"Which is where you generally have it," interposed Mrs. Valpy, reprovingly.
"Ah!" said Toby, with a world of meaning in his tone, "I am afraid you have not studied one Dr. Watts----"
"The early to bed man, you mean," cried Mrs. Belswin. "Horrible! I never could see the use of his cut-and-dried little proverbs."
"His poems, madam, are very edifying," remarked Gelthrip, in a clerical manner.
"Very probably; and like most things edifying, very dreary."
She said this so tartly that Clendon père was afraid of the probable rejoinder of his curate, so made the first remark that came into his mind apropos of nothing in particular.
"Our conversation is like that of Praed's vicar, very discursive; we began with the Romans, we end with Dr. Watts."
"I prefer the Romans," declared Archie, sipping his wine.
"Not their dining, surely," observed Kaituna.
"No," whispered Archie, literally sub rosa, for she wore a half-opened bud in her dark hair, "because you would not have been present. The nineteenth century, with all its faults, has one great virtue; it allows us to dine with you."