Mr.Thornburgh had heard accounts of Lupton Castle from Mrs.Seaton on at least half a dozen different occasions.

Privately he believed them all to refer to one visit, an event of immemorial antiquity periodically brought up to date by Mrs.Seaton's imagination.

But the vicar was a timid man, without the courage of his opinions, and in his eagerness to stop the flow of his neighbor's eloquence he could think of no better device, or more suitable rival subject, than to plunge into the story of the drunken carrier, and the pastry still reposing on the counter at Randall's.
He blushed, good man, when he was well in it.

His wife's horrified countenance embarrassed him.

But anything was better than Lord Fleckwood.