r's point of view. Also, he was not a man who
made much of women, and he held strong views as to the subordination of
wives. It never occurred to him that Robert might have a Dissenter in
his own household, and as, in spite of their speculative differences,
he had always been accustomed to talk freely with Robert he now talked
freely to Robert plus his wife, assuming, as every good Comtist does,
that the husband is the wife's pope.

Moreover, a solitary eccentric life, far from the society of his equals,
had developed in him a good many crude Jacobinisms. His experience of
London clergymen, for instance, had not been particularly favorable,
and he had a store of anecdotes on the subject which Robert had heard
before, but which now, repeated in Catherine's presence, seemed to have
lost every shred of humor they once possessed. Poor Elsmere tried with
all his might to divert the stream, but it showed a tormenting tendency
to recur to the same channel. And meanwhile the little spectacled wife,
dressed in a high home-made cashmere, sat looking at her husband with
a benevolent and smiling admiration. She kept all her eloquence for the
poor.

After dinner things grew worse. Mrs. Wardlaw had recently presented her
husband with a third infant, and the ardent pair had taken advantage
of the visit to London of an eminent French Comtist to have it baptized
with full Comtist rites. Wardlaw stood astride, on the rug, giving the
assembled company a minute account of the ceremony observed, while
his wife threw in gentle explanatory interjections. The manner of both
showed a certain exasperating confidence, if not in the active sympathy,
at least in the impartial curiosity of their audience, and in the
importance to modern religious history of the incident itself.
Catherine's silence grew deeper and deeper; the conversation fell
entirely to Robert. At last Robert, by main force as it were, got
Wardlaw off into politics, but the new Irish Coercion Bill was hardly
introduced before the irrepressible being turned to Catherine, and said
to her with smiling obtuseness,--

'I don't believe I've seen you at one of your husband's Sunday addresses
yet, Mrs. Elsmere? And it isn't so far from this part of the world
either.'

Catherine slowly raised her beautiful large eyes upon him. Robert
looking at her with a qualm, saw an expression he was learning to dread
flash across the face.

'I have my Sunday-school at that time, Mr. Wardlaw. I am