fore I say at once--in the
degradation of the people."

"But are the people so degraded?"

"There is more serfdom in England now than at any time since the
Conquest. I speak of what passes under my daily eyes when I say that
those who labour can as little choose or change their masters now,
as when they were born thralls. There are great bodies of the working
classes of this country nearer the condition of brutes, than they have
been at any time since the Conquest. Indeed I see nothing to distinguish
them from brutes, except that their morals are inferior. Incest and
infanticide are as common among them as among the lower animals. The
domestic principle waxes weaker and weaker every year in England: nor
can we wonder at it, when there is no comfort to cheer and no sentiment
to hallow the Home."

"I was reading a work the other day," said Egremont, "that statistically
proved that the general condition of the people was much better at this
moment than it had been at any known period of history."

"Ah! yes, I know that style of speculation," said Gerard; "your
gentleman who reminds you that a working man now has a pair of cotton
stockings, and that Harry the Eighth himself was not as well off. At
any rate, the condition of classes must be judged of by the age, and by
their relation with each other. One need not dwell on that. I deny the
premises. I deny that the condition of the main body is better now than
at any other period of our history; that it is as good as it has been
at several. I say, for instance, the people were better clothed, better
lodged, and better fed just before the war of the Roses than they are at
this moment. We know how an English peasant lived in those times: he eat
flesh every day, he never drank water, was well housed, and clothed in
stout woollens. Nor are the Chronicles necessary to tell us this. The
acts of Parliament from the Plantagenets to the Tudors teach us alike
the price of provisions and the rate of wages; and we see in a moment
that the wages of those days brought as much sustenance and comfort as a
reasonable man could desire."

"I know how deeply you feel upon this subject," said Egremont turning to
Sybil.

"Indeed it is the only subject that ever engages my thought," she
replied, "except one."

"And that one?"

"Is to see the people once more kneel before our blessed Lady," replied
Sybil.

"Look at the average term of life," said Gerard, coming unintentionally
to the re