ity--virtuous activity, I mean.'

'That is fortunate,' remarked Merton. 'You said just now that to try the
plan of a counter-attraction was difficult, because there was little of
social relaxation in your Society, and you knew no lady who had the
opportunities necessary for presenting an agreeable alternative to the
charms of Miss Truman. A young man's fancy is often caught merely by the
juxtaposition of a single member of the opposite sex, with whom he
contracts a custom of walking home from chapel.'

'That's mostly the way at Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren.

'Well,' Merton went on, 'you are in the habit of entertaining the
lecturers at your house. Now, I know a young lady--one of our staff, in
fact--who is very well qualified to lecture on "The Use and Abuse of
Novels." She is a novelist herself; one of the most serious and
improving of our younger writers. In her works virtue (after struggles)
is always rewarded, and vice (especially if gilded) is held up to
execration, though never allowed to display itself in colours which would
bring a blush to the cheek of--a white rabbit. Here is her portrait,'
said Merton, taking up a family periodical, _The Young Girl_. This
blameless journal was publishing a serial story by Miss Martin, one of
the ladies who had been enlisted at the dinner given by Logan and Merton
when they founded their Society. A photograph of Miss Martin, in white
and in a large shadowy hat, was published in _The Young Girl_, and
certainly no one could have recognised in this conscientiously innocent
and domestic portrait the fair author of romances of social adventure and
unimagined crime. 'There you see our young friend,' said Merton; 'and
the magazine, to which she is a regular contributor, is a voucher for her
character as an author.'

Mr. Warren closely scrutinised the portrait, which displayed loveliness
and candour in a very agreeable way, and arranged in the extreme of
modest simplicity.

'That is a young woman who bears her testimonials in her face,' said Mr.
Warren. 'She is one whom a father can trust--but has she been
vaccinated?'

'Early and often,' answered Merton reassuringly. 'Girls with faces like
hers do not care to run any risks.'

'Jane Truman does, though my son has put it to her, I know, on the ground
of her looks. "_Nothing_," she said, "will ever induce me to submit to
that filthy, that revolting operation."'

'"Conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Bacon say