"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."
Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to, and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss Du Plessis?"
"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal children make things."
Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands, he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a pretty plaintive tune, commencing:—
Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her infant
In a manger for his bed;
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.