“Why do you look so glum, James?” asks Colonel Lambert, good-naturedly. “Has the charmer been scolding thee, or is thy conscience pricked by the sermon. Mr. Sampson, isn't the parson's name? A famous preacher, on my word!”
“A pretty preacher, and a pretty practitioner!” says Mr. Wolfe, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Why, I thought the discourse did not last ten minutes, and madam did not sleep one single wink during the sermon, didst thou, Molly?”
“Did you see when the fellow came into church?” asked the indignant Colonel Wolfe. “He came in at the open door of the common, just in time, and as the psalm was over.”
“Well, he had been reading the service probably to some sick person; there are many here,” remarks Mrs. Lambert.
“Reading the service! Oh, my good Mrs. Lambert! Do you know where I found him? I went to look for your young scapegrace of a Virginian.”
“His own name is a very pretty name, I'm sure,” cries out Hetty. “It isn't Scapegrace! It is Henry Esmond Warrington, Esquire.”
“Miss Hester, I found the parson in his cassock, and Henry Esmond Warrington, Esquire, in his bedgown, at a quarter before eleven o'clock in the morning, when all the Sunday bells were ringing, and they were playing over a game of piquet they had had the night before!”
“Well, numbers of good people play at cards of a Sunday. The King plays at cards of a Sunday.”
“Hush, my dear!”