since. I suppose he has gone up once or twice on a Saturday. But what
chance has either of them to know the other's tastes? What do you
suppose they talk about? Does Phillida explain her high ideals, or tell
him the shabby epics of lame beggars and blind old German women in
Mackerelville? Or does he explain to her how to adjust a cravat, or
tell her the amusing incidents of a private ball? They can't go on
always billing and cooing, and what will they talk about on rainy
Sundays after they are married? I'd like to see him persuade Phillida to
wear an ultra-fashionable evening dress and spend six evenings a week at
entertainments and the opera. Maybe it'll be the other way; she may coax
him to teach a workingmen's class in the Mission. By George! It would be
a comedy to see Charley try it once." And Philip indulged in a gentle
laugh.

"You don't know how much they have seen of each other, Philip. Phillida
is a friend of the Hilbroughs, and Mr. Millard once brought her to our
house on Sunday afternoon from the Mission or somewhere over there."

"That's so?" said Philip. "They may be better acquainted than I think.
But they'll never get on."

Perceiving that this line of talk was making his mother uncomfortable,
he said:

"Nature has got the soft pedal down to-day. Come, mother, it's a good
day for a drive. Will you go?"

And he went himself to call the coachman.

XIII.

MRS. FRANKLAND.

Mrs. Frankland, the Bible reader, was a natural orator--a person with
plenty of blood for her brain, ample breathing space in her chest, a
rich-toned voice responsive to her feelings, and a mind not exactly
intellectual, but felicitous in vocabulation and ingenious in the
construction of sentences. Her emotions were mettlesome horses
well-bitted--quick and powerful, but firmly held. Though her exegesis
was second-hand and commonplace, yet upon the familiar chords of
traditional and superficial interpretation of the Bible she knew how to
play many emotional variations, and her hearers, who were all women,
were caught up into a state of religious exaltation under her
instruction. A buoyant and joyous spirit and a genial good-fellowship of
manner added greatly to her personal charms.

She was the wife of a lawyer of moderate abilities and great
trustworthiness, whose modesty, rather than his mediocrity, had confined
him to a small practice in the quieter walks of the profession. Mrs.
Frankland had been bred a Friend, but t