'Who? The Bexley people?'
'Yes,' said Cherry, 'a regular testimonial. They kept it a great secret; only Mr. Lamb came blushing in one day and borrowed one of the old books with the coat-of-arms in it, so that I thought something was brewing. Half the town subscribed—all Felix's young men's class, and quantities of his old scholars; and there's a little silver knight on the top, with a frosty silver pennon with the Rood upon it.'
'The Pursuivant himself?' said Robin.
'Yes, standing on a pedestal—a match-box, I believe, with such an inscription on it that Felix is ashamed of it; and we have had such a fight about its standing in the drawing-room or being suppressed in his study, that Felix said at last that we were like Joseph's brothers in prosperity, and wanted the warning, "See that ye fall not out by the way."'
But the quarrel had not been a serious one, to judge by her happy face.
'It is very nice, very nice,' said Wilmet, 'and I am not at all surprised. I thought they must do something of the kind. Was it given at the dinner?'
'Yes; it was brought in when Mr. Postlethwayte began his speech. He is Mayor this year, and he was so kind—he came and asked us whether we should object to go with Mrs. Froggatt, to sit in the gallery. Object, indeed! I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world; and we were just above our dear old fellow's head, where he could not see us, which was all the better for him.'
'Was he nervous?'
'No; he said there was a reality of kindness about it all that made him feel it as friend to friend. So the Minsterham reporter said too. Felix brought him in to tea, because we are to have his report for Pur. He said he had never seen such genuine feeling on all sides. He wanted to call it an ovation. And Felix puzzled him so by declaring that inapplicable, unless it had all been mutton.'
'And Mr. Bolton did send ever so much venison,' put in Stella; 'and a letter besides, because he could not come himself. Mr. Postlethwayte began by reading it.'