ower floors were let out as offices. John Pontifex tried to
get her to take a house to herself, but Alethea told him to mind his own
business so plainly that he had to beat a retreat. She had never liked
him, and from that time dropped him almost entirely.

Without going much into society she yet became acquainted with most of
the men and women who had attained a position in the literary, artistic
and scientific worlds, and it was singular how highly her opinion was
valued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to distinguish
herself. She could have written if she had chosen, but she enjoyed
seeing others write and encouraging them better than taking a more active
part herself. Perhaps literary people liked her all the better because
she did not write.

I, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to her, and she might
have had a score of other admirers if she had liked, but she had
discouraged them all, and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unless
they have a comfortable income of their own. She by no means, however,
railed at man as she railed at matrimony, and though living after a
fashion in which even the most censorious could find nothing to complain
of, as far as she properly could she defended those of her own sex whom
the world condemned most severely.

In religion she was, I should think, as nearly a freethinker as anyone
could be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. She went to church,
but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion. I
remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to write a
novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion. The philosopher did
not much like this, and dilated upon the importance of showing people the
folly of much that they pretended to believe. She smiled and said
demurely, "Have they not Moses and the prophets? Let them hear them."
But she would say a wicked thing quietly on her own account sometimes,
and called my attention once to a note in her prayer-book which gave
account of the walk to Emmaus with the two disciples, and how Christ had
said to them "O fools and slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets
have spoken"--the "all" being printed in small capitals.

Though scarcely on terms with her brother John, she had kept up closer
relations with Theobald and his family, and had paid a few days' visit to
Battersby once in every two years or so. Alethea had always tried to
like Theobald and