“You do that, Hilda,” said Lalage.
“It was nothing,” said Hilda, “but a list of the things a bishop ought to be.”
“Qualifications for the office,” said Lalage.
“And you went over to the Archdeacon to find out whether he came up to the standard. I’m beginning to understand.”
“I thought at the time,” said Hilda, “that it was rather cheek.”
“It was,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem to me, so far, to amount to actual simony.”
“It was a perfectly natural and straightforward thing to do,” said Lalage. “How could we possibly support the Archdeacon in the election unless we’d satisfied ourselves that he had the proper qualifications?”
“Anyhow,” I said, “whether the Archdeacon mistook it for cheek or not—and I can quite understand that he might—it wasn’t simony.”
“That’s just what bothers us,” said Lalage. “Do you think that dictionary of yours could possibly be wrong?”
“It might,” I said. “Let’s try another.”