t was now six o'clock, the time under ordinary circumstances for tea;
but the circumstances were extraordinary, as the Squire, Mr. Nash and
the minister had to be waited for. The party was in the road waiting for
them. "Look, Eugene!" cried Marjorie; "there's Muggins. Here Muggy,
Muggy, good doggie!" Muggins came on at full speed, and, striding at a
very respectable pace, his master followed.

"Ow, Mr. Coristine, sow glad to see you again, I'm shore. I was
delighted to see you bringing two straye sheep into the true fowld this
morning. I howpe Miss Marjorie will turn out a good churchwoman; woun't
you now, Marjorie?"

"I'm not a woman, and I won't be one. A woman wears dirty clothes and a
check apron and a sun-bonnet. We've had a charwoman like that in our
house, and a washerwoman; and in Collingwood there's a fish-woman and an
apple-woman. I've seen them with my very own eyes. I don't think it a
bit nice of you, Mr. Brown, to call me a charwoman."

"I said churchwoman, my dear, not charwoman."

"It's the same thing; they scrub out churches. I've seen them do it. And
they're as old and ugly--worse than Tryphena!"

"Hush, hush, Marjorie!" interposed Miss Du Plessis; "you must not speak
like that of good Tryphena. Besides, Mr. Perrowne means by a churchwoman
one who is like me, and goes to the Church of England."

"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church
of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."

Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had
greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to,
and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not
serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good
poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss
Du Plessis?"

"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal
children make things."

Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and
begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands,
he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail
pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still
dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the
house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a
pretty plaintive tune, commencing:--

Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a