cathedral.

A few moments later, Miss Matilda, having dismissed her guests to their
rooms, found herself alone with her nephew.

"Well," she said, turning on him sharply, "perhaps at last you'll
condescend to tell me who these _friends_ of yours are?"

"They're a party of ladies and gentlemen with whom I've been travelling
in America," Cecil replied. "And as we'd agreed to join forces for the
rest of the summer, I'd no option but to invite them here as my guests.
The gentlemen I've already introduced to you--"

"Oh, the gentlemen!" snapped his aunt. "I've no concern about them.
It's the women I--"

"The ladies, Aunt Matilda."

"The ladies, then. Your father, in what he is pleased to call his
wisdom, has seen fit to allow you to introduce these persons into his
house. I'm sure I hope he won't regret it! But I must insist on knowing
something about the people whom I'm entertaining."

"As I've told you already," he replied very quietly, "they're ladies
whom I've met in America. I might also add that they've good manners and
are uniformly courteous."

Miss Matilda tilted her nose till its tip pointed straight at the spire
of the cathedral, and, without any reply, swept past him into the house.

Dinner, that night, in spite of his aunt's efforts to the contrary, was
an unqualified success. The Bishop hailed with joy any interruption in
the monotony of his daily life, and made himself most agreeable, while
his guests seconded him to the best of their ability.

The meal being over, his Lordship proposed a rubber of whist, a
relaxation of which he was very fond, but which, in the reduced state of
his family, he was seldom able to enjoy. Mrs. Mackintosh and Smith, as
the two best players of the party, expressed themselves as willing to
take a hand, and Miss Matilda made up the fourth.

"You'll excuse me," said his Lordship apologetically to Mrs. Mackintosh,
"if we play only for threepenny points. Were I a curate I could play for
sixpence, but in my position the stakes are necessarily limited."

"You don't ever mean to say," exclaimed the old lady, "that you're a
gambling Bishop!"

"My brother," interrupted Miss Matilda, "is a pattern of upright living
to his day and generation. But of course if you're incapable of
understanding the difference between a sinful wager of money and the few
pence necessary to keep up the interest of the game--"

"Gambling is gambling, to my mind," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "whether you
p