"Then ring for tea, dear."

It was a bleak Sat.u.r.day afternoon in late February. Darkness was closing in, and the great fire in the hall at The Towers flickered lovingly upon our leading weekly review, which, temporarily diverted from its original purpose in order to serve as a supplementary waistcoat for Mr. Mainwaring, rose and fell with gentle regularity in the warm glow.

Mr. Mainwaring's daughter rang a bell and switched on the electric light with remorseless severity; his wife came rustling down the broad oak staircase; and Mr. Mainwaring himself, realising that a further folding of the hands to sleep was out of the question, peeled off "The Spectator" and sat up.

"Abel," observed Lady Adela--her husband's baptismal name was a perpetual thorn in her ample flesh, but she made a point of employing it on all occasions, as a sort of reducing exercise to her family pride--"tea will be here in a moment."

Mr. Mainwaring rose to his feet. He was an apologetic little gentleman, verging on sixty, with a few wisps of grey hair brushed carefully across his bald head. At present these were hanging down upon the wrong side, giving their owner a mildly leonine appearance. A kindly, shy, impulsive man, Abel Mainwaring was invariably mute and ill at ease beneath the eye of his wife and daughter. Their patrician calm oppressed him; and his genial expansive nature only blossomed in the presence of his erratic but affectionate son.

"Tea?" he exclaimed with mild alacrity--"Who said tea?"

"Abel," announced Lady Adela in tones which definitely vetoed any further conversational openings originating in tea, "I think it only right to tell you that a visitor may arrive at any moment; and your present appearance, to put it mildly, is hardly that of the master of a large household."

"My dear, I fly!" said Mr. Mainwaring hurriedly, and disappeared. At the same moment there was a tinkle in the back premises.

"There goes the front-door bell," said Sylvia. "I never heard the carriage. Can it be Connie already?"

"A caller, probably," sighed her mother. "How tiresome people are. See who it is, Milroy, and then bring tea."

The butler, who had entered from the dining-room, crossed the hall to the curtained alcove which screened the front door.

"Hardly a caller on an afternoon like this," said Sylvia, shivering delicately. "It is raining in sheets."

"My experience," replied Lady Adela peevishly, "has always been that when one's neighbours have made up their minds to be thoroughly annoying, no weather will stop them."

Simultaneously with this truthful but gloomy reflection Lady Adela composed her fine features into an hospitable smile of welcome and rose to her feet.

"Misterilands!" announced Milroy, drawing back the curtain of the outer hall.

Lady Adela, still smiling, rolled an enquiring eye in the direction of her daughter.

"New curate!" hissed Sylvia.

Through the curtained archway advanced a short, st.u.r.dy, spectacled young man, dumbly resisting Mr. Milroy's gracious efforts to relieve him of his hat and stick.

Lady Adela extended her hand.

"How do you do, Mr. Highlands?" she enquired, as the ruffled Milroy, shaken off like an importunate limpet, disappeared into the dining-room.

"My name," replied the visitor apologetically, "is Rylands--not Highlands."

"How stupid of me!" said Lady Adela condescendingly. "But my butler is a most inarticulate person, and in any case we give him the benefit of the doubt where H's are concerned."

"It's of no consequence," Mr. Rylands a.s.sured her. "Oh, I beg your pardon!"

He picked up his walking-stick, which had fallen upon the polished floor with a shattering crash, and continued breathlessly:--

"The fact is, Lady Adela, the Archdeacon asked me to come round this afternoon and warn Mr.--Mr.--" he was uncertain of Mr. Mainwaring's exact status and t.i.tle, so decided to hedge--"your husband, about the First Lesson in to-morrow morning's service. The Arch-deacon--"

"Be seated, Mr. Rylands," said Lady Adela, in the voice which she reserved for golfers, politicians, and other people who attempted to talk shop in her presence. "My husband will be downstairs presently.

This is my--"

"The Archdeacon," continued the conscientious Rylands, "thinks it would be better to subst.i.tute an alternative Lesson--"

At this point his walking-stick, which he had after several efforts succeeded in leaning against the corner of the mantelpiece, fell a second time upon the floor, and a further hail of apology followed.

"--An alternative Lesson to-morrow morning," he resumed pertinaciously, "in view of the fact that certain pa.s.sages--"

"This is my daughter Sylvia," said Lady Adela coldly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the curate to Sylvia, starting up and dropping his hat. "I did n't see you. My gla.s.ses are rather dimmed by the rain. I have come here," he recommenced rapidly, evidently hoping for a more receptive auditor this time, "at the request of the Arch-deacon, to see Mr.--your father--about an alteration in the First Lesson to-morrow--"

"I don't think you need trouble, Mr. Rylands," replied the dutiful Sylvia. "My father will probably read the wrong Lesson in any case."

"Who is taking my name in vain?" enquired the playful voice of Mr.

Mainwaring, as its owner, newly kempt, descended the stairs.

"This is Mr. Rylands, Abel, who has recently come among us," said Lady Adela. "To a.s.sist the Archdeacon," she added, with feeling.

Mr. Mainwaring shook hands with characteristic friendliness.

"Welcome to Shotley Beauchamp, Mr. Rylands!" he said warmly.

"Thank you, sir, very much," replied the curate, flushing with pleasure.

"I have called," he continued with unabated enthusiasm--evidently he saw port ahead at last--"at the request of the Archdeacon, with reference to the First Lesson at Matins to-morrow. One of those rather characteristic Old Testament pa.s.sages--"

"Mr. Rylands," interposed Lady Adela, with the air of one who cannot stand this sort of thing much longer, "how many lumps of sugar do you take?"

"Four, please," replied Mr. Rylands absently, with his finger in Mr.

Mainwaring's b.u.t.tonhole.

Lady Adela's eyebrows rose an eighth of an inch.

"Four, did you say?"

The curate came suddenly to himself.

"I beg your pardon," he said cringingly, "I meant none."

"Then why did you specify four, Mr. Rylands?" enquired Sylvia, who disliked what she called "vague" people.

"Well, the fact is," explained the curate, in a burst of shy confidence--"I always take four when I am alone in my lodgings. But when I go out to tea anywhere, four always seems such a fearful lot to ask for, that--oh, I beg your pardon!"

He had stepped heavily back into a cake-stand, and _patisserie_ strewed the hearthrug.

But both crime and apology pa.s.sed unnoticed, for at this moment Milroy, who had crossed the hall a minute previously, reappeared at the curtained entrance, and announced, in tones of intense personal satisfaction:--

"Mrs. Carmyle!"