Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/11

Rh in "counterfeit presentment" as large as life, rudely painted on board. They had originally adorned the east end of the chancel; when, however, the fashion of restoring churches set in, Orleigh Church had been done up, and Moses and Aaron had been supplanted to make room for a horrible reredos of glazed tiles. One of the Sunday school scholars, a wag, had scribbled mottoes from their mouths, on scrolls, and had made Aaron observe to Moses, "Let us cut off our noses;" to which the meekest of men was made to rejoin, "It is the fashion to wear 'em." But through orthographical weakness, fashion had been spelled fashum, and wear 'em had been rendered warum.

But why was the Sunday school held in the basement of the keeper's cottage? For the best of good reasons. There was no other room conveniently near the church in which it could be held.

Lady Lamerton could not live in peace without a Sunday school. To her, the obligation to keep the ten commandments was second to the obligation to keep Sunday school. How could the ten commandments be taught, unless there was a Sunday school in which to teach them? How could a Sunday school be held without some teachers to hold it? And who more suitable, more certainly marked out by Providence as the manager of Sunday school than herself? There was, it was true, the Rector's wife, the Reverend Mrs. Cribbage, but the Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was—well to put it mildly, not cut out by nature to be a successful organiser, though she might be an excellent woman. The Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was willing to keep Sunday school, if her ladyship did not, and that would lead to untold mischief, for that reverend lady had a gift for setting everyone by the ears, for stirring, and stirring till she had stirred up strife, where all before was peace.