"I hear the dinner-bell," I said at this moment, for I heard Captain Smith performing the "Roast beef of Old England" on a key-bugle, which was the concerted signal for our assembling where the provender had been spread; and I used a little more vigour than usual in drawing the young ladies away.
"What a splendid specimen of Anglo-Catholic faith is Mr Swallowlies!" exclaimed Araminta in a tone of rapture; "and how free from bigotry in his reverence for a Romish saint like the holy Toper!"
"Hold your silly tongue, this moment!" I exclaimed, getting into a passion—"a fellow that believes in paralytic cats and five-footed calves being cured by such trumpery, should leave our church."
"You are so bitter, Mr Buddle, against the Holy Catholic Church, that I wonder you call yourself a Christian at all."
"Where is the Holy Catholic Church, you little simpleton?" I said, softening a little, for Araminta is a nice little girl.
"At Rome, Charles Fustian told me; and we are but a distant branch of it, bearing very little fruit, and owing that little only to the sap furnished to us by the main old trunk. And Mr Mount Huxtable says the same,—only that our branch bears no fruit, as the continuity was cut off at the deplorable Reformation."
"Charles Fustian! Mr Mount Huxtable!" I cried: "they're laughing at you, my little dear: they are both ministers of our church, and have made numberless protestations against the wickedness and errors of Rome. They are laughing at you,—at least I know Mount Huxtable is, for, to tell you a secret, my dear Araminta, he is placed here for no other purpose but to defend our Protestant Establishment against the Tractarian tendencies of the artists and young ladies of the day."
"Charles Fustian, sir, I beg to tell you, knows too well to presume to laugh at me," said Araminta, tossing her head.
"He ought, my dear," I replied, "for he is a remarkably foolish young man, and hasn't half the sense in his whole head which you have in your little finger."
By this time we had reached the spring; and after placing the girls in the best seats still to be found, I called Dr Smiler aside.