Behind the shelter of the great sheet, I make a hideous contortion across the table at Sir Roger, who has fallen with great docility into our ways, and is looking back at me now with that gentle, steadfast serenity which is the leading characteristic of his face, but which this morning is, I cannot help thinking, a good deal disturbed, hard as he is trying to hide it.

There are, thank Heaven, no more false starts.

Next time that he lays down the paper, we are all afraid to bend our heads, for fear that the movement shall break the charm, and induce him to send for a fourth cup--he has already had _three_--but no! release has come at last.
"For what we have received the Lord make us truly thankful!" Almost before we have reached "thankful," there is a noise of several chairs pushed back.

Before you could say "knife!" we are all out of the room.

All but Sir Roger! In deference, I suppose, to the feelings of the friend of his infancy, and not to appear _too_ anxious to leave him--Sir Roger ought to have married Barbara, they two are always thinking of other people's feelings--he delays a little, and indeed they emerge together and find me sitting on one of the uncomfortable, stiff hall-chairs, on which nobody ever sits.