"Most astonishing," commented his Lordship. "I've never heard of more than one."
"Oh, our Western churches are chock-full of new wrinkles."
"Of new—what? I don't understand. Another cup' of tea for you, Mrs. Mackintosh? Certainly. We must pursue this subject at leisure, Mr. Spotts."
The party now turned their attention to the repast, and the Bishop proceeded to devote himself to Mrs. Mackintosh.
"I'm afraid," he said, when he had seen her sufficiently fortified with tea containing a due allowance of sugar, and supplemented by a plateful of cake which he had ordered to be brought as a practical substitute for the scriptural calf—"I'm afraid you will find our simple life at Blanford very dull."
"Dear sakes, no!" said that lady, hitching her chair up closer to the Bishop for a confidential chat—an action on her part which elicited a flashing glance of disapproval from Miss Matilda.
"I've heard all about you," she went on, "from your son Cecil. You don't mind if I call him Cecil, do you? for I'm almost old enough to be his mother. Well, as I was saying, when he told me about the cathedral and the beeches and the rooks and you, all being here, hundreds of years old—"
"Excuse me, madam," said his Lordship, "I'm hardly as aged as that."
"Of course I didn't mean you, stupid! How literal you English are!"
It is highly probable that in all the sixty years of his well-ordered existence the Bishop of Blanford had never been called "stupid" by anybody. He gasped, and the episcopal cross, and even the heavy gold chain by which it depended from his neck, were unduly agitated. Then he decided that he liked it, and determined to continue the conversation.