could be expected no immediate pecuniary profits, Mr. Knight looked
round to find some other way of occupying his leisure, and adding to
his income. Although a reserved person, on a certain Sunday when he
went to lunch at the Hall, in the absence of Mr. Blake who was
spending the week-end somewhere else, he confided his difficulties to
Lady Jane whom he felt to be sympathetic.

"The house is so big," he complained. "Mrs. Parsons" (Godfrey's old
nurse and his housekeeper) "and one girl cannot even keep it clean. It
was most foolish of my predecessor in the living to restore that old
refectory and all the southern dormitories upon which I am told he
spent no less than L1,500 of his own money, never reflecting on the
expense which his successors must incur merely to keep them in order,
since being once there they are liable for charges for dilapidations.
It would have been better, after permission obtained, to let them go
to ruin."

"No doubt, but they are very beautiful, are they not?" remarked Lady
Jane feebly.

"Beauty is a luxury and, I may add, a snare. It is a mistaken love of
beauty and pomp, baits that the Evil One well knows how to use, which
have led so large a section of our Church astray," he replied sipping
at his tumbler of water.

A silence followed, for Lady Jane, who from early and tender
associations loved high-church practices, did not know what to answer.
It was broken by Isobel who had been listening to the conversation in
her acute way, and now said in her clear, strong voice: