the disgust and abhorrence
which respectable people would feel at his odious Socialism. Was she
never to know another happy moment? and was Amelius to be the cause of
it? and so on, and so on.

Mr. Farnaby's protest followed, delivered by Mr. Farnaby himself.
He kept his gloves on when he called; he was solemn and pathetic; he
remonstrated, in the character of one of the ancestors of Amelius; he
pitied the ancient family "mouldering in the silent grave," he would
abstain from deciding in a hurry, but his daughter's feelings were
outraged, and he feared it might be his duty to break off the match.
Amelius, with perfect good temper, offered him a free admission, and
asked him to hear the lecture and decide for himself whether there was
any harm in it. Mr. Farnaby turned his head away from the ticket as if
it was something indecent. "Sad! sad!" That was his only farewell to the
gentleman-Socialist.

On the Sunday (being the only day in London on which a man can use his
brains without being interrupted by street music), Amelius rehearsed his
lecture. On the Monday, he paid his weekly visit to Regina.

She was reported--whether truly or not it was impossible for him to
discover--to have gone out in the carriage with Mrs. Ormond. Amelius
wrote to her in soothing and affectionate terms, suggesting, as he had
suggested to her father, that she should wait to hear the lecture before
she condemned it. In the mean time, he entreated her to remember
that they had promised to be true to one another, in time and
eternity--Socialism notwithstanding.

The answer came back by private messenger. The tone was serious.
Regina's principles forbade her to attend a Socialist lecture. She hoped
Amelius was in earnest in writing as he did about time and eternity. The
subject was very awful to a rightly-constituted mind. On the next page,
some mitigation of this severity followed in a postscript. Regina would
wait at home to see Amelius, the day after his "regrettable appearance
in public."

The evening of Tuesday was the evening of the lecture.

Rufus posted himself at the ticket-taker's office, in the interests of
Amelius. "Even sixpences do sometimes stick to a man's fingers, on their
way from the public to the money-box," he remarked. The sixpences did
indeed flow in rapidly; the advertisements had, so far, produced their
effect. But the reserved seats sold very slowly. The members of the
Institution, who were admitted for nothing, arr