She laughed again, looking up to his face.

"Well, we'll have a look at it, anyway," said she.

They went into the shop to see the tail feathers of that wonderful
meteor-bird which Herbert Courtland had just brought back from New
Guinea with him--the most glorious thing that nature had produced and a
great explorer had risked his life to acquire, in order that Mrs. Linton
might have a unique feathered fan.



About the same time the Rev. George Holland met in the same thoroughfare
his friend and patron, the Earl of Earlscourt.

"By the Lord Harry, you've done for yourself now, my hearty!" cried the
earl. "What the blazes do you mean by attacking the Word of God in that
fashion?"

"Tommy," said the Rev. George Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at
his patron, "Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you'll not meddle
with what doesn't concern you. You're a peer; better leave the Word of
God to me. I'm not a peer, but a parson."

"I'll not leave it with you; it isn't safe," said the peer. "Anything
more damnably atheistical than that book of yours I never read."

"And you didn't read it, Thomas; you know you only read a screeching
review of it, and you didn't even read that through," said the parson.