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 had been going on, unknown to Lesbia, for an exchange of duty with a clergyman of Kensington, Mr David Aluminium Mountjoy, who needed a spell of rusticating. The upshot was that shortly afterwards the whole Dulham party migrated to the West End. Here Mr Bristley at once commenced a course of lectures to a fashionable audience, in which he did not speak smooth things, but roundly denounced the reactionary and stagnant condition of the social atmosphere which had set in with the recent political changes. In one of the gloomiest of these discourses, while touching upon the religious question, he somewhat surprised his audience by expressing the opinion that amid the crash of falling idols the Roman Church may yet become a rallying point for the spiritually-minded gathered out of all sects, because she contains the germ of a higher form of worship than the world has yet known. However, this remark was soon forgotten by the bulk of his hearers, in the crowd of more interesting and practical subjects on which he afterwards dwelt, and but for one young lady, not personally known to him, who happened to be present, it is probable that no more would have been heard about it.

Three more Sundays had passed, the lecturer amplifying his discourse upon the same lines, when on the Thursday morning following the fourth lecture, whilst Lesbia was in her room, Fidgfumblasquidiot, who had been allowed to accompany her young mistress to London, having made several ineffectual attempts at the door handle, eventually put her head in, saying,—

‘Please’m, Lady Friga Hawknorbuzzard’s here, waiting in the drawing-room to see you; she says she can’t stop but just a minute to speak to you.’

Lesbia hurried down, with Gossamer, now growing into a fine dog, thumping the stairs behind her.