ing to screw something out of
one for their poor; men in my position know the truth of the saying
that we have that class of the population always with us. Would
you believe it, he says he hasn't any poor at all in his parish!
They're all well-to-do farmers or else able-bodied labourers, and
his one terror is that somebody will come and try to pauperise them.
'If a philanthropist were to give me fifty pounds to-day for use at
Empingham,' he said, 'I assure you, Sir Charles, I shouldn't know
what to do with it. I think I should buy new dresses for Jessie, who
wants them about as much as anybody else in the village--that is to
say, not at all.' There's a parson for you, Sey, my boy. Only wish
we had one of his sort at Seldon."

"He certainly doesn't want to get anything out of you," I answered.

That evening at dinner a queer little episode happened. The man
with the eyebrows began talking to me across the table in his usual
fashion, full of his wearisome concession on the Upper Amazons. I
was trying to squash him as politely as possible, when I caught
Amelia's eye. Her look amused me. She was engaged in making signals
to Charles at her side to observe the little curate's curious
sleeve-links. I glanced at them, and saw at once they were a
singular possession for so unobtrusive a person. They consisted
each of a short gold bar for one arm of the link, fastened by a
tiny chain of the same material to what seemed to my tolerably
experienced eye--a first-rate diamond. Pretty big diamonds, too,
and of remarkable shape, brilliancy, and cutting. In a moment I
knew what Amelia meant. She owned a diamond riviere, said to be
of Indian origin, but short by two stones for the circumference
of her tolerably ample neck. Now, she had long been wanting two
diamonds like these to match her set; but owing to the unusual
shape and antiquated cutting of her own gems, she had never
been able to complete the necklet, at least without removing an
extravagant amount from a much larger stone of the first water.

The Scotch lassie's eyes caught Amelia's at the same time, and she
broke into a pretty smile of good-humoured amusement. "Taken in
another person, Dick, dear!" she exclaimed, in her breezy way,
turning to her husband. "Lady Vandrift is observing your diamond
sleeve-links."

"They're very fine gems," Amelia observed incautiously. (A most
unwise admission if she desired to buy them.)

But the pleasant little curate was too transpare