here nothing, the Pretty
Preacher asks us solemnly, to be said against our own? And the sun is
hot, and we are speechless. It was shameful of us to put down the
_Spanish Gipsy_, and let it return unfinished to Mudie's! Never did
rebuke so fill us with shame at our want of imagination and of poesy.
But already the Preacher has passed to politics, and is deep in Mr.
Mill's prophecies of coming events. She is severe on the triviality of
the House, or the quarrelsome debates of the past Session. She passes by
our murmured excuse of the weather, and dwells with a temperate
enthusiasm on the fact that the next will be a social Parliament. Do we
know anything about the Poor-laws or Education or Trades'-societies?
Have we subscribed to Mr. Mill's election? We plead poverty, but the
miserable plea dies away on the contemptuous air.

What our Pretty Preacher would like above all things would be to meet
that dear Mr. Shaw Lefevre, and thank him for his efforts to protect
woman. But she knows we are utterly heretical on the subject; she doubts
very much whether we take in the _Victoria Magazine_. We listen as the
Tory Mayor of Birmingham listened to Mr. Bright at his banquet. The
politics are not ours, and the literature is not ours, and the art is
not ours; but it is pleasant to lie in the sunshine and hear it all so
charmingly put by the Pretty Preacher. We own that sermons have a little
to say for themselves; above all, that the impossibility of replying to
them has its advantages in a case like this. It would be absurd to
discuss these matters with the Pretty Preacher, but it is delightful to
look up and see the kindling little face and listen to the sermon.

It is, however, as the theologian proper, as the moralist and divine,
that we love her most. She arrives at this peak at last. As a rule, she
chooses the tritest topics, but she gives them a novelty and grace of
her own. Even Thackeray's old "Vanity of Vanities" wakes into new life
as she dexterously couples it with the dances of the last season. We nod
our applause from the grass as she denounces the worthlessness and
frivolity of the life we lead. If the weather were cool enough we should
at once vow, as she exhorts us, to be earnest and great and good. Above
all, let us be noble. The Pretty Preacher is great on self-sacrifice.
She sent two of her spoilt dresses to those poor people in the East-end,
after listening to a whole sermon on their sufferings. The congregation