e with any remarkably heretical opinions," Miss
Tresilyan replied, carelessly. "Perhaps they have been exaggerated. At
all events, he is not likely to do us much harm. Don't you think _we_
are safe, Bessie? Dick does not care much for play; and his ideas on
religious subjects are so very simple that it would be hard to unsettle
them."

Clearly she thought the topic was exhausted, but it had a strange
fascination for Mr. Fullarton. One of the many good-natured people, who
especially abound in those semi-English Continental towns, had been kind
enough to quote or misquote to him a remark of Royston's about that
sermon; and on this topic the chaplain was very vulnerable. He would
have forgiven a real substantial injury far sooner than a depreciation
of his discourses.

Was he one whit weaker or more susceptible than his fellows? I think
not. All the philosophy on earth will not teach us to endure without
wincing a mosquito's bite. The hardiest hero bears about him one spot
where an ivy-leaf clinging intercepted the petrifying water--a tiny
out-of-the-way spot, not very near the head or heart, but palpable
enough to be stricken by Paris's arrow or Hagen's spear. Caesar is very
sensitive about that bald crown of his, and fears lest even the laurel
wreath should cover it but meagrely. Many wars, since that which brought
Ilium to the dust, might have been traced to slighted vanity, and many
excellent Christians have waxed quite as wroth as the queen of
heathenish heaven about the _spretae injuria formae_. (Do you think this
is a peculiarly feminine failing? I have seen a first-class man and
Ireland scholar look massacres at the child of his bosom friend, when
the unconscious innocent made disagreeable remarks on his personal
appearance, alluding particularly to the shape of his nose, which was
_not_ Phidian. He has since been heard to speak of that terrible deed in
Bethlehem as a painful but justifiable measure of political expediency;
and is inclined, on many grounds, to excuse and sympathize with the stem
Idumean.) The insult offered to the embassador in Tarentum was only the
outbreak of a single drunkard's brutality, but all the wealth of the
fair city of Phalanthus did not suffice to pay the account for washing
the soiled robe white again; and blood enough ran down her streets to
have quenched some blazing temples before the Romans would give her a
receipt in full.

Arguing from these _data_, we may conclude that Mr. Fu