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Updated: May 23, 2025
Things had not been going well with Mr Maguire when, as a last chance, he attempted to force an entrance into Mrs Mackenzie's drawing-room. Things, indeed, had been going very badly with him. Mr Stumfold at Littlebath had had an interview with the editor of the Christian Examiner, and had made that provincial Jupiter understand that he must drop the story of the Lion and the Lamb.
She let fall a word or two which intimated her conviction that Miss Mackenzie was to become at all points a Stumfoldian, since she had herself invoked the countenance and assistance of the great man on her first arrival; but beyond this, Mrs Stumfold afforded no comfort.
On the other side of Miss Mackenzie sat Miss Baker, and on the other side of Mrs Stumfold stood Mr Startup, talking aloud and administering the full tea-cups with a conscious grace. Mr Stumfold and Mr Frigidy were at the other table, and Mr Maguire was occupied in passing promiscuously from one to the other.
She had her ambition, and she wished to see whether even she might not do something to lessen the gulf which separated those who loved the pleasures of the world in Littlebath from the bosom of Mr Stumfold. "You don't know what you are going to do," Miss Baker said. "I'm not going to do any harm." "That's more than you can say, my dear."
"If I'm to go to the bad place," Miss Todd had said to Miss Baker, "because I like to do something that won't hurt my old eyes of an evening, I don't see the justice of it. As for calling it gambling, it's a falsehood, and your Mr Stumfold knows that as well as I do. I haven't won or lost ten pounds in ten years, and I've no more idea of making money by cards than I have by sweeping the chimney.
"My anxiety that you should not be sacrificed I once before evinced to you," said Mrs Stumfold; "and within the last two months Mr Stumfold has been at work to put an end to the scurrilous writings which that wolf in sheep's clothing has been putting into the newspapers."
So that, though the absolute fact of Mrs Stumfold being dust, and grass, and worms, could not, in regard to the consistency of things, be denied, yet in her dustiness, grassiness, and worminess she was so little dusty, grassy, and wormy, that it was hardly fair, even in herself, to mention the fact at all. "I know the deceit of my own heart," Mrs Stumfold would say.
"He used to draw his bishops very bitter, but now he draws them mild and creamy. I dare say Stumfold did his best, but he didn't quite get his hay in while the sun shone." "He seems to me to be very comfortable where he is," said Miss Mackenzie. "I dare say. It must be rather a bore for him having to live in the house with old Peters.
Our friend could not have explained to herself why it was so, but after having encountered Mrs Stumfold, she was less inclined to become a disciple than she had been when she had seen only the great master himself. It was not only that Mrs Stumfold, as judged by externals, was felt to be more severe than her husband evangelically, but she was more severe also ecclesiastically.
There would be an ingratitude in such a proceeding after the open-armed affection which had been shown to her which Lady Ball could not readily bring herself to forgive. Sir John, once or twice during the day, took up his little sarcasms against her supposed religious tendencies at Littlebath. "You'll be glad to get back to Mr Stumfold," he said.
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