.

"A very good sermon, didn't you think?" I said to her, as we walked
home.

"Oh, very!" she replied demurely.

"Ah, if we followed all we heard in church!" I sighed.

Miss Trix walked in silence for a few yards. By dint of never becoming
anything else, we had become very good friends; and presently she
remarked, quite confidentially:

"He's very silly, isn't he?"

"Then you ought to snub him," I said severely.

"So I do--sometimes. He's rather amusing, though."

"Of course, if you're prepared to make the sacrifice involved----"

"Oh, what nonsense!"

"Then you've no business to amuse yourself with him."

"Dear, dear! how moral you are!" said Trix.

The next development in the situation was this: My cousin Dora
received a letter from the Marquis of Newhaven, with whom she was
acquainted, praying her to allow him to run down to Poltons for a few
days; he reminded her that she had once given him a general invitation;
if it would not be inconvenient--and so forth. The meaning of this
communication did not, of course, escape my cousin, who had witnessed
the writer's attentions to Trix in the preceding season, nor did it
escape the rest of us (who had talked over the said attentions at the
club) when she told us about it, and announced that Lord Newhaven would
arrive in the middle of the next day. Trix affected dense
unconsciousness; her mother allowed herself a mysterious smile--which,
however, speedily vanished when the curate (he was taking lunch with
us) observed in a cheerful tone:

"Newhaven! Oh, I remember the chap at the House--plowed twice in
Smalls--stumpy fellow, isn't he? Not a bad chap, though, you know,
barring his looks. I'm glad he's coming."

"You won't be soon, young man," Lady Queenborough