me. I must have him under my own eye; I can't trust him out of my sight. No sooner did I begin to stay here, no sooner was my back turned, than he goes to Oxford, and stays with his old friends. I've seen him tending to it for a long time. He began Lowish enough Church, you know, but all the old college friends he really ever cared for were High Church, and he has come round to 'em at last. I warned him of it. I spoke seriously to him. I pointed out to him the danger and error of such a course; that it led to the still more degrading superstitions of Rome; that his church was not adapted for it, being what you may call of an orthodox style of architecture; that his congregation hated M.B. like poison; and that the thing had never been made to pay commercially. But I couldn't make him see it. Not being a religious man yourself, Squire, I hope I give no offence in saying that it is very difficult to make really religious men see things in a commercial point of view."

Oh, you couldn't, eh?" said the Squire, shaking his great chest with internal laughter at the mental spectacle of Betts trying to argue Algernon out of his religious convictions on commercial grounds. "So he wouldn't listen to you, eh?"

"Not a bit of it," said Betts. "I knew he would make a mess of it if I didn't stay by him. I saw he was getting bent on it; and consequently I knew he'd do it sooner or later; for his name is Silcote you know, that's about what his name is. And the last words I said to him were: If you find that your mind leads you to it,' I said, 'I suppose you must do it. But,' I said, 'let em down easy. Preach up to it cautious,' I said. If it's the right thing,' I said, 'go in for it; though as a last word it hasn't took in the north part of London, and is against my own principles; but, whether it's right or wrong, there is no harm in making it pay in a commercial point of view. Lor' bless you,' I said, 'I have made many things pay in my time, and, if you give me time, I may make this; though no one has yet. Now I am going to your father' (meaning you), and, if you are determined, begin preaching up to it cautious.'

"I hope he followed your advice," said the Squire, laughing more kindly than he had done for thirty years.

"My advice!" said Betts, utterly unconscious of the amusement he was causing. "Isn't he a Silcote? He preached in his surplice the first Sunday I was away. Ah! I'm telling you the bare truth: he turns the chairs towards the altar, and he calls that letting'em down easy. What on earth are you laughing at? I don't see anything to laugh at."

"I won't laugh any more if I can help it; but, good Betts, has his course been successful? Won't he let his pews better in consequence of this ceremonialism?"

"I tell you that that sort of thing don't suit our Islington folks all of a sudden. They want letting down easy, and he has gone and let 'em down by the run. And he has

emptied his church. And he must have this master's place; and, if you get out of it with that, without my coming on you for a couple of hundred pounds to pay his tradesmen and his doctor, you may think yourself lucky."

"But he is a Puseyite, Betts," said Silcote, as soon as he had smothered his internal laughter; "and, according to your own confession, Puseyism don't pay; and our own apology to human decency, for the outrageous job in which we are both concerned, will be to make it pay. This Algernon Silcote is a marked Puseyite; they have left his church, and the boys have cast squibs and crackers into his area. We shall ruin the whole thing if we take a man half-way to Rome into the business."

"And how will you get out of that, I wonder?" thought the Squire as he stood behind Betts, with a more genial light in his eyes than any one could remember to have seen before. “This is fun, and seems to rattle one's heart about pleasantly. How will you, you kind old rogue, make this thing fit?"

The kindly old rogue was blessed in resource; he had only to bite his finger in silence for less than one minute, when he found himself able to push towards his idea through a vague skirmishing army of common-places.

Why, there's various ways of looking at things, Squire; what's treason in one place is patriotism in another.

In a

similar way what is orthodoxy in a cathedral is Puseyism in a church. Architecture has a deal to do with it; and we are going in for the highest style of architecture procurable for money. Close imitation of the old buildings. Real mediæval, none of your renaissance, tag-rag, and bobbery. Lor' bless you, his surplice won't be noticed in our chapel! Why we chant the Psalms now, and Algernon will go in for everything short of incense, and we are safe with him, you know. And there is a further consideration for your not opposing Algernon's nomination as master." "And what is that?" asked Silcote.

