ntment.
"No," he repeated; "I believe I may say that it rankles no longer.
They are honest fellows--I am glad you perceived that."

"One could read it in all of them, saving perhaps that odd fellow who
acted as spokesman. Brother--er--Copas? . . . He lectured me
straightly enough, but there is always a disposition to suspect an
eccentric."

"He was probably the honestest man in the room," answered Master
Blanchminster with some positiveness.

"I am the more glad to hear it," said the Bishop, "because meeting a
man of such patent capacity brought so low--"

"I assure you, he doesn't even drink--or not to excess," the Master
assured him.

They were passing under the archway of the Porter's Lodge.

"But hallo!" said the Bishop, as they emerged upon the great
quadrangle, "what in the world is going on yonder?"

Again, as the Master had viewed it many hundreds of times, the sunset
shed its gold across the well-kept turf between long shadows cast by
the chimneys of the Brethren's lodgings. As usual, in the deep
shadow of the western front were gathered groups of inmates for the
evening chat. But the groups had drawn together into one, and were
watching a child who, solitary upon the grass-plot, paced through a
measure before them 'high and disposedly.'

"Brayvo!" shrilled the voice of Mrs. Royle, champion among viragoes.
"Now, at the turn you come forward and catch your skirts back before
you curtchey!"

"But what on earth does it all mean?" asked the Bishop, staring
across from the archway.

"It's--it's Bonaday's child--he's one of our Brethren: as I suppose,
rehearsing her part for the Pageant."

Corona's audience had no eyes but for the performance. As she
advanced to the edge of the grass-plot and dropped a final curtsey to
them, their hands beat together. The clapping travelled across the
dusk of the quadrangle to the two watchers, and reached them faintly,
thinly, as though they listened in wonder at ghosts applauding on the
far edge of Elysian fields.

CHAPTER XXII.

MR. SIMEON MAKES A CLEAN BREAST.

"I won't say you sold the pass," snarled Brother Warboise,
"though I might. The fact is, there's no trusting your cleverness.
You see a chance of showing-off before the Bishop, and that's enough.
Off you start with a lecture on architecture (which he didn't in the
least want to hear), and then, when he finds a chance to pull you up,
you take the disinterested line and put us all in the cart