couple of curates. Mine is a strong-handed, ingenuous Ishmael, who tells
everybody that he hates his trade, and that he thinks it is very hard
that he may not get out of it, now that his elder brother is dead. I am
thankful to say that his appetite is as vast as his shoulders; so, after
I have told him that I _love_ raw oysters, and that Barbara cannot sit
in the room with a roast hare; and have heard in return that he does not
care about brill, but worships John Dory, we slide into a gluttonous
silence, and abide in it. Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different
pattern to mine. He is a macerated little saint, with the eyes of a
ferret and the heart of a mouse. As the courses pass by, in savory
order, I, myself unemployed, watch my sister gradually reassuring,
comforting, heartening him, as is her way with all weakly, maimed, and
unhandsome creatures. She has succeeded in thawing him into a thin
trickle of parochial talk, when mother bends her laced and feathered
head in distant signal from the table-top, and off we go. We drink
coffee, we drink tea, we pick clever little holes in our absent
neighbors, in brisk duet and tortuous solo we hammer the blameless
spinnet, we sing affecting songs about "fair doves," and "cleansing
fires," and people "far away," and still our deliverers come not. They
_must_ hear our appealing melodies clearly through the walls and doors,
but still they come not. Sunk in sloth and old port, still they come
not. I seem to have said every possible thing that is to be said on
every known subject to the young woman beside me, and now I am falling
asleep. I feel it. Lulled by the warm glow diffused through the room, by
the smell of the jonquils, lilies of the valley and daphnes, by the low
even talk, I am slipping into slumber. The door opens, and I jump into
wakefulness; Sir Roger to the rescue. I am afraid that I look at him
with something not unlike invitation in my eyes, for he makes straight
toward me.