r the
condition annexed?"

"Stuff and hypocrisy! He's played his game well! But time will show."

Mr. Bevis checked his answer. He was beginning to get disgusted with the
old cat, as he called her to himself.

He too had made a good speculation in the hymeneo-money-market,
otherwise he could hardly have afforded to give up the exercise of his
profession. Mrs. Bevis had brought him the nice little property at
Owlkirk, where, if he worshiped mammon--and after his curate's sermon he
was not at all sure he did not--he worshiped him in a very moderate and
gentlemanly fashion. Every body liked the rector, and two or three
loved him a little. If it would be a stretch of the truth to call a man
a Christian who never yet in his life had consciously done a thing
because it was commanded by Christ, he was not therefore a godless man;
while, through the age-long process of spiritual infiltration, he had
received and retained much that was Christian.

The ladies went to take off their bonnets, and their departure was a
relief to the rector. He helped himself to another glass of sherry, and
seated himself in the great easy chair formerly approved of the dean,
long promoted. But what are easy chairs to uneasy men? Dinner, however,
was at hand, and that would make a diversion in favor of less
disquieting thought.

Mrs. Ramshorn, also, was uncomfortable--too much so to be relieved by
taking off her bonnet. She felt, with no little soreness, that the
rector was not with her in her depreciation of Wingfold. She did her
best to play the hostess, but the rector, while enjoying his dinner
despite discomfort in the inward parts, was in a mood of silence
altogether new both to himself and his companions. Mrs. Bevis, however,
talked away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle
soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not
contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not
help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me.
But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled,
and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When
it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector,
finding his company unpleasant, drank but a week-day's allowance of
wine, and went to have a look at his horses.

They neighed a welcome the moment his boot struck the stones of the
yard, for they loved their master with all the