"Don't any of the young women get married in these parts. What about the Clibran-Bells?"
"Oh! Jessie is in love with Frederic, always has been ever since he turned up."
"A good many years. It was awful when we first came. We arrived at five o'clock in the morning. It was pouring with rain, and we drove in two cabs through the horrible dirty streets. We were all very tired, and Gertrude and Mary had been squabbling in the train. We didn't know anything about towns, and Ma had made us very excited by talking about the rich people we were going to know--and marry. She always used to be talking about marriage. She doesn't do it so much now."
"Why on earth did they come? St. Withans was jolly enough."
"I don't know. I think they lost some money, and Ma got sick of the country and Mother Bub got tired of falling in love with the curates, and they worried pa until he did it."
"Does he always do what mother wants him to?"
Serge went up to Minna and put his arm round her waist and kissed her. She took his face in her hands and kissed his lips. Then she sighed:
"I fancy a good many women say that to their brothers--when they don't know any other men."
"I thought so. We seem to exist for you as individuals. To the Frederic sort of man women only seem to exist as a surrounding presence. . . . If I did something dreadful you'd stand by me, wouldn't you?"
"I hope so. But don't do anything dreadful just for the fun of it. It isn't worth it."
Minna gave a little purr of contentment and rubbed her cheek against his and said:
"You're so warm and friendly. I'm glad you came. But I can understand people hating you like poison."
He kissed her again and she ran happily away and upstairs.
PURITAN hostility to the proceedings in St. Paul's survived the demise of Flynn and his newspaper and spluttered into activity upon occasion, as when Francis instituted the Litany as a separate Sunday afternoon service or allowed his school-room to be used for musical entertainments organised by the local nigger minstrels--(the annual visit of Moore and Burgess gave birth to numerous amateur troupes)--or when in the jumble sales which were held at intervals he countenanced and even patronised raffles. One pretext was as good as another, but the fundamental grievance was his friendship with Father Soledano, a priest attached to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. The offence was greater in that he had no friend, hardly a kindly acquaintance among the Anglican clergy. They fought shy of him because he had incurred the disapproval of the dean, though their wives occasionally called on Mrs. Folyat because she was still visited by the bishop's wife.