upon it, it would be
good for the social relations of the country if your pastors and
teachers were always present. It gives at once a character to all the
proceedings." This, like every other lofty assertion, stilled the
multitude. Some of the elder ladies, indeed, groaned to hear, even at
the prayer-meetings, a whisper between the girls about this ball and
what they were going to wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the
newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially
current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
was put down.

To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more interesting
than to Phoebe, junior, who was a very well-instructed young woman, and
even on the point of dress had theories of her own. Phoebe had, as her
parents were happy to think, had every advantage in her education. She
had possessed a German governess all to herself, by which means, even
Mr. Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy which
Germans communicate by their very touch must have got into her, besides
her music and the language which was her primary study. And she had
attended lectures at the ladies' college close by, and heard a great
many eminent men on a great many different subjects. She had read, too,
a great deal. She was very well got up in the subject of education for
women, and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and cooking were
three of the higher arts which ought to be studied by girls. It is not
necessary for me to account for the discrepancies between those two
systems, in the first place because I cannot, and in the second place,
because there is in the mind of the age some ineffable way of
harmonizing them which makes their conjunction common. Phoebe was
restrained from carrying out either to its full extent. She was not
allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because Mr. Beecham felt
the connection might think it strange to see his daughter's name in the
papers, and, probably, would imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress
of her, which he thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was
not allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to which
Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven, the