her ‘Credo’ doesnt mean faith:  it means church-going, which is practised because it is respectable, and is respectable because it is a habit of the upper caste.  But church-going is church-going; and business is business, as Marian will soon let you know if you meddle with her business.  However, we need not argue about that:  we know one another’s views and can agree to differ.”

“I should be false to my duty as a Christian priest if I made any such agreement.”

“Perhaps so; but, at any rate, we cant spend all our lives over the same argument.  No, as I was saying, take my advice, and let Marian alone.”

“But what do you intend to do, then?”

“What can I do but wait?  Experience must wear out some of her illusions.  She will at least find out that she is no worse off than other women, and better off than some of them.  Since the job cannot be undone, we must try how making the best of it will work.  I am pretty hopeful myself.  How are affairs getting on at your chapel?  I am told that the sermons of your locum tenens send the congregation asleep.”

“He is not at his best in the pulpit.  A good fellow! a most loving man but not able to grapple with a large congregation.  After all, I am obliged to confess that very few of our cloth are.  The power of preaching is quite an exceptional one; and it is a gift as well as a trust.  I humbly believe that the power of the tongue comes of a higher ordination than the bishop’s.”

Nothing further was said about Marian.  The clergyman’s object in visiting Conolly was, it presently appeared, to borrow a portmanteau.  When he was gone, Conolly returned to the laboratory, and wrote the following letter: 

  “My dear Marian

“I have just had two unexpected visits, one from Mrs. Fairfax, and one from George.  Mrs. L.F. said you asked her to call and give me the news.  When I told her, without blushing, that you had written to prepare me for her visit, she was rather put out, justly thinking me to mean that I did not believe her.  As this is fully the thirty-sixth falsehood in which you have detected good Mrs. F., I fear you will be compelled, in spite of your principle of believing the best of everybody, to regard her in future as a not invariably accurate woman.  She came with the object of making me go down to Sark.  You were so young and so much admired:  Mr. Douglas was so attentive:  you should not be left entirely alone, and so forth.  You will be angry with her; but she thinks Douglas so irresistible that she is genuinely anxious about you:  I believe she really meant well this time.  As to our reverend brother, his portmanteau burst in the train coming from Edinburgh; so he came to borrow mine, having apparently resolved to wear out those of all his friends before buying a new one.  Unfortunately, he met Mrs. F. down the road; and she urged him to go down to Sark just as she had urged me.  Now as George is incapable of holding his