"I had not got so far as that," he said, rising. "You must remember, Angela, that you see a possible wife for me in every woman I exchange a word with. It is very flattering that you should think so many might be prevailed on to share my little Vicarage, but the Church only allows me one wife, and the selection I believe rests with me."
"I know that. It's so silly to talk as if I expected anything different."
"All I can say is that if I could delude myself into believing that Miss Georges put on that hat or any other hat with a view to attracting me, I should feel some alacrity in finishing my Sunday sermon, which I must now do without any alacrity at all."
Miss Black swallowed the remains of her plasmon biscuit, and said in the voice of one accustomed to the last word—
"Miss Georges is very good-looking, of course. No one admires that sort of pale, clear complexion and calm manner more than I do. But you must remember that they are merely the result of a constitution free from an excess of uric acid. Non-gouty subjects always look like that."
CHAPTER XXII
"Give me the sweet cup wrought of the earth from which I was born, and under which I shall lie dead."—Zonas.
From the church tower, Reader, you can see beyond the mill and the long water meadows the little hamlet of Swale.