Mrs Sheepshanks's parasol was lowered in a most suspicious manner, so as completely to hide her face; while the unfortunate curate, with his head almost between his knees, was working havoc in the vicarage lawn with the point of a heavy walking-stick.

The only person who seemed perfectly at his ease was Austin, and he was enjoying himself hugely.

Then the vicar, feeling it incumbent upon him, as host, to say something to relieve the strain, attempted to pull himself together.
"My dear boy," he said, in rather a quavering voice, "you may be perfectly sure that our valued guest has no sympathy with any of the barbarous religions you allude to, but is a most loyal member of the Church of England; and that when he said he would like to 'burn' a brother clergyman--one of the greatest Talmudists and Hebrew scholars now alive--it was only his humorous way of intimating that he was inclined to differ from him on one or two obscure points of historical or verbal criticism which----" "It was not," said the curate's friend.
Mrs Sheepshanks immediately turned to Aunt Charlotte, and remarked that feather boas were likely to be more than ever in fashion when the weather changed; and Aunt Charlotte said she had heard from a most authoritative source that pleated corselets were to be the rage that autumn.

Both ladies then agreed that the days were certainly beginning to draw in, and asked the curate if he didn't think so too.

The curate fumbled in his pocket, and offered Austin a cigarette, and Austin, noticing the unconcealed annoyance of the unfortunate young man, who was really not a bad fellow in the main, felt kindly towards him, and accepted the cigarette with effusion.