ll admit it to be the best
show you make. It may still be the saving of you--on the level of the
orderly ox: I 've not observed that it aims at higher. And talking of
the pulpit, Barmby is off to the East, has accepted a Shoreditch curacy,
Skepsey tells me.'

'So there's the reason for our not seeing him!' Victor turned to Nesta.

'Papa, you won't be angry with Skepsey if he has joined those people,'
said Nesta. 'I'm sure he thinks of serving his country, Mr. Durance.'

Colney smiled on her. 'And you too?'

'If women knew how!'

'They're hitting on more ways at present than the men--in England.'

'But, Mr. Durance, it speaks well for England when they're allowed the
chance here.'

'Good!' Fenellan exclaimed. 'And that upsets his placement of the modern
national genders: Germany masculine, France feminine, Old England what
remains.'

Victor ruffled and reddened on his shout of 'Neuter?'

Their circle widened. Nesta knew she was on promotion, by her being led
about and introduced to ladies. They were encouraging with her. One of
them, a Mrs. Marina Floyer, had recently raised a standard of feminine
insurrection. She said: 'I hear your praises from Mr. Durance. He rarely
praises. You have shown capacity to meditate on the condition of women,
he says.'

Nesta drew a shorter breath, with a hope at heart. She speculated in the
dark, as to whether her aim to serve and help was not so friendless. And
did Mr. Durance approve? But surely she stood in a glorious England if
there were men and women to welcome a girl to their councils. Oh! that
is the broad free England where gentlemen and gentlewomen accept of the
meanest aid to cleanse the land of its iniquities, and do not suffer
shame to smite a young face for touching upon horrors with a pure
design.

She cried in her bosom: I feel! She had no other expression for that
which is as near as great natures may come to the conceiving of the
celestial spirit from an emissary angel; and she trembled, the fire ran
through her. It seemed to her, that she would be called to help or that
certainly they were nearing to an effacement of the woefullest of evils;
and if not helping, it would still be a blessedness for her to kneel
thanking heaven.

Society was being attacked and defended. She could but studiously
listen. Her father was listening. The assailant was a lady; and she had
a hearing, although she treated Society as a discrowned monarch on trial
for an offence agains