"How would it be," said Grafton, "if we presented Denis to Abington, supposing Mercer got Surley?"
The suggestion was received with applause. "Really, Daddy, you're quite brilliant," said Beatrix. "Lord Salisbury would hate that more than anything, except Denis getting Surley."
"Beatrix dear," said Miss Waterhouse. "I don't think you should talk as if the object of presenting one clergyman to a living were to annoy another one."
"Quite right, Dragon," said Grafton. "The less we annoy the clergy the better, though they often annoy us."
"You would have Rhoda and Ethel here," Ella Carruthers warned them.
"Then I don't think you possibly can, Dad," said Caroline. "If you offer it to Denis you must stipulate that he pensions them off. I think that what we really want is a very nice old clergyman with white hair."
"A trifle infirm," added Beatrix.
"And with a nice old wife who goes about in a basket chaise," said Barbara. "Or else a very beautiful curate with a moustache, that I could fall in love with. Dragon darling, don't say I oughtn't to have said that. I must fall in love sometime, you know, and it would be so good for me to begin with a clergyman."
Fine weather had set in so early that year that tennis and croquet courts had already been marked out, and they played lawn tennis after luncheon. The court was visible from the road, little frequented, that ran through the park, and by and by the Vicar himself came along it, with his wife, and called out to announce that he was coming in.