"Please put the mantle over my shoulders, Mr. St. John."
"Ah, you are getting cold! You should have put it on at first."
"Getting cold this warm afternoon! Indeed no. But in one minute we shall be in the Rectory grounds, liable to meet mamma or her charming guest. They would sing a duet all dinner-time at my walking here in nothing but my dinner-dress. Miss Denison comes out before dinner, and creeps round the paths for half-an-hour. She calls it 'taking her constitutional.' Thank you; she can't find fault now."
Mrs. Beauclerc was a fretful lady of forty-five; Miss Denison was a fretful lady of somewhat more: and Georgina was greeted with a shower of reproaches, for having kept dinner waiting. She laid the blame on Mr. St. John; and Miss Denison looked daggers at him to her heart's content.
"I could not make him believe you were dining at the gothic hour of half-past five," cried the imperturbable girl. "The more I told him to hasten the less he did so. And, mamma, Mrs. St. John says will we all go to Castle Wafer for the evening."
She stole a glance at him. He was standing calm, upright; a half-tender, half-reproving look cast upon her for her nonsense. But he contradicted nothing.
The dean and Mr. St. John were sitting alone after dinner, when a servant came in and said a gentleman was asking if he could see Dr. Beauclerc. The dean inquired who it was, but the servant did not know: when he requested the name, the gentleman said he would tell it himself to the doctor.
"You can show him in here," said the dean, who was one of the most accessible men living.
The servant retired, and ushered in a little grey-haired man in spectacles. The dean did not recognize him: Frederick St. John did, and with some astonishment. It was Mr. Pym of Alnwick.
He explained to the dean that a little matter of business had brought him into the neighbourhood, and he had taken the opportunity (following on the slight correspondence which had just taken place between them) to call on Dr. Beauclerc. Dr. Beauclerc--who was not addressed as "Mr. Dean" out of his cathedral city as much as he was in it--inquired how long he had been in the neighbourhood, and found he had only just arrived by the evening train,--had come straight to the Rectory from the station.