had heard accounts of Lupton Castle from Mrs. Seaton on at least
half a dozen different occasions. Privately he believed them all
to refer to one visit, an event of immemorial antiquity periodically
brought up to date by Mrs. Seaton's imagination. But the vicar was
a timid man, without the courage of his opinions, and in his eagerness
to stop the flow of his neighbor's eloquence he could think of no
better device, or more suitable rival subject, than to plunge into
the story of the drunken carrier, and the pastry still reposing on
the counter at Randall's.

He blushed, good man, when he was well in it. His wife's horrified
countenance embarrassed him. But anything was better than Lord
Fleckwood. Mrs. Seaton listened to him with the slightest smile
on her formidable lip. The story was pleasing to her.

'At least, my dear sir,' she said when he paused, nodding her
diademed head with stately emphasis, 'Mrs. Thornburgh's inconvenience
may have one good result. You can now make an example of the
carrier. It is our special business, as my husband always says,
who are in authority, to bring their low vices home to these people.'

The vicar fidgeted in his chair. What ineptitude had he been guilty
of now! By way of avoiding Lord Fleckwood he might have started
Mrs. Seaton on teetotalism. Now if there was one topic on which
this awe-inspiring woman was more awe-inspiring than another it was
on the topic of teetotalism. The vicar had already felt himself a
criminal as he drank his modest glass of claret under her eye.

'Oh, the drunkenness about here is pretty bad,' said Dr. Baker from
the other end of the table. 'But there are plenty of worse things