Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/21

Rh hands with, and talk to, some of the villagers, the innkeeper to the Lamerton Arms, the churchwarden, the guardian of the poor, and the miller, men who constituted the middle crumb of the parochial loaf.

Lady Lamerton likewise deserted her charges at the porch, and having consigned them to the clerk, returned on her course, entered the drive, and proceeded to meet his lordship, that they might make their solemn entrance into church together. Arminell had disappeared.

"Where is the girl?" asked her ladyship when she took my lord's arm.

"Haven't seen her, my dear."

"Really, Lamerton," said my lady, "she frightens me. She is so impulsive and self-willed. She flares up when opposed, and has no more taste for Sunday-school than I have for oysters. I do my best to influence her for good, but I might as well try to influence a cocoa-nut. By the way, Lamerton, you really must build us a Sunday-school, the inconveniences to which we are subjected are intolerable."

"Have you seen Legassick, my dear?"

"I believe he is standing by the steps."

"I must speak to him about the road, it has been stoned recently. Monstrous! It should have been metalled in the winter, then the stones would have worked in, now they will be loose all the summer to throw down the horses."

"And you will build us a Sunday-school?"

"I will see about it. Won't the keeper's lodge do? The woman does not wash downstairs on a Sunday."

"I wish you kept school there one Sabbath day. You would discover how great are the discomforts. Now we are at the church gates and must compose our minds."

"Certainly, my dear. The lord-lieutenant is going to make Gammon sheriff."

"Why Gammon?"