This," said Betts, suddenly and furiously, in a way which strangely startled the Squire; "just because, if this man Algernon Silcote is kicked out in the cold to starve with his children, by George, I'll pitch the whole thing to the devil. If he has to beg, by George, I'll beg alongside of him. If he has to go to the workhouse, I'll go to the workhouse with him; if he has to stand in the dock, I'll stand alongside of him. He will never take a penny from me. And he sees it out with me through thick and thin ; through a bitterer time than you've ever seen. Come! And by George, I'll see it out with him to the end and finish of it all. If I don't, may

Hush, my friend, hush!" said Silcote, laying his hand very gently on Mr. Betts's shoulder. "Don't scold and swear. You have scolded yourself into tears during a business conversation. How very unbusinesslike! Be quiet; I will do everything you wish for this gentleman. He was my late wife's son, you know. Now that I see what you are, I will tell it all to you some day. Not now. Let one man make a fool of himself at a time. Now have you got any other officers in your eye, you audacious old schemer? Won't you appoint me shoeblack, and request Sir Hugh Brockliss to undertake the office of scavenger?"

Betts laughed. "Well, now it's over, we may as well have a little talk to get it out of our heads. Officers? Ah, we want a new matron, and had better see to it at the next Board. Old Mrs. Jones is past her work. She will be swallowing her spectacles soon. I've had to ad

vertise without waiting for the Board. You will pension her, of course!"

"Of course."

"And Berry? He ought to be pensioned, you know." "He'll last. How about the matron?"

“One application, which seems likely. Splendid certificates, but belongs to a sisterhood."

"That won't do. We can't have a Roman Catholic woman with a wimple about the place."

"She wears no dress, and, I believe, takes no vows, and she is a Protestant. She is evidently a tip-top person. If you don't object, she ought to be snapped up.'

"Is she used to this kind of thing?"

"She has been used to everything pretty nigh, from her testimonials. She was in the Crimea to begin with. The doctors at the Small-pox Hospital at Manchester wrote and asked for her, but the lady superintendent writes to me to say that she has set her heart on this. You had best have her."

"She will be better than a Gamp, I suppose. I see no difficulty. Large salary?"

"Lor bless you, her sort don't take money. She must be decently found, but she musn't be offered money. That was expressly mentioned."

"We will have her in, my Betts, What is her name ?” "Mrs. Morgan. They call her Sister Mary, but she is to be called Mrs. Morgan if she comes to us."

CHAPTER XXVII.

MRS. MORGAN.

I BELIEVE that Mr. Betts, in his ignorance, actually thought that Arthur's work at St. Mary's would be lighter than that at Balliol. It is impossible that Arthur could have thought so, but he may have thought that some change in the form of his eager activity would amount to a kind of rest: for

of rest, consisting of actual quiescence, he was utterly incapable. It was known to but very few, of whom his father was one, that on several occasions he had fainted. The first doctor he had consulted on this alarming symptom had spoken so very gravely of the symptoms that he had found it necessary at last to tell his father, which he did the day before James arrived at Silcote. Another doctor, however, had given a more cheering account; there had been no recurrence of the symptoms; and here he was fairly installed lord and master of the new regime.

His buildings were not quite finished, but his boys were due. He had been three days there, and in those three days there had been some fifty waking hours: and, in that time, if Arthur had evolved from his steam-engine brain one scheme for making matters better, he had evolved fifty: one an hour certainly. He was a little anxious about his appearance; the glass told him that he looked younger than a great many schoolboys. He found himself, therefore, uncommonly apt to stand on his dignity this evening: but there was no one to show off on except poor Algernon, and he was no use. Any one could bully him.

However, he walked across the moonlit quadrangle to his brother's house. It was a pleasant house, opening out of the cloisters, and looking down on the lake. The children were in bed. He found his brother reading in his handsome crimson-furnished study. He was glad to see his dear old friend so well-housed and comfortable after his troubles; and he said

How do you think you Algernon ?"

"Not at all," was the reply.

shall like this new life,

This was scarcely encouraging. His brother did not seem inclined for talking. It occurred to him that he might as well go and see how the matron was getting on; and so he went towards the dormitory, where he expected to find her busy. There was a light in one of the sixth-form studies, and he directed his feet that way. "I wonder where she is, and what she is like," he asked himself. "By the bye, they say that she is something very superior." Here she was at last, putting one of the sixth-form boys'