The firelight on winter afternoons played pleasantly on the dim gold backs of the works of St.Augustine, a fine folio edition bequeathed to Mrs.Beecher by a scholarly uncle, which reposed undisturbed along a lower shelf.

Adventurous rays occasionally explored a faded print of the Good Shepherd which hung above the books, and gleamed upon the handle of the safe where the parish registers and church plate were stored.

The quiet and the process of digesting his mid-day dinner frequently tempted the Canon to indulge in a series of pleasant naps on Sunday afternoons.
When Hyacinth tapped at the study door and entered, the room was almost dark, and the sermon preparation, if proceeding at all, can have got no further than the preliminary concatenation of ideas.

The Canon, however, was aggressively, perhaps suspiciously, wide awake.
'Who is that ?' he asked.

'Oh, Conneally, it is you.