“Sir, I am obliged to you,” said Dr. Upround, stiffly, and not without suspicion of being bantered, so dry was the stranger's countenance, and his manner so peculiar; “and if I have been enabled to say a good word in season, and its season lasts, it will be a source of satisfaction to me.”
“Yes, I fear there are many smugglers here. But I am no revenue officer, as your congregation seemed to think. May I call upon business to-morrow, sir? Thank you; then may I say ten o'clock—your time of beginning, as I hear? Mordacks is my name, sir, of York city, not unfavorably known there. Ladies, my duty to you!”
“What an extraordinary man, my dear!” Mrs. Upround exclaimed, with some ingratitude, after the beautiful bow she had received. “He may talk as he likes, but he must be a smuggler. He said that he was not an officer; that shows it, for they always run into the opposite extreme. You have converted him, my dear; and I am sure that we ought to be so much obliged to him. If he comes to-morrow morning to give up all his lace, do try to remember how my little all has been ruined in the wash, and I am sick of working at it.”
“My dear, he is no smuggler. I begin to recollect. He was down here in the summer, and I made a great mistake. I took him for Rideout; and I did the same to-day. When I see him to-morrow, I shall beg his pardon. One gets so hurried in the vestry always; they are so impatient with their fiddles! A great deal of it was Janetta's fault.”
“It always is my fault, papa, somehow or other,” the young lady answered, with a faultless smile: and so they went home to the early Sunday dinner.
“Papa, I am in such a state of excitement; I am quite unfit to go to church this afternoon,” Miss Upround exclaimed, as they set forth again. “You may put me in stocks made out of hassocks—you may rope me to the Flodden Field man's monument, of the ominous name of 'Constable;' but whatever you do, I shall never attend; and I feel that it is so sinful.”
“Janetta, your mamma has that feeling sometimes; for instance, she has it this afternoon; and there is a good deal to be said for it. But I fear that it would grow with indulgence.”
“I can firmly fancy that it never would; though one can not be sure without trying. Suppose that I were to try it just once, and let you know how it feels at tea-time?”
“My dear, we are quite round the corner of the lane. The example would be too shocking.”
“Now don't you make any excuses, papa. Only one woman can have seen us yet; and she is so blind she will think it was her fault. May I go? Quick, before any one else comes.”