gling creature in a twinkling.

Robert made a laughing remark on the tyranny and ubiquity of babies. The
Squire smiled grimly. He supposed it was necessary that the human
race should be carried on. Catherine meanwhile slipped out and ordered
another place to be laid at the dinner-table, devoutly hoping that it
might not be used.

It was used. The Squire stayed till it was necessary to invite him, then
accepted the invitation, and Catherine found herself dispensing boiled
mutton to him, while Robert supplied him with some very modest claret,
the sort of wine which a man who drinks none thinks it necessary to have
in the house, and watched the nervousness of their little parlor-maid
with a fellow-feeling which made it difficult for him during the early
part of the meal to keep a perfectly straight countenance. After a
while, however, both he and Catherine were ready to admit that
the Squire was making himself agreeable. He talked of Paris, of a
conversation he had had with M. Renan, whose name luckily was quite
unknown to Catherine, as to the state of things in the French Chamber.

'A set of chemists and quill-drivers,' he said contemptuously; 'but as
Renan remarked to me, there is one thing to be said for a government of
that sort, "Ils ne font pas la guerre." And so long as they don't run
France into adventures, and a man can keep a roof over his head and a
son in his pocket, the men of letters at any rate can rub along.
The really interesting thing in France just now is not French
politics--Heaven save the mark!--but French scholarship. There never was
so little original genius going in Paris, and there never was so much
good work being done.'

Robert thought the point of view eminently characteristic.

'Catholicism, I suppose,' he said, 'as a force to be reckoned with, is
dwindling more and more?'

'Absolutely dead,' said the Squire emphatically, 'as an intellectual
force. They haven't got a writer, scarcely a preacher. Not one decent
book has been produced on that side for years.'

'And the Protestants, too,' said Robert, 'have lost all their best
men of late,' and he mentioned one or two well-known French Protestant
names.

'Oh, as to French Protestantism '--and the Squire's shrug was
superb--'Teutonic Protestantism is in the order of things, so to speak,
but _Latin_ Protestantism! There is no more sterile hybrid in the
world!'.

Then, becoming suddenly aware that he might have said something
inconsisten