"When?" asked Alicia, staring out of the window at the crows in a
tamarind tree.
"Last Saturday. He said he had promised some friends of his the pleasure
of meeting me. They had besieged him, he said, and they were his best
friends, on all his committees."
"Only ladies?" The crows, with a shriek of defiance at nothing in
particular, having flown away, Miss Livingstone transferred her
attention.
"Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men friends! And _lesquelles
pense-tu, mon Dieu!_"
"_Lesquelles?_"
"Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz--what you may call him up on the
frontier, the Brigadier gentleman--Lady Dolly!"
"You were well chaperoned."
"And--my dear--he didn't ask a single Sister!" Hilda turned upon her a
face which appeared still to glow with the stimulus of the Archdiaconal
function. "And--it was wicked considering the occasion--I dropped the
character. I let myself out!"
"You didn't shock the Archdeacon?"
"Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever permit yourself the
reflection that the Venerable Gambell is a bachelor?"
"Hilda, you shall not! We all love him--you shall not lead him astray!"
"You would not think of--the altar--?"
Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snow-flake upon Hilda's
mood and was swallowed up.
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