ou know, Allan, it may do the child good, after all, to be alone a
little while."

"Nancy--has--not--pleased--me!" The words were clean-cut, with an
illuminating pause after each, so that Aunt Bell might by no chance
mistake their import, yet the tone was low and not without a quality of
winning sweetness--the tone of the injured good.

"I've seen that, Allan. Nance undoubtedly has a vein of selfishness.
Instead of striving to please her husband, she--well, she has
practically intimated to me that a wife has the right to please herself.
Of course, she didn't say it brutally in just those words, but--"

"It's the modern spirit, Aunt Bell--the spirit of unbelief. It has made
what we call the 'new woman'--that noxious flower on the stalk of
scientific materialism."

He turned and wrote this phrase rapidly on a pad at his elbow, while
Aunt Bell waited expectantly for more.

"There's a sermon that writes itself, Aunt Bell. 'Woman's deterioration
under Modern Infidelity to God.' As truly as you live, this thing called
the 'new woman' has grown up side by side with the thing called the
higher criticism. And it's natural. Take away God's word as revealed in
the Scriptures and you make woman a law unto herself. Man's state is
then wretched enough, but contemplate woman's! Having put aside Christ's
authority, she naturally puts aside _man's_, hence we have the creature
who mannishly desires the suffrage and attends club meetings and argues,
and has views--_views_, Aunt Bell, on the questions of the day--the
woman who, as you have just succinctly said of your niece, 'believes she
has a right to please herself!' There is the keynote of the modern
divorce evil, Aunt Bell--she has a right to please herself. Believing no
longer in God, she no longer feels bound by His commandment: 'Wives be
subject to your husbands!' Why, Aunt Bell, if you can imagine
Christianity shorn of all its other glories, it would still be the
greatest religion the world has ever known, because it holds woman
sternly in her sphere and maintains the sanctity of the home. Now, I
know nothing of the real state of Nancy's faith, but the fact that she
believes she has a right to please herself is enough to convince me. I
would stake my right arm this moment, upon just this evidence, that
Nancy has become an unbeliever. When I let her know as plainly as
English words can express it that she is not pleasing me, she looks
either sullen or flippant--thus showing di