Pamela waited for further information before she spoke, while Mrs. Jowett said, “Don’t you consider it a suitable match?”

“Oh, well,” said Miss Watson, “I just meant that it was awful unexpected.  He’s been a bachelor so long, and then to marry a girl twenty years younger than himself and a ’Piscipalian into the bargain.”

“But how sporting of him,” Pamela said.

“Sporting?” said Miss Watson doubtfully, vague thoughts of guns and rabbits floating through her mind.  “Of course you’re a ’Piscipalian too, Miss Reston, so is Mrs. Jowett:  I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I’m afraid I’m not much of anything,” Pamela confessed, “but Jean Jardine has great hopes of making me a Presbyterian.  I have been going with her to hear her own most delightful parson—­Mr. Macdonald.”

“A dear old man,” said Mrs. Jowett; “he does preach so beautifully.”

“Mr. Macdonald’s church is the old Free Kirk, now U.F., you know,” said Miss Watson in an instructive tone.  “The Jardines are great Free Kirk people, like the Hopes of Hopetoun—­but the Parish is far more class, you know what I mean?  You’ve more society there.”

“What a delightful reason for worshipping in a church!” Pamela said.  “But please tell me more about your minister’s bride—­does she belong to Priorsford?”

“English,” said Miss Teenie, “and smokes, and plays golf, and wears skirts near to her knees.  What in the world she’ll look like at the missionary work party or attending the prayer meeting—­I cannot think.  Poor Mr. Morrison must be demented, and he is such a good preacher.”

“She will settle down,” said Miss Dawson in her slow, sensible way.  “She’s really a very likeable girl; and if she puts all the energy she uses to play games into church-work she will be a great success.  And it will be an interest having a young wife at the manse.”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Watson doubtfully.  “I always think a minister’s wife should have a little money and a strong constitution and be able to play the harmonium.”

Miss Watson had not intended to be funny, and was rather surprised at the laughter of her hostess.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that the poor woman would need a strong constitution.”

“Well, anyway,” said Miss Teenie, “she would need the money; ministers have so many claims on them.  And they’ve a position to keep up.  Here, of course, they have manses, but in Glasgow they sometimes live in flats.  I don’t think that’s right. ...  A minister should always live in a villa, or at least in a ‘front door.’”

“Is your minister’s bride pretty?” Pamela asked.

Miss Watson got in her word first.  “Pretty,” she said, “but not in a ministerial way, if you know what I mean.  I wouldn’t call her ladylike.”

“What would you call ’ladylike’?” Pamela asked.

“Well, a good height, you know, and a nice figure and a pleasant face and tidy hair.  The sort of person that looks well in a grey coat and skirt and a feather boa.”