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Nevington and I shall avail ourselves of her proffered hospitality." "Don't fret, don't take it too much to heart, Georgie dear," the wife said soothingly later. "The vicar did seem very stern, but that was owing to Serena. I am afraid she's a terrible mischief-maker, is Serena. She turns things inside out so in saying them, that you do not recognise your own words again.
Nevington, as you see, and at his very best" she lowered her voice discreetly. "So at home, so full of great thoughts, and yet so comical quite a privilege for all to hear him talk." Encouraged by recent commendation, George Lovegrove again rose with praiseworthy tact to the occasion.
Nevington inquired, with some interest. "Not parishioners, I fancy." "Not in any true sense," Mrs. Lovegrove replied. "Dissenters, and I am sorry to say rather spiteful against the Church." The clergyman leaned back and crossed his legs comfortably. "Ah! well, poor human nature! A touch of jealousy perhaps," he remarked. Mrs. Lovegrove beamed.
A 'suffering bishop' you recall the well-worn joke? such as myself, must not aspire to anything approaching castles or palaces, but be content with a very modest place of residence." Here his unhappy hostess, sitting quite perilously near the edge of the sofa, craned round the interposing barrier. "But that is only a matter of time, Dr. Nevington," she said, "surely.
But this disquieting and oft-repeated preface to the afternoon's festivity was now happily over. And the good lady, oblivious of discomfort and a slightly disorganised complexion, sat purring with satisfaction upon her best Chesterfield sofa, Dr. Giles Nevington beside her. "Pleasure, not business, to-day, Mrs. Lovegrove. For once I am going to make no demands on my faithful and able coadjutor.
But I shall stay as long as Dr. Nevington does I don't for one moment believe Miranda Samuelson really intended to send the carriage so I will just wait and go when he goes. I think I owe it to myself to show George and Rhoda that they cannot drive me away against my will, however much they may wish to do so."
Having come to which amiable decision Serena turned her mind and conversation to questions of house-hunting in Slowby. The subject, however, began to pall, before long, upon her companion. Dr. Nevington changed his position more than once. His replies became vague and perfunctory, while his attention evidently strayed to the conversation taking place at the other end of the sofa.
"Mrs. Nevington heard from your kind sister only this morning," he continued. "Full of active helpfulness as usual, Mrs. Lovegrove. She proposes that we should quarter ourselves upon you and her for a few days, Miss Serena, while we are seeking a temporary residence. She kindly gives us the names of several houses which she considers worth inspection."
But the end of the sentence was lost in the bass notes issuing from the presence upon the sofa. "Truly, the prosperity of the nation," Dr. Nevington was saying, "of this dear old England of ours that we so love, is wholly bound up with the prosperity of her national Church. I use the word prosperity in a plain, manly, straightforward sense.
Then turning sideways, so as to present an expanse of neatly clad back and shoulder to her outraged relative, she continued: "I wonder which, Dr. Nevington I mean I wonder which houses Susan has recommended. Of course there is the Priory. But nobody has lived in it for ages and ages. It is in a very low neighbourhood, close to the canal and brickfields on the Tullingworth Road.
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