believed in religion, of course--but not an
absorbing, fanatical religion! Elizabeth should get married--it would cure
her mental maladies: exaltation of spirit in a girl is a dangerous thing
anyway. Nothing subdues like marriage.

It may not be generally known, but your religious ascetic is a great
matchmaker. In all religious communities, especially rural communities,
men who need wives need not advertise--there are self-appointed
committees of old ladies who advise and look after such matters closely.
The immanence of sex becomes vicarious, and that which once dwelt in the
flesh is now a thought: like men-about-town, whose vices finally become
simply mental, so do these old ladies carry on courtships by power of
attorney.

And so the old ladies found a worthy Quaker man who would make a good
husband for Elizabeth. The man was willing. He wrote a letter to her from
his home in London, addressing it to her father. The letter was brief and
businesslike. It described himself in modest but accurate terms. He
weighed ten stone and was five feet eight inches high; he was a merchant
with a goodly income; and in disposition was all that was to be
desired--at least he said so. His pedigree was standard.

The Gurneys looked up this Mr. Fry, merchant, of London, and found all as
stated. He checked O.K. He was invited to visit at Norwich; he came, he
saw, and was conquered. He liked Elizabeth, and Elizabeth liked him--she
surely did or she would never have married him.

Elizabeth bore him twelve children. Mr. Fry was certainly an excellent and
amiable man. I find it recorded, "He never in any way hampered his wife's
philanthropic work," and with this testimonial to the excellence of Mr.
Fry's character we will excuse him from these pages and speak only of his
wife.

Contrary to expectations, Elizabeth was not tamed by marriage. She looked
after her household with diligence; but instead of confining her "social
duties" to following hotly after those in station above her, she sought
out those in the stratum beneath. Soon after reaching London she began
taking long walks alone, watching the people, especially the beggars. The
lowly and the wretched interested her. She saw, girl though she was, that
beggardom and vice were twins.

In one of her daily walks, she noticed on a certain corner a frowsled
woman holding a babe, and thrusting out a grimy hand for alms, telling a
woeful tale of a dead soldier husband to each passer-by.