Mr. Lorimer smiled benignly.

CHAPTER XXXII THE DECISION "The matter is settled," said the Reverend Stephen Lorimer, in the tones of icy decision with which his wife was but too tragically familiar.

Mr. Lorimer smiled self-indulgently over the term.

I should like it above all things," Mrs. Lorimer hastened to assure him, "if it were not for Jeanie.

Mrs. Lorimer did not smile in answer.

" The Vicar's mouth turned down, and he looked for a moment so extremely unpleasant that Mrs. Lorimer quailed.

" He was gone, leaving Mrs. Lorimer to pace up and down his study in futile distress of mind.

Mrs. Lorimer wrung her hands.

Mrs. Lorimer turned hastily to the window and began to dry her eyes.

" Mrs. Lorimer was silent.

Still Mrs. Lorimer neither moved nor spoke.

Mrs. Lorimer straightened herself with another weary sigh.

Avery realized that fact from the outset even before Mrs. Lorimer's agitated note upon the subject reached her.

The other children were expected home from school during the week before Easter, and Mr. Lorimer desired that Avery should be at the Vicarage to prepare for them.

It began with lengthy prayers in the dining-room, so lengthy that Avery feared that Mrs. Lorimer would faint ere they came to an end.

" "Upon that point," observed Mr. Lorimer, "I am the best judge.

And into the midst of their tribulation came Mrs. Lorimer to mingle her tears with theirs.

When Lady Diana Angersthorpe shone forth in the West End world as the acknowledged belle of the season, the star of Georgina Lorimer was beginning to wane.

She was the eldest daughter of Colonel Lorimer, a man of good old family, and a fine soldier, who had fought shoulder to shoulder with Gough and Lawrence, and who had contrived to make a figure in society with very small means.

'Directly the season is over I shall give up housekeeping and take a lodging at Bath,' said Colonel Lorimer.

Nobody in society said sharper or more unpleasant things than Miss Lorimer, and by virtue of this gift she got invited about a great deal more than she might have done had she been distinguished for sweetness of speech and manner.

Georgie Lorimer's presence at a dinner table gave just that pungent flavour which is like the faint suspicion of garlic in a fricassee or of tarragon in a salad.

Now in this very season, when Colonel Lorimer was inclined to speak of his daughter, as Sainte Beuve wrote of Musset, as a young woman with a very brilliant past, a lucky turn of events gave Georgina a fresh start in life, which may be called a new departure.

In October Colonel Lorimer had the profound pleasure of giving away his daughter, before the altar in St. George's, Hanover Square, and it may be said of him that nothing in his relations with that young lady became him better than his manner of parting with her.

DAVID LORIMER.