"No--good joke."

"No reform movement is ever a good joke, under any circumstances
whatsoever. Where it appears a joke at all, it is the kind that would
appeal only to pinheads of the dottiest nature."

"I see."

"I'm going up there to-morrow," said Peter, nodding toward the town,
"and look into it a little. If there is time, I may even decide to show
these fellows how a reform proposition ought to be handled to ensure
results."

Far off on the hill a single light twinkled through the trees, very
yellow against the pale moonlight. Varney's eye fell upon it and
absently held it. It was Mary Carstairs's light, though, of course, he
had no means of knowing that.

Presently Peter lolled around and looked at him. "H'm! Sunk in a sodden
slumber, I suppose?"

"Not at all. Interested by your conversation--fascinated. Ha! Here is
something to vary the evening's monotony. A row-boat is drifting
down-stream towards us. Let us make little wagers with each other as to
who'll be in it."

He looked over his shoulder upward at the moon, which a flying scud of
cloud had momentarily veiled. Peter, who had sat down again, glanced up
the river.