ell behind and kept out of it and out of hearing of it, till they got
home.

"Well!" said Mrs. Candy, as they entered the parlour, "what now? You do
not look harmonious, considering. What have you had to-night?"

"An impossible sort of enthusiasm, mamma," said Clarissa, as she drew
off her handsome furs.

"Impossible enthusiasm!" repeated Mrs. Candy.

"What has Mr. Richmond been talking about?" asked Mrs. Englefield.

"Why, mamma," said Letitia, "we are all to spend our lives in feeding
sick people, and clothing lazy people, and running after the society of
wicked people, as far as I can make out; and our money of course goes
on the same plan. I advise you to look after Maria and Matilda, for
they are just wise enough to think it's all right; and they will be
carrying it into practice before you know where you are."

"It is not so at all!" began Maria, indignantly. "It is nothing like
that, mamma. You know Mr. Richmond better."

"I think I know you better, too. Look where your study books were
thrown down to-day when you came from school. Take them away, before
you do anything else or say anything more."

Maria obeyed with a gloomy face.

"Do you approve of Mr. Richmond, Aunt Marianne?" Clarissa asked. "If
so, I will say no more; but I was astonished to-night. I thought he was
a man of sense."

"He _is_ a man of sense," said Mrs. Englefield; "but I always thought
he carried his notions rather far."

"Why, aunt, he would make missionaries and colporteurs and sisters of
charity of us all. Sisters of charity are a magnificent institution, of
course; but what would become of the world if we were _all_ sisters of
charity? And the idea! that everybody is to spend his whole time and
all his means in looking up vagrants and nursing fever cases! I never
heard anything like it in my life. That, and doing the work of
travelling Methodists!"

"I wonder what the ministry is good for," said Mrs. Candy, "if
everybody is to do the same work."

"I do not understand it," said Mrs. Englefield. "I was not brought up
to these extreme theories myself; and I do not intend that my children
shall be."

"But, mamma," said Maria, re-entering, "Mr. Richmond does not go into
extreme theories."

"Did you eat an apple after dinner?" said her mother.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You ate it up here, instead of in the dining-room?"

"Why, mamma, you know we often----"

"Answer me. You ate it up here?"

"Yes."

"What did you do with the