as Mrs. Eames's. There ought not to be any great difficulty about getting at them.

"And of course," said Mrs. Eames, "we can get a grant from the County Education Committee."

"That," said Sir Evelyn firmly, "would be totally impossible."

This light-hearted suggestion of pillaging public funds came perilously near being an insult when made to a man who was once a Cabinet Minister. Sir Evelyn resented it and showed his feelings in his voice. Mrs. Eames was in no way abashed.

"I don't see why not," she said. "A pageant is a most educative thing. No one can possibly deny that. Lots and lots of money is spent on things which aren't nearly so educative as our pageant will be. I mean educative in the true sense of the word."

Everyone who says educative and education means the words to be understood in this way. The thought of the "true sense" mollified Sir Evelyn a little. It soothes everyone who has anything to do with education, except the public which has to pay for it. It realises that education in the "true sense" is more expensive than any other. Mrs. Eames saw that she had produced a good effect and pressed her advantage.

"I'm sure we'd get a grant from the committee," she said, "if you asked for it."

Sir Evelyn was most uncomfortably conscious that this was true. A suggestion from him would go a long way with any County Committee, and if he described Mrs. Eames's pageant as an educational enterprise everyone would at once believe him. Unfortunately, having been a gentleman before he became a politician, he was afflicted with a certain sense of honesty.

"It's only a matter of its being put properly to the proper people," said Mrs. Eames persuasively, "and you can do that easily."

"I'd rather give you fifty pounds myself," said Sir Evelyn desperately, "than ask for a grant from any public fund."

"How perfectly sweet of you," said Mrs. Eames. "Now there needn't be any worry about money. There can't be much more wanted. Timothy will be delighted when I tell him. He's always just a little inclined to fuss about money, and these things do cost something, don't they? I wish I could tell him about your fifty pounds at once and make his mind easy. But he's up in the church and I simply daren't disturb him."

"In the church?"

Sir Evelyn was impressed and quite understood that a vicar—admittedly on the verge of becoming a saint—ought not to be disturbed while engaged in prayer and meditation.

"Locked in," said Mrs. Eames. "He always locks himself into the church for a while when I get up anything for the parish. So naughty of him, but that's the kind of man he is. However I'll tell him about your fifty pounds when he comes home in the evening."

Mrs. Eames was perfectly right in saying that her husband had locked himself in. But Sir Evelyn's inference was wrong. Mr. Eames was not engaged in devotional exercises. He was reading the works of the philosopher Epictetus—a very wise choice of literature, for no writer, ancient or modern, has more comfort to offer to those who suffer from the worries and minor ills of life. Nervous irritability, impotent anger and such afflictions of temper are almost invariably soothed by a study of the excellent teaching of Epictetus. Mr. Eames read the philosopher in Greek, which is the best way to read him, for no one can read Greek very fast, and the necessity of going slowly in order to understand the words gives time for the digestion of the matter behind them.

There is nothing irreverent or even improper about reading Epictetus in church. He was a pagan, but so nearly a Christian that the mediæval monks mistook him for one of the fathers of the church and treated his works as books of devotion. If the monks of the sainted Middle Ages took this view of Epictetus a twentieth century English vicar who reads him in church cannot be regarded as profane.

Mr. Eames, owing to the unrestored condition of his church, was able to make himself fairly comfortable while reading. Hailey Compton parish church was built originally in the Early English style, and was refurnished every hundred years or so in accordance with the taste of each period. The Victorian churchwardens, when their turn came, filled it with large high-backed square pews, put thick cushions on the seats and provided footstools for the convenience of worshippers with short legs. There were fireplaces in some of the pews and occasionally there were arm-chairs. To avoid draughts and secure privacy red curtains were hung round the principal pews. The leading idea was the physical comfort of the worshippers, and the churchwardens seemed to have held with Bishop Blougram that soul was at its best when "body gets its sop and holds its noise." No one need be ashamed of being a disciple of Bishop Blougram, who was a most successful ecclesiastic, on the way to become a Cardinal or perhaps a Pope.