her men are, a being whose hours were
spent in study, in meditation, in charity, a being of beautiful sermons
and spotless neckties. The flirtation with him, so impatiently longed
for, was not as other men's flirtations; there was a tinge of sacredness
about his very frivolity, and a soft touch of piety in his sentiment. To
share such a life, to commune hourly with a spirit so semi-angelic,
seemed an almost religious ambition. The spirit of a Crusader,
half-heaven, half-earth, fired the gentle breast of the besieger till
Jerusalem was won.

Then came the hour of disenchantment. The mysterious object of
adoration, seen on his own hearth-rug, melted into the mass of men. The
spiritual idealist was cross over an ill-cooked dinner, and as
commonplace at breakfast as his _Times_. The discourses, so lately
utterances from heaven, dwindled into copies or compilations from other
heavenly utterers. The life of a Lady Bountiful turned out a dull
routine of mothers' meetings and Sunday-schools. The ideal poor,
grateful and resigned, proved cross and greedy old harridans. The world
of peace, of nobleness, of serenity, died into a parish of bustle and
scandal and worry. Out of this wreck of hope arises the parson's wife.
Disillusionment is her ordination for a clerical position none the less
real that it is without parallel in the ecclesiastical history of the
world.

She takes her part with all the decision of genius. Her first step is to
restore the Temple she has broken down, to set up again the Dagon who
lies across the threshold. If not for herself, at any rate for the world
and for her children, she re-creates the priest she once dreamt of in
the commonplace parson whom she has actually wedded. Conscious as she is
of the inner nature of the idling apartment where he lounges through the
morning, she impresses on the household the necessity of quiet while its
master is in his "study." By the daily addition of skillful but minute
touches, she paints him to the world as an ideal of piety and of
learning. She takes bills and letters off his hands, that his mind may
not be disturbed from more serious subjects. She enforces a sacred
silence throughout the house during the solemn hours while the sermon is
being compiled. She sews the sacred sheets together, and listens while
the discourse is recited for her approval. She listens again with an
interest as fresh as ever when it is preached. She marks the text in her
Bible, and sees th