rized by too much
freedom, too great a lack of reticence. People said whatever came into
their minds, and did, apparently, whatever occurred to their bodies. She
could not quite escape from her mother's Puritan strain. For herself she
felt secure. She, Zora, could wander unattended over Europe, mixing without
spot or stain with whatever company she listed; that was because she was
Zora Middlemist, a young woman of exceptional personality and experience of
life. Ordinary young persons, for their own safe conduct, ought to obey the
conventions which were made with that end in view; and Emmy was an ordinary
young person. She should marry; it would conduce to her moral welfare, and
it would be an excellent thing for Septimus. The marriage was therefore
made in the unclouded heaven of Zora's mind. She shed all her graciousness
over the young couple. Never had Emmy felt herself enwrapped in more
sisterly affection. Never had Septimus dreamed of such tender solicitude.
Yet she sang Septimus's praises to Emmy and Emmy's praises to Septimus in
so natural a manner that neither of the two was puzzled.

"It is the natural instinct that makes every woman a matchmaker. She works
blindly towards the baby. If she cannot have one directly, she will have it
vicariously. The sourest of old maids is thus doomed to have a hand in the
perpetuation of the race."

Thus spake the Literary Man from London, discoursing generally--out of
earshot of the Vicar and his wife, to whom he was paying one of his
periodical visits--in a corner of their drawing-room. Zora, conscious of
matchmaking, declared him to be horrid and physiological.

"A woman is much more refined and delicate in her motives."

"The highly civilized woman," said Rattenden, "is delightfully refined in
her table manners, and eats cucumber sandwiches in the most delicate way in
the world; but she is obeying the same instinct that makes your lady
cannibal thrust raw gobbets of missionary into her mouth with her fingers."

"Your conversation is revolting," said Zora.

"Because I speak the truth? Truth is a Mokanna."

"What on earth is that?" asked Zora.

The Literary man sighed. "The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, Lalla Rookh, Tom
Moore. Ichabod."

"It sounds like a cypher cablegram," said Zora flippantly. "But go on."

"I will. Truth, I say, is a Mokanna. So long as it's decently covered with
a silver veil, you all prostrate yourselves before it and pretend to
worship it. When a