en if they run rather into extremes--"

"It's what I won't be a party to," said Callaghan; "I don't hold with
them ways, and the clergy is against them, all but yourself; and you
ought to be ashamed to be encouraging the like."

"You don't in the least understand the situation," said Meldon. "Mr.
Simpkins and Miss King are both English, and in England they manage
these things quite differently from the way we do here."

"Well, it's yourself ought to know about that, seeing that you're a
Protestant."

"It's not so much a question of religion," said Meldon. "It's
temperament. I don't suppose you understand what that means; but the
fact is, that an Englishwoman wouldn't marry a man who hadn't been
making love to her off and on for at least a week. If he hadn't got
her thoroughly accustomed to his occasionally squeezing her hand, and
offering to pick flowers for her, and picking up anything she dropped
about, and-- But I needn't go into details. The fact is, that if he
hadn't made love to her pretty violently, she wouldn't consider it
decent to marry him. That's the sort of people the English are."

"They're queer," said Callaghan, "and that's a fact."

"They are," said Meldon. "But we've simply got to take them as we find
them. There's no use our trying to teach them better ways, for they
wouldn't listen to us. I'm telling you all this so that you won't be
shocked if you happen to see Simpkins kissing Miss King. It's no
affair of yours, to start with; and, in the second place, there's no
point in comparative ethnology so firmly established as the fact that
morality is quite a different thing among different peoples. What
would be wrong for you and me may be, and is, perfectly right for Miss
King and Simpkins. I needn't go into that more fully. All you have to
do is to crack up Simpkins as a first-rate sort of man that any girl
would be lucky if she married; and then let me know how they hit it off
together when they meet."

"I'll do it. I'd do more than that to oblige your reverence in the
matter of making a match for any boy about the place; for I'm not one
to spoil his chances on a boy, not if I hated him worse than I do
Simpkins."

"Very well. Now I want to speak a few words to Miss King, but it won't
do for me to wake her up. She wouldn't like it; and what's more, she
might suspect that we'd been talking together about her. I'll go back
to the house and walk over here across the lawn. I'll s