row?"

"No, sir. We will, with your permission, avail ourselves of the present
to make acquaintance with each other." She rang the bell after this
speech, and ordered that the carriage should be sent away. "I shall not
drive, Giacomo," said she; "and I do not receive if any one calls."

"You brought me a letter, sir, from the Reverend Silas Smallwood," said
she, very much in the tone of a barrister cross-examining a troublesome
witness.

"Yes, madam; that gentleman kindly offered a friend of mine to be the
means of presenting me to you."

"So that you are not personally acquainted, sir?"

"We have never, so far as I know, even seen each other."

"It is as well, sir, fully as well. Mr. Smallwood is a person for whose
judgment or discrimination I would have the very humblest opinion, and I
have therefore, from what you tell me, the hope that you are not of his
party in the Church."

"I am unable to answer you, madam, knowing nothing whatever of Mr.
Smallwood's peculiar views."

"This is fencing, sir; and I don't admire fencing. Let us understand
each other. What have you come here to preach? I hope my question is a
direct one?"

"I am an ordained minister of the Church of England, madam; and when I
have said so, I have answered you."

"What, sir? do you imagine your reply is sufficient. In an age when not
alone every doctrine is embraced within the Church, but that there is a
very large and increasing party who are prepared to have no doctrine at
all? I perceive, sir, I must make my approaches to you in a different
fashion. Are you a man of vestments, gesticulations, and glass windows?
Do you dramatize your Christianity?"

"I believe I can say no, madam, to all these."

"Are you a Literalist, then? What about Noah, sir? Let me hear what you
have to say about the Flood. Have you ever calculated what forty days'
rainfall would amount to? Do you know that in Assam, where the rains
are the heaviest in that part of the world, and in Colon, in Central
America, no twelve hours' rain ever passed five inches and three
quarters? You are, I am sure, acquainted with Esch-schormes' book on the
Nile deposits? If not, sir, it is yonder--at your service. Now, sir, we
shall devote this evening to the Deluge, and, so far as time permits,
the age of the earth. To-morrow evening we'll take Moses, on Staub's
suggestion that many persons were included under that name. We'll keep
the Pentateuch for Friday, for I expect the Rabbi