Stellato has one fourteen times the size of life, colored after
Nature by a progressive artist. It is a fearful sight!"

I did not question it.

"Once more, there is not a moment to spare," said Mrs. Romulus, turning
suddenly upon the clergyman. "The question is, Shall we put you upon our
Order of Exercises?"

"It would not sound badly," insinuated Stellato, perusing the document
in imagination: "'Chant, by the Choir; Recitation of Original Verses, by
Jane Romulus; Prayer, by the Reverend Charles Clifton'"--

"Stop!" cried the clergyman. "I decline all connection with this
business. I have no sympathy with its promoters, and I will never cower
before the mob-tyranny they evoke. If I have yet any influence in the
First Church, it shall be used in solemnly counselling all youths and
maidens of the congregation to report themselves at Mrs. Widesworth's
singing-school. The feverish paroxysms of these public meetings are
doubtless more stimulating than the humble duties of home, or the modest
pleasures at which a lady of Mrs. Widesworth's character is willing to
preside; but it is not the wholesome activity which a wise man may
promote. And I know that to the children of our public schools such
excitement is far more fatal than the cup they never coveted: their
minds should be nurtured in moderation and simplicity, even as their
bodies are best nourished upon bread and milk."

"Bread and milk!" echoed Mrs. Romulus in shrill falsetto; "say rather
loaves of plaster and alum crumbed into bowls of chalk-mixture! This is
the sort of bread and milk furnished by your barbarous civilization!
But the beginning of the end of this priestridden world has at length
come. A new era is dawning upon earth. Much-oppressed Woman asserts her
entire freedom; she insists upon her passional independence, and demands
harmonial development. She is going to get it, too! Stellato, come
along!"

We watched them up the gravel-walk, and then off upon the dusty road.

The minister meditated in silence, as one who had the gift of
penetrating beyond his fellows into the mystery of sin. Now he was
distrustful: the time might soon come when he would be desperate. I
think he almost longed for the power to become a proselyte to any active
communion, even if it proposed but a new whitewashing of the sepulchre
which hides the corruptions of society. Notwithstanding the vigorous
words he had spoken, I knew him for one who could never take hearty
satisfac