"Interest, yes; great, more than doubtful. She's the third girl I've had to send away for the good of her health. The other two knew where to go, and went. She didn't; so I thought of establishing her at the post office. I never dreamt the Squire would come for us till I got his message. I meant to accompany her in the stage, and land her in the arms of Mrs. Tibbs; but here we are, like a bridal party, with Marjorie for bridesmaid and Douglas for best man."
"Thank you, Corry; you have relieved me from a great anxiety. Miss Du Plessis thinks very highly of your —— travelling companion."
"Douglas, do you mean?"
"No, the lady."
"Oh, bother the lady! Wilks, it's a doubly grave situation. If it wasn't for Mr. Terry and Marjorie, I'd cut my stick. As it is, I'll run and engage that post-office room for myself, and be back in time for dinner or whatever else is up. Au revoir." With a bound he was off the verandah, valise in hand, and away on to the road.
When Coristine returned, he was just in time for dinner. He had not been missed; the entire interest of the feminine part of the community was centred in Miss Graves. The Squire took her in, as the latest lady arrival, while Mr. Douglas escorted the hostess. To his infinite annoyance, Coristine, who had brought in Mrs. Du Plessis, was ostentatiously set down by the side of his invalided type-writer, to whom he was the next thing to uncivil. Miss Carmichael, between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Errol, was more than usually animated and conversational, to the worthy minister's great delight. The amusing man of the table was Mr. Perrowne. His people were building him a house, which Miss Halbert and he had inspected in the morning, with a view to the addition of many cupboards, which the lady deemed indispensable to proper housekeeping. Mr. Perrowne thought he would call the place Cubbyholes; but Miss Du Plessis asked what it would really be, the rectory, the vicarage or the parsonage? Miss Halbert suggested the basilica, to which he replied that, while a good Catholic, he was neither Fannytic nor a Franciscan. He derided his intended bride's taste in architecture, and maintained that the income of a bishop would be insufficient to stock half the storerooms and wardrobes, leaving all the rest of the house unfurnished. As it was, he feared that the charming Fanny would be in the predicament of old Mother Hubbard, while he, unfortunately, would be in that of the dog. "In that case, Basil," said Miss Halbert, "you would be like an inclined plane."
"How so?" enquired Mr. Perrowne.
"An inclined plane is a slope up, you know," answered the mischievous bride elect.
"Talking about dawgs," remarked the victim of the terrible conundrum, "I asked a little girl belonging to one of my parishoners what kind her dawg was. She said it had been given to her as a spanuel, but she thought it was only a currier."
"When I was at the school," said the Edinburgh gentleman, "a boy whom I had offended some way, offered to make the like of me with a street cur and an old gun. He said he could make 'one dowg less' in the time it took to fire the gun."