too cumbersome she wrapped
them in large sheets of brown paper, and stood them on the floor in a
corner.

The mistress of the house, Miss Fontover, was an elderly lady in
spectacles, dressed almost like an abbess; a dab at Ritual, as become
one of her business, and a worshipper at the ceremonial church of St.
Silas, in the suburb of Beersheba before-mentioned, which Jude also
had begun to attend. She was the daughter of a clergyman in reduced
circumstances, and at his death, which had occurred several years
before this date, she boldly avoided penury by taking over a little
shop of church requisites and developing it to its present creditable
proportions. She wore a cross and beads round her neck as her only
ornament, and knew the Christian Year by heart.

She now came to call Sue to tea, and, finding that the girl did not
respond for a moment, entered the room just as the other was hastily
putting a string round each parcel.

"Something you have been buying, Miss Bridehead?" she asked,
regarding the enwrapped objects.

"Yes--just something to ornament my room," said Sue.

"Well, I should have thought I had put enough here already," said
Miss Fontover, looking round at the Gothic-framed prints of saints,
the Church-text scrolls, and other articles which, having become too
stale to sell, had been used to furnish this obscure chamber. "What
is it? How bulky!" She tore a little hole, about as big as a wafer,
in the brown paper, and tried to peep in. "Why, statuary? Two
figures? Where did you get them?"

"Oh--I bought them of a travelling man who sells casts--"

"Two saints?"

"Yes."

"What ones?"

"St. Peter and St.--St. Mary Magdalen."

"Well--now come down to tea, and go and finish that organ-text, if
there's light enough afterwards."

These little obstacles to the indulgence of what had been the merest
passing fancy created in Sue a great zest for unpacking her objects
and looking at them; and at bedtime, when she was sure of being
undisturbed, she unrobed the divinities in comfort. Placing the pair
of figures on the chest of drawers, a candle on each side of them,
she withdrew to the bed, flung herself down thereon, and began
reading a book she had taken from her box, which Miss Fontover knew
nothing of. It was a volume of Gibbon, and she read the chapter
dealing with the reign of Julian the Apostate. Occasionally she
looked up at the statuettes, which appeared strange and out of place,
the