"Oh, Mr. Jackson, how beautiful your sermon was!"
They sat down to dinner, and ate their ox-tail soup. It is terrible to think of the subtlety with which the Evil One can insinuate himself among the most pious; for soup at middle-day is one of his most dangerous wiles, and it is precisely with the simple-minded inhabitants of the country and of the suburbs that this vice is most prevalent.
James was sitting next to Mrs. Clibborn, and presently she looked at him with the melancholy smile which had always seemed to her so effective.
"We want you to tell us how you won your Victoria Cross, Jamie."
The others, eager to hear the story from the hero's lips, had been, notwithstanding, too tactful to ask; but they were willing to take advantage of Mrs. Clibborn's lack of that quality.
"We've all been looking forward to it," said the Vicar.
"I don't think there's anything to tell," replied James.
His father and mother were looking at him with happy eyes, and the Colonel nodded to Mary.
"Please, Jamie, tell us," she said. "We only saw the shortest account in the papers, and you said nothing about it in your letters."
"D'you think it's very good form of me to tell you about it?" asked James, smiling gravely.