[Footnote 1:  Or so the observers say who haven’t had a life of
  pleasure.]

“What do you think about Religion, Viv old girl?” she said one day in the Eastertide of 1912, when Vivie was spending a delicious fortnight at Villa Beau-sejour.

“Personally,” said Vivie, “I hate all religions, so far as I have had time to study them.  They bind up with undisputed ethics more or less preposterous theories concerning life and death, the properties of matter, man, God, the universe, the laws of nature, the food we should eat, the relations of the sexes, the quality of the weekly day of rest.  Gradually they push indisputable ethics on one side and are ready to apply torture, death, or social ostracism to the support of these preposterous theories and explanations of God and Man.  Such theories”—­went on Vivie, though her mother’s attention had wandered to some escaped poultry that were scratching disastrously in seed beds—­“Such theories and explanations, mark you—­do listen, mother, since you asked the question...”

“I’m listenin’, dearie, but you talk like a book and I don’t know what some of your words mean—­What’s ethics?”

“Well ‘ethics’ means er—­er—­’morality’; it comes from a Greek word meaning ’character.’...”

Mrs. Warren:  “You talk like a book—­”

Vivie:  “I do sometimes, when I remember something I’ve read.  But now I’ve lost my thread....  What I meant to finish up with was something like this ’Such theories and explanations were formulated several hundred, or more than two thousand years ago, in times when Man’s knowledge of himself, of his surroundings, of the earth and the universe was almost non-existent, yet they are preserved to our times as sacred revelations, though they are not superior to the fancies and fetish rites of a savage.’  There!  All that answer is quoted from Professor Rossiter’s little book (Home University Library, “The Growth of the Human Mind").”

Mrs. Warren:  “Rossiter!  Is that the man you’re sweet on?”

Vivie:  “Don’t put it so coarsely.  There is a great friendship between us.  We belong to a later generation than you.  A man and a woman can be friends now without becoming lovers.”

Mrs. Warren:  “Go on!  Don’t humbug me.  Men and women’s the same as when I was young.  I’m sorry, all the same, dear girl.  There are you, growin’ middle-aged and not married to some good-’earted chap as ’d give you three-four children I could pet in me old age.  Wodjer want to go fallin’ in love with some chap as ’as got a wife already? I know your principles.  There’s iron in yer blood, same as there is in that proud priest, your father.  I know you’d break your ’eart sooner ’n have a good time with the professor.  My!  It seems to me Love’s as bad as Religion for bringin’ about sorrer!”