intercourse, as hostess or guest, with
Martin's scientific friends. Of fossils she necessarily knew something.
Up to a certain point they amused her; she could talk of ammonites, of
brachiopods, and would point a friend's attention to the _Calceola
sandalina_ which Martin prized so much. The significance of
palaeontology she dimly apprehended, for in the early days of their
union her husband had felt it desirable to explain to her what was
meant by geologic time and how he reconciled his views on that subject
with the demands of religious faith. Among the books which he induced
her to read were Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise and the works of Hugh
Miller. The intellectual result was chaotic, and Mrs. Warricombe
settled at last into a comfortable private opinion, that though the
record of geology might be trustworthy that of the Bible was more so.
She would admit that there was no impiety in accepting the evidence of
nature, but held to a secret conviction that it was safer to believe in
Genesis. For anything beyond a quasi-permissible variance from biblical
authority as to the age of the world she was quite unprepared, and
Martin, in his discretion, imparted to her nothing of the graver doubts
which were wont to trouble him.

But as her children grew up, Mrs. Warricombe's mind and temper were
insensibly modified by influences which operated through her maternal
affections, influences no doubt aided by the progressive spirit of the
time. The three boys--Buckland, Maurice, and Louis--were distinctly of
a new generation. It needed some ingenuity to discover their points of
kindred with paternal and maternal grandparents; nor even with father
and mother had they much in common which observation could readily
detect. Sidwell, up to at least her fifteenth year, seemed to present
far less change of type. In her Mrs. Warricombe recognised a daughter,
and not without solace. But Fanny again was a problematical nature,
almost from the cradle. Latest born, she appeared to revive many
characteristics of the youthful Buckland, so far as a girl could
resemble her brother. It was a strange brood to cluster around Mrs.
Warricombe. For many years the mother was kept in alternation between
hopes and fears, pride and disapproval, the old hereditary habits of
mind, and a new order of ideas which could only be admitted with the
utmost slowness. Buckland's Radicalism deeply offended her; she
marvelled how such depravity could display itself