ian remains remind me of, and I cannot think what it
is."

"Lot's wife, mamma?" said Isabel.

"_Quite_ right, my child--what a memory you have! That wretched woman
who stopped to look back at the city where careless friends and
relatives were enjoying themselves, indifferent to their coming fate, in
direct disobedience to the command. Of course, she turned to salt, and
these people to ashes, but she must have looked very much like them when
the process was completed."

That was Dicky's opportunity for restraint and submission, but he seemed
to have been physically unable to take it. He rushed, instead, blindly
to perdition. "I don't believe that yarn," he said.

There was a moment's awful silence, during which Dicky said he counted
his heart-beats and felt as if he had announced himself an atheist or a
Jew, and then his sentence fell.

"In that case, Mr. Dod, I must infer that you are opposed to the
doctrine of the complete inspiration of Holy Writ. If you do not believe
in that, I shudder to think of what you may not believe in. I will say
no more now, but after dinner I will be obliged to speak to you for a
few minutes, privately. Thank you, I can get out without assistance."

And after dinner, privately, Dicky learned that Mrs. Portheris had for
some time been seriously considering the effect of his, to her,
painfully flippant views, upon the opening mind of her daughter--the
child had only been out six months--and that his distressing
announcement of this morning left her in no further doubt as to her
path of duty. She would always endeavour to have as kindly a
recollection of him as possible, he had really been very obliging, but
for the present she must ask him to make some other travelling
arrangements. Cook, she believed, would always change one's tickets less
ten per cent., but she would leave that to Dicky. And she hoped, she
_sincerely_ hoped, that time would improve his views. When that was
accomplished she trusted he would write and tell her, but not before.

"And while I'm getting good and ready to pass an examination in Noah,
Jonah, and Methuselah," remarked Dicky bitterly, as we discussed the
situation on the Lungarno for the seventh time that day, "Mafferton
sails in."

"Why didn't you tell her plainly that you wanted to marry Isabel, and
would brook no opposition?" I demanded, for my stock of sympathy was
getting low.

"Now that's a valuable suggestion, isn't it?" returned Mr. Dod with
sarc