,
and dry it in bunches for the winter's use. And many is the laborer who
lets his children swallow the lion's share of his Sunday bit of meat
because the wife says it makes them strong, and children have not the
sense not to want all they see. Any economical reform amongst the
extravagant classes that would leave more and better food within reach
of the hard-working classes would be highly beneficial to both.
Sometimes I wish we could return to that sumptuary law of Queen
Elizabeth which commanded the rich to eat fish and fast from flesh-meat
certain days of the week." Here Mr. Jones too abruptly paused. Lady
Angleby had grown exceedingly red in the face; Bessie Fairfax had grown
rosy too, with suppressed reflections on the prize-stature to which her
hostess had attained in sixty years of high feeding. Queen Elizabeth's
pious fast might have been kept by her with much advantage to her
figure.

Poor Mr. Jones had confused himself as well as Lady Angleby, but the
return to the drawing-room created an opportune diversion. He took up an
illustrated paper with a scene from a new play, and after studying it
for a few minutes began to denounce the amusements of the gay world in
the tone of a man who has known nothing of them, but has let his
imagination run into very queer illusions. This passed harmless. Nobody
was concerned to defend the actor's vocation where nobody followed it;
but Mr. Jones was next so ill-advised as to turn to Miss Hague, and say
with a supercilious air that since they last met he had been trying to
read a novel, which he mentioned by name--a masterpiece of modern
fiction--and really he could not see the good of such works. Miss Hague
and he had disagreed on this subject before. She was an inveterate
novel-reader, and claimed kindred with a star of chief magnitude in the
profession, and to speak lightly of light literature in her presence
always brought her out warmly and vigorously in defence and praise of
it.

"No good in such works, Mr. Jones!" cried she. "My hair is gray, and
this is a solemn fact: for the conduct of life I have found far more
counsel and comfort in novels than in sermons, in week-day books than in
Sunday preachers!"

There was a startled silence. Miss Burleigh extended a gentle hand to
stop the impetuous old lady, but the words were spoken, and she could
only intervene as moderator: "Novels show us ourselves at a distance, as
it were. I think they are good both for instruction