to tell you these things, you know. So you
will do all you can to win over Sir Hopkins
Pocock. It is of great importance."

"Don't, don't!" she said, piteously, as if
asking for mercy. "Don't bring me to these
cold severe people. I shall only be worse and
worse."

Violet's eyes were dimming fast. Fermor
shook his head impatiently, and passed out
with a sigh of resignation. Poor Violet, filled
with shame, grief, and sore distress, and with
much physical pain in her head, was left alone
to drop down upon the sofa.

"What shall I do! O, what shall I do!" she
cried.

Sir Hopkins liked Major Carter's company so
much, that he asked him to dinner. He had
"quite taken a fancy to him," he told Fermor,
as being "a man who knew men," and who
had "rubbed about the world" a good bit.

"I like to mix up a few friends together like
a salad," said Sir Hopkins. "I used to give
famous little dinners to the consuls. This will
suit you, I think, Charles. Only Major Carter,
Sir Charles, yourself, the bishop, and that
amusing creature, Showers."

"Showers! You ask him?" said Fermor, half
aghast.

"O, he will keep us going. As lively a young
fellow as I ever met. The bishop, a very
superior person—come down here half for his
health, you understand. Sir Charles I met at
Vichy; odd his turning up in this way!"

This oddity really did not make so much
difference; for, cast Sir Hopkins into any social
pool, and by a sort of instinct he drifted up
alongside blocks of the finer quality of timber.
He contrived always to be washed against the
mahogany, never the deals, of society. Thus he
floated up to Sir Charles Longman. Bishops
being always correct, ex-officio, he came speedily
to have a pleasant acquaintance with Dr. Bridles,
the Bishop of Leighton Buzzard, in whose diocese
this little watering-place lay. These were the
times when the great moors of the Church were
but ill preserved, and such spiritual game as
there was sadly poached—not from without,
but from within, by a class whom the bishop
was fond of calling Neo-Latitudinarians. The
indefatigable way in which the bishop, taking
down his ecclesiastical fowling-piece, beat the
bushes, and woods, and fields, all day and night
Iong, in drawing-rooms and clubs, at dinners
and parties, armed with a search-warrant, and
looking out warily for a Neo-Latitudinarian,
was truly wonderful. He maintained that the
ecclesiastical keepers were too remiss, and did
not do work enough. And, having recently
actually surprised one of those dangerous tramps
with a hare at the end of a stick over his
shoulders (it was a Mr. Blankiron, M.A., who
had published the well-known book, "Dangers
and Developments"), he had got him well covered,
and had hit him badly with the well-known charge
which Sir Hopkins had seen on the bookseller's
counter.

Sir Hopkins waited on his rug, dressed, a
velvet collar to his coat, his face at an angle,
levelled at the door. Below, everything was
ready.

The two Carters, father and son, were the first
to enter. Carter, the father, as bright, and
fresh, and clean as a very new biscuit; Carter, the
son, docile dutifulness embodied in a dress-coat,
following. He was "living and learning."

The two men of the world shook hands.

"A little early," said the major, gaily, "but
a good fault that, as I told Somerset."

Presently, the bishop was announced, and
came tripping in smartly, as if he were beating
the stubble. His coat might have been newly
japanned, and his trim legs seemed newly turned
in ebony by a lathe. He said, "How d'ye do?"
sharply, looked at the others suspiciously, as
disguised Neo-Latitudinarians.

Then came Sir Charles Longman, with his
glass firmly glued in, and advancing with hesitation,
as if he had mistaken the room— finally,
getting a fair view of his host, he rushed at him
convulsively and secured his hand. Being then
introduced to the bishop, he surveyed him
nervously, seemed to trip over a stone, and then
retired in confusion on the fender. After him
came Fermor, and after Fermor, Showers.

Sir Hopkins went half way to the door to
meet "his young friend" Showers, and shook
him by the hand with cordiality, until Fermor
writhed. He then introduced him to the bishop
with a whisper like "Quite Sydney Smith, my
lord," on which the latter drew back his ebony
leg, and seemed about to level his piece. For, on
hearing the name of that pleasant clerical jester,
it seemed as if one of his keepers had called out
"Mark!" Showers was elated by this patronage,
and Fermor as much chafed: but the latter almost
started when, on that pleasant Wamba's
withdrawal into the window with young Somerset
Carter, he heard the host whispering to Sir
Charles and the bishop (and the three heads bent
together over a vase on the low chimney-piece
suggested a comic reproduction of The Doves
in the Capitol) that his young friend was
"monstrous clever, my lord, and really of quite
a diplomatic turn." No wonder Fermor started.

The procession was then formed, the bishop
leading, as if he had contracted for the funeral
that was following, and his finely-turned legs
being at times confused with the banisters; Sir
Charles Longman, coming next, fell over logs of
mahogany, great blocks of stone, and other
impediments, and was recovered by the arm of his
host. Showers and Fermor came behind, the
former very gay, and, on this recent encouragement,
becoming once more very free and
insubordinate towards his companion.

It was a round table—perhaps a round flowerbed
—with flowers and burnished glass that
glittered and refracted, and fine fresh linen,
marked with the Pocock cypher, which glistened
like soft white satin. The host gave a short
sketchy lecture on each of these points—not
unentertaining—as the curtain went up.

Fish on. A little legend about the fish. Had