“Now, Richard,” said his father as Richard rose, “don’t play the part of a servant. Nothing shows want of breeding more than for a man to serve himself in his own house. Wait for things to come to you!”

“I will try to remember, sir,” answered Richard.

“Do. We shall get on all the better.”

At the words the baronet was seized, as by the claw of a crab, with a sharp twinge of his gout. He caught at the back of a chair, hobbled with its help to the table, and so to his seat. Richard restrained himself and stood rigid. The baronet turned a half-humorous, half-reproachful look on him.

“That’s right!” he said. “Never help where you’re not asked. I wish my father had taught me as I am teaching you! Ever had the gout, Mr. Wingfold?”

“Never, sir Wilton.”

“Then you ought every Sunday to say, ‘Thank God that I have no gout.’ “

“But if we thanked God for all the ills we don’t have, there would be no time to thank him for any of the blessings we do have!”

“What blessings?”

“So many, I don’t know where to begin to answer you.”

“Ah, yes! You’re a clergyman! I forgot. It’s your business to thank God. For my part, being a layman, I don’t know anything in particular I’ve got to thank him for.”

“If I thought a layman had less to thank God for than a clergyman, I should begin to doubt whether either had anything to thank him for. Why, sir Wilton, I find everything a blessing! I thank God I am who I am. I thank him for every good book I fall in with. I thank him when a child smiles at me. I thank him when the sun rises or the wind blows on me. Every day I am so happy, or at least so peaceful, or at the worst so hopeful, that my very consciousness is a thanksgiving.”

“Do you thank him for your wife, Mr. Wingfold?”

“Every day of my life.”

The baronet stared at him a moment, then turned to his son.

“Richard,” he said, “you had better make up your mind to go into the church! You hear Mr. Wingfold! I shouldn’t like it myself, I would have to be at my prayers all day!”

“Ah, sir Wilton, it doesn’t take time to thank God! It only takes eternity.”

Sir Wilton stared. He did not understand.

“Ring the bell, will you?” he said. “The fellow seems to have gone to sleep.”

Richard obeyed, and not a word was spoken until the man appeared.

“Wilkins,” said his master, “go to my lady and say I beg the favour of her presence in the library for a moment.”

The man went.

“No aversion to cats, I hope!” he added, turning to Richard.

“None, sir,” answered Richard gravely.

“That’s good! Then you won’t be taken aback!”

In a few minutes lady Ann sailed into the room, the servant closing the door so deftly behind her that it seemed without moving to have given passage to an angelic presence.