ble
consequences. If you teach him that he can throw off the results of a
bad life, and of all it has entailed upon his fellow man, by a brief
spell of penitence, or a blind, irrational faith in the sacrifice of a
Being he has neglected and ignored during the greater part of that life,
you really are only pandering to the selfish and cowardly side of his
nature."

A little shudder ran through the group at these bold words. Mrs Ray
Jefferson lifted her head and cast glances of triumph about, as one who
should say, "I told you she would shock you all!"

There was scarcely a man or woman there who did not attend church on
Sundays, and who had not managed to make a comfortable compact between
the tenets of religion and the demands of social and worldly pleasures.
Not one who, if taken to task on the momentous subject of a spiritual
future, could have given any rational explanation of why he or she held
certain vague ideas on the subject of salvation, or put off the deeper
consideration of the subject to some indefinite period when they would
have had their fill of vanities, and lost either the means or the desire
to pursue them.

And yet there was a subtle _frou-frou_ of rustling skirts as the women
drew slightly away, and a decided appearance of discomfort on the faces
of the men, to whom an unpleasant truth was suddenly and sharply
conveyed, and who found themselves strangely powerless to combat, or
argue out its real meaning.

CHAPTER NINE.

DISCUSSION.

Colonel Estcourt came to the rescue.

"No doubt," he said, "the subject and this view of the subject seems a
little strange to our friends here. We must remember they have not been
accustomed to hear it freely discussed, as we have."

"It _is_ strange," said Mrs Jefferson, rallying her energies, "but we
should not shirk its consideration for that reason. I quite agree with
Madame Zairoff that people don't think half seriously enough of their
real natures, the mysterious inner _something_ which we all feel we
possess, but whose voice we stifle in the din of the world. And yet,"
she added, sighing pathetically as she looked at the great Worth's
`creation,'--"the vanities are very pleasant. Why should we turn
anchorites?"

"There is not the slightest necessity to do that," said the princess,
smiling at the unuttered thought she had read in that glance. "Far from
it. The gravest duties of life are generally those that meet us in the
world, and are ca