“Well, my father knows I have no turn in that direction, and this I will say for him, he don’t expect it of me,” said Bertram handsomely. “He may be devilish straitlaced, and full of old fashioned notions, but he’s a right one at heart, and don’t plague one with a pack of humbug.”

“Yes, yes!” said Arabella impatiently, “but does he know of this letter? Will he let me go?”

“I fancy he don’t like it above half, but he said he could not stand in your way, and must trust to your conducting yourself in Society with propriety, and not allowing your head to be turned by frivolity and admiration. And as to that,” Bertram added, with brotherly candour, “I don’t suppose they will think you anything out of the way amongst all the nobs, so there’s precious little chance of its happening.”

“No, I am sure they will not,” said Arabella. “But tell me the whole! What did Lady Bridlington say in her letter?”

“Lord, I don’t know! I was trying to make sense of a whole rigmarole of Greek when Mama came in, and I wasn’t listening with more than half an ear. I daresay she’ll tell it all to you. She sent me to say she wants you in her dressing-room.”

“Good gracious, why could you not have told me that before?” cried Arabella, stuffing the half-finished shirt into a work-bag and flitting out of the room.

The Parsonage, although built on two storeys only, was a large, old-fashioned house, and to reach Mrs. Tallant’s dressing-room Arabella was obliged to traverse several corridors, all carpeted with a worn drugget, and all equally draughty.

The living of Heythram was respectable, being worth some three hundred pounds a year, in addition to which the present incumbent was possessed of a small independence; but the claims of a numerous family made the recarpeting of passages more a thing to be dreamed of than an allowable expense.