‘A red-letter day in the history of the parish, that is to say.’ ‘It’s a very good habit,’ Judith Appleby commented, and reached for her visitor’s cup. ‘But, of course, you mustn’t confine yourself to them,’ Appleby said. He had long ago got quite used to backing up his wife’s polite remarks, particularly to the clergy. ‘Parochial red-letter days can’t, in the nature of the thing, happen all that often.’ ‘Not in the popular acceptation of the term. In the strict sense, they tumble on top of one another. Consider Trinity Sunday. That’s St Alban. And the Tuesday is St Barnabas, and the Thursday is Corpus Christi. In between these two, for that matter, comes the Translation of Edward, King of the West Saxons.’ ‘Who translated him?’ Judith asked innocently. ‘I imagine that the answer must be the Holy Ghost, Lady Appleby.’ The Vicar of Long Dream had the cultivated clergyman’s fondness for decorous professional frivolity.
