e to tackle,
he could master. No smattering for him; a solid foundation of
knowledge, such as would ensure authority to his lightest utterances.

In the meantime, he began to perceive that Lilian was not likely to
form many acquaintances in the town. With the Liversedges she stood on
excellent terms, and one or two families closely connected with them
gave her a welcome from which she did not shrink. But she had no gift
of social versatility; it cost her painful efforts to converse about
bazaars and curates and fashions and babies with the average Polterham
matron; she felt that most of the women who came to see her went away
with distasteful impressions, and that they were anything but cordial
when she returned their call. A life of solitude and study was the
worst possible preparation for duties such as were now laid upon her.

"You are dissatisfied with me," she said to Denzil, as they returned
from spending the evening with some empty but influential people who
had made her exceedingly uncomfortable.

"Dissatisfied? On the contrary, I am very proud of you. It does one
good to contrast one's wife with women such as those."

"I tried to talk; but I'm so ignorant of everything they care about. I
shall do better when I know more of the people they refer to."

"Chattering apes! Malicious idiots! Heaven forbid that you should ever
take a sincere part in their gabble! That lot are about the worst we
shall have to deal with. Decent simpletons you can get along with very
well."

"How ought I to speak of Mrs. Wade? When people tell downright
falsehoods about her, may I contradict?"

"It's a confoundedly difficult matter, that. I half wish Mrs. Wade
would hasten her departure. Did she say anything about it when you saw
her the other day?"

"Nothing whatever."

It appeared that the widow wished to make a friend of Lilian. She had
called several times, and on each occasion behaved so charmingly that
Lilian was very ready to meet her advances. Though on intellectual and
personal grounds he could feel no objection to such an intimacy, Denzil
began to fear that it might affect his popularity with some voters who
would take the Liberal side if it did not commit them to social
heresies. This class is a very large one throughout England. Mrs. Wade
had never given occasion of grave scandal; she was even seen, with
moderate regularity, at one or other of the churches; but many of the
anti-Tory bourgeois suspected her of sympa