Rosamond was provoked into a display of her solitary bit of
ecclesiastical knowledge--"A friar's gown, the most Popish vestment
in the church."

Cecil, thoroughly angered, flushed up to the eyes and bit her lips,
unable to find a reply, while all the gentlemen laughed. Frank
asked if it were really so, and Mr. Bindon made the well-known
explanation that the Geneva gown was neither more nor less than the
monk's frock.

"I shall write and ask Mr. Venn," gasped Cecil; but her husband
stifled the sound by saying, "I saw little Pettitt, Julius, this
afternoon, overwhelmed with gratitude to you for all the care you
took of his old mother, and all his waxen busts."

"Ah! by the bye!" said Charlie, "I did meet the Rector staggering
out, with the fascinating lady with the long eyelashes in one arm,
and the moustached hero in the other."

"There was no pacifying the old lady without," said Julius. "I had
just coaxed her to the door, when she fell to wringing her hands.
Ah! those lovely models, that were worth thirty shillings each, with
natural hair--that they should be destroyed! If the heat or the
water did but come near them, Adolphus would never get over it. I
could only pacify her by promising to go back for these idols of his
heart as soon as she was safe; and after all, I had to dash at them
through the glass, and that was the end of my spectacles."

"Where was Pettitt himself?"