Then she became painfully conscious that even the maid-servant knew more of the social ways of the place than did she.
When she reached the top of Mrs Stumfold's stairs, her heart was in her mouth, for she perceived immediately that she had kept people waiting. After all, she had trusted to false intelligence in that matter of the hour. Half-past eight had meant half-past eight, and she ought to have known that this would be so in a house so upright as that of Mrs Stumfold. That lady met her at the door, and smiling—blandly, but, perhaps I might be permitted to say, not so blandly as she might have smiled—conducted the stranger to a seat.
"We generally open with a little prayer, and for that purpose our dear friends are kind enough to come to us punctually."
Then Mr Stumfold got up, and pressed her hand very kindly.
"I'm so sorry," Miss Mackenzie had uttered.
"Not in the least," he replied. "I knew you couldn't know, and therefore we ventured to wait a few minutes. The time hasn't been lost, as Mr Maguire has treated us to a theological argument of great weight."
Then all the company laughed, and Miss Mackenzie perceived that Mr Stumfold could joke in his way. She was introduced to Mr Maguire, who also pressed her hand; and then Miss Baker came and sat by her side. There was, however, at that moment no time for conversation. The prayer was begun immediately, Mr Stumfold taking this duty himself. Then Mr Maguire read half a chapter in the Bible, and after that Mr Stumfold explained it. Two ladies asked Mr Stumfold questions with great pertinacity, and these questions Mr Stumfold answered very freely, walking about the room the while, and laughing often as he submitted himself to their interrogations. And Miss Mackenzie was much astonished at the special freedom of his manner,—how he spoke of St Paul as Paul, declaring the saint to have been a good fellow; how he said he liked Luke better than Matthew, and how he named even a holier name than these with infinite ease and an accustomed familiarity which seemed to delight the other ladies; but which at first shocked her in her ignorance.
"But I'm not going to have anything more to say to Peter and Paul at present," he declared at last. "You'd keep me here all night, and the tea will be spoilt."
Then they all laughed again at the absurd idea of this great and good man preferring his food,—his food of this world,—to that other food which it was his special business to dispense. There is nothing which the Stumfoldian ladies of Littlebath liked so much as these little jokes which bordered on the profanity of the outer world, which made them feel themselves to be almost as funny as the sinners, and gave them a slight taste, as it were, of the pleasures of iniquity.
"Wine maketh glad the heart of woman, Mrs Jones," Mr Stumfold would say as he filled for the second time the glass of some old lady of his set; and the old lady would chirrup and wink, and feel that things were going almost as jollily with her as they did with that wicked Mrs Smith, who spent every night of her life playing cards, or as they had done with that horrid Mrs Brown, of whom such terrible things were occasionally whispered when two or three ladies found themselves sufficiently private to whisper them; that things were going almost as pleasant here in this world, although accompanied by so much safety as to the future in her own case, and so much danger in those other cases! I think it was this aptitude for feminine rakishness which, more than any of his great virtues, more even than his indomitable industry, made Mr Stumfold the most popular man in Littlebath. A dozen ladies on the present occasion skipped away to the tea-table in the back drawing-room with a delighted alacrity, which was all owing to the unceremonious treatment which St Peter and St Paul had received from their pastor.