cted in obedience to Instincts which had been
Implanted in him in circumstances for which he was not responsible, and
which might, for anything he knew, have been conceived in a spirit of
mischief by the Author of all Good. This levity was stopped by a shocked
expression on the lady's face. "Well," said the gentleman, "you mustn't
blow _me_ up, Miss Dickenson. I am only repeating, as desired, the words
of a profane poet. He had apologized, he told me, for what he said, when
his sister boxed his ears."

"Serve him right. But what was his apology?"

"That he owed it to Achilles, who was unable to speak for himself, to
lay stress on what he conceived to be the dog's Manichaean views, which
he had been most unwillingly forced to infer from his practice of
suddenly barking indignantly at the Universe, in what certainly seemed
an unprayerful spirit."

"It was only Mr. Torrens's nonsense. He wanted to blaspheme a little,
and jumped at the opportunity. They are all alike, Poets. Look at Byron
and Shelley!"

Mr. Pellew, for his own purposes no doubt, managed here to insinuate
that he himself was not without a reverent side to his character. These
fillahs were no doubt the victims of their own genius, and presumably
Mr. Torrens was a bird of the same feather. He himself was a stupid
old-fashioned sort of fillah, and couldn't always follow this sort of
thing. It was as delicate a claim as he could make to sometimes going
to Church on Sunday, as was absolutely consistent with Truth.

To his great relief, Miss Dickenson did not catechize him closely about
his religious views. She only remarked, reflectively and vaguely:--"One
hardly knows what to think. Anyone would have said my father was a
religious man, and what does he do but marry a widow, less than three
years after my mother's death!"

Certainly the coherency of this speech was not on its surface. But Mr.
Pellew accepted it contentedly enough. At least, it clothed him with
some portion of the garb of a family friend; say shoes or gloves, not
the whole suit. Whichever it was, he pulled them on, and felt they
fitted. He began to speak, and stopped; was asked what he was going to
say, and went on, encouraged:--"I was going to say, only I pulled up
because it felt impertinent...."

"Not to me! Please tell me exactly!"

"I was going to ask, how old is your father? Is he older than me?"

"Why, of course he is! I'm thirty-six. How old are you? Tell the truth!"
At this exa