"Hugh," said his wife, "shall I introduce you to Miss Burton?"
Then Sir Hugh came forward and shook hands with his new guest, with some sort of apology for his remissness, while Harry stood by, glowering at him, with offence in his eye. "My father is right," he had said to himself when his cousin failed to notice Florence on her first entrance into the room; "he is impertinent as well as disagreeable. I don't care for quarrels in the parish, and so I shall let him know."
"Upon my word she's a doosed good-looking little thing," said Archie, coming up to him, after having also shaken hands with her;—"doosed good-looking, I call her."
"I'm glad you think so," said Harry, drily.
"Let's see; where was it you picked her up? I did hear, but I forget."
"I picked her up, as you call it, at Stratton, where her father lives."
"Oh, yes; I know. He's the fellow that coached you in your new business, isn't he? By-the-by, Harry, I think you've made a mess of it in changing your line. I'd have stuck to my governor's shop if I'd been you. You'd got through all the d——d fag of it, and there's the living that has always belonged to a Clavering."
"What would your brother have said if I had asked him to give it to me?"
"He wouldn't have given it of course. Nobody does give anything to anybody now-a-days. Livings are a sort of thing that people buy. But you'd have got it under favourable circumstances."
"The fact is, Archie, I'm not very fond of the church, as a profession."