"Is not Uncle Augustus a fine-looking man?" asked Lady Atherley, when he
had left the room with Atherley. "I cannot think why they do not make
him a bishop; he would look so well in the robes. He ought to have had
something when the last ministry was in, for Aunt Clara and Lord
Lingford are cousins; but, unfortunately, the families were on bad terms
because of a lawsuit."

The morning after was bright and fair, so that
sunlight mingled with the drowsy calm--Sunday in the country as we
remember it, looking lovingly back from lands that are not English to
the tenderer side of the Puritan Sabbath. But I missed my little
_aubade_ from the lawn, and not till breakfast-time did I behold my
small friends, who then came into the breakfast-room, one on either side
of their mother--two miniature sailors, exquisitely neat but visibly
dejected. Behind walked Tip, demurely recognising the change in the
atmosphere, but, undisturbed thereby, he at once, with his usual air of
self-satisfied dignity, assumed his place in the largest arm-chair.

"The landau could take us all to church except you, George," said Lady
Atherley, looking thoughtfully into the fire as we waited for breakfast
and the Canon. "But I suppose you would prefer to walk?"

"Why should you suppose I am going to church, either walking or
driving?"

"Well, I certainly hoped you would have gone to-day; as Uncle Augustus
is going to preach it seems only polite to do so."

"Well, I don't mind; I daresay it will do me no harm; and if it is