“Oh! they’ve started a club, and Joseph Arch came to open it. Papa was so upset he fled to Lincoln, and stopped a whole week at the Palace, though he does nothing but quarrel with the dear bishop.”
“And I suppose the Vicarage set the fashion in tabooing this poor son of St. Crispin?”
“Of course, papa cannot countenance atheism and arson”
“Clearly. But if the man’s ill, the man’s ill, and atheist or no atheist the man’s a man. I’m sorry I didn’t know more about him when I went to have my boot stretched. However, the other boot isn’t very comfortable, that’s one consolation.”
They walked on in silence for a time. Then, apropos of nothing, Eleanor said, very quietly: “The man must have some good about him or he wouldn’t be so fond of birds and animals. I think my boot is not very comfortable, Mr. Beaumont.”
Edward laughed gaily. “What will the Archdeacon say?”
“Oh! papa won’t mind. He’ll probably tell me I’m a goose for my pains.”
“Ah! well; I don’t know. I think the Church makes a mistake in being so discriminating in its charity.”
“You are a universal fault-finder, Mr. Beaumont. But I suppose that is what makes you a Radical. It must be a very unhappy state of mind—to be always seeing the imperfections of things.”
“Somebody must do it, Miss St. Clair. Even critics have their uses. But when you announced so unexpectedly that your shoe pinched you, I was wondering how Sister Gertrude would have dealt with old Stokes.”