observed her uncle. ‘The Numen of the Covenant, the covenant of Divine Order, will serve us better than the Numen of Debauchery.’
‘Never mind, we'll try them all round,’ said Hilda.
‘Girls, hold your tongues,’ put in the Marchioness. ‘We have it on the apostle’s authority that the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. Is not that so, Mr Bristley?’
‘And you have it on my authority that the apostle was a double-distilled donkey, down to the ground,’ retorted the person appealed to. ‘Nevertheless, he spoke truth sometimes for the sake of change, as in the instance you mention.’
‘These be the clergy and the women of the future,’ observed Lord Humnoddie, who had listened with some amusement.
‘It was the man, not the parson, that spoke in me,’ said Mr Bristley. ‘The man considers the world around him; the parson is a guide to the sky.’
‘And it was the woman, not the dollymops, that spoke in me,’ said Hilda.
‘Pray, what is a dollymops?’ asked her father.
‘A dollymops, papa, is a woman who trots out the proprieties,’ explained Hilda.
‘But sits heavily upon them while they trot,’ added Friga.
‘Lesbia,’ said the Marchioness reproachfully, ‘you’ve spoilt my Fri.’
‘Spoil my own god-daughter, Lady Humnoddie! Never.’
‘Your god-daughter! I should say you were a mother of quite the other sort,’ she retorted. ‘The old notion is that god-children are brought up by their sponsors in the fear of the Lord; how say you, Mr Bristley?’
‘I say with you that that’s a very old notion, Lady Humnoddie,’ replied the vicar genially.
‘And I say that Lesbie does bring me up in that fear,’
