ct."

"Was there any flaw in what she said?"

"I can't tell what she said. It was just a little murmur over the
work."

"Not preaching?"

"Not in that sense," said Cecil, with a little compunction.

"I am glad to hear it; it makes a great difference."

"You see," said the lady, "our institution is merely intended to
support these women in the time of want; and if we were to couple
our assistance with religion we should just sink into a mothers'
meeting, and make the women think--"

"Think that you prize the soul more than the body," said Julius, as
she halted in search of a word. "I understand, Cecil; you would not
be in the prevailing fashion. I don't want to argue that point,
only to understand about Anne."

So saying, he went at once to Anne's abode, the old schoolroom,
which, like everything else belonging to Mrs. Miles Charnock, had a
sad-coloured aspect, although it had been fitted up very prettily.
The light was sombre, and all the brighter pictures and ornaments
seemed to have been effaced by a whole gallery of amateur
photographs, in which the glories of the African bush were
represented by brown masses of shade variegated by blotches of
white. Even in Miles's own portrait on the table, the gold seemed
overwhelmed by the dark blue; and even as Julius entered, she shut
it up in its brown case, as too sacred for even his brother's eyes.

However, a flush of pleasure came to her pale face at the invitation
to take a class, and to read to a good old woman, whom in his secret
soul he thought so nearly a dissenter, that she could not be made
more so. She promised her help with some eagerness for as long as
she should remain in England, and accepted the books he gave her
without protest. Nay, that same evening she took Jenny off into her
gray abode, to consult her whether, since she must now join the
early breakfast, she could go to daily service without becoming
formal.

She even recurred to her question, whether Julius was a Christian,
without nearly as much negation in her tones as before; and Jenny,
taking it as it was meant, vouched for his piety, so as might render
it a little more comprehensible to one matured on Scottish Calvinism
and English Methodism, diluted in devout undogmatic minds, with no
principle more developed than horror of Popery and of worldliness.
Turned loose in solitude, reserve, and sadness, on her husband's
family, who did nothing but shock her with manifestations of the