ry and persuade Cecilia to come back and spend the
night with us. I think we could manage to put her up in the little blue
dressing-room. She is so good-natured; she won't mind its being so
small."

"Yes, do; I want Lyndsay to see her. And give my best love to Aunt
Eleanour, and say that if she is going to send me any more tracts
against Popery, I should be extremely obliged if she would prepay the
postage sufficiently."

"Oh no, George, I could not. It was only threepence."

"Well, then, tell her it is no good sending any at all, because I have
made up my mind to go over to Rome next July."

"No, George; she might not like it, and I don't believe you are going to
do anything of the kind. Oh, are you off already? I thought you would
settle something about the plasterer."

"No, no; I can't think of plasterers and repairs to-day. Even the
galley-slave has his holiday--this is mine. I am going to see the hounds
throw off at Rood Acre, and forget for one day that I have an inch of
landed property in the world."

"But, George, if the pink-room ceiling is not put right by Saturday,
where shall we put Uncle Augustus?"

"Into the room just opposite to Lindy's."

"What! that little room? In the bachelor's passage? A man of his age,
and of his position!"

"I am sure it is large enough for any one under a bishop. Besides, I
don't think he is fussy about anything except his dinner."

"It is not the way he is accustomed to be treated when he is on a visit,
I can assure you. He is a person who is generally considered a great
deal."

"Well, I consider him a great deal. I consider him one of the finest old
heathen I ever knew."

Fortunately for their domestic peace, Lady Atherley usually misses the
points of her husband's speeches, but there are some which jar upon her
sense of the becoming, and this was one of them.

"I don't think," she observed to me, the offender himself having
escaped, "that even if Uncle Augustus were not my uncle, a heathen is a
proper name to call a clergyman, especially a canon--and one who is so
looked up to in the Church. Have you ever heard him preach? But you must
have heard about him, and about his sermons? I thought so. They are
beautiful. When he preaches the church is crammed, and with the best
people--in the season, when they are in town. And he has written a great
many religious books too--sermons and hymns and manuals. There is a
little book in red morocco you may have seen in my si