When Coristine returned, he was just in time for dinner. He had not been
missed; the entire interest of the feminine part of the community was
centred in Miss Graves. The Squire took her in, as the latest lady
arrival, while Mr. Douglas escorted the hostess. To his infinite
annoyance, Coristine, who had brought in Mrs. Du Plessis, was
ostentatiously set down by the side of his invalided type-writer, to
whom he was the next thing to uncivil. Miss Carmichael, between Mr.
Douglas and Mr. Errol, was more than usually animated and
conversational, to the worthy minister's great delight. The amusing man
of the table was Mr. Perrowne. His people were building him a house,
which Miss Halbert and he had inspected in the morning, with a view to
the addition of many cupboards, which the lady deemed indispensable to
proper housekeeping. Mr. Perrowne thought he would call the place
Cubbyholes; but Miss Du Plessis asked what it would really be, the
rectory, the vicarage or the parsonage? Miss Halbert suggested the
basilica, to which he replied that, while a good Catholic, he was
neither Fannytic nor a Franciscan.
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