“But I am afraid the scholars would fall foul of it.”

“Why, have not they just made Mariolatry?”

“Yes; but they are very severe on hybrids between Latin and Greek.”

“It is not worth while to boggle at trifles when one has an expressive term,” said Rachel; “if it turns into English, that is all that is wanted.”

“Would it not be rather a pity if it should turn into English?  Might it not be hard to brand with a contemptuous name what does more good than harm?”

“That sickly mixture of flirtation and hero worship, with a religious daub as a salve to the conscience.”

“Laugh it down, and what do you leave?  In Miss Austen’s time silly girls ran to balls after militiamen, now, if they run to schools and charities more for the curate’s sake than they quite know, is not the alternative better?”

“It is greater humbug,” said Rachel.  “But I knew you would not agree, at least beforehand, it is appreciation that I want.”

Never did Madame de Genlis make a cleverer hit than in the reading of the Genius Phanor’s tragedy in the Palace of Truth.  Comically absurd as the inconsistency is of transporting the lecture of a Parisian academician into an enchanted palace, full of genii and fairies of the remotest possible connexion with the Arab jinn, the whole is redeemed by the truth to nature of the sole dupe in the Palace of Truth being the author reading his own works.  Ermine was thinking of him all the time.  She was under none of the constraint of Phanor’s auditors, though she carried a perpetual palace of truth about with her; she would not have had either fears or compunctions in criticising, if she could.  The paper was in the essay style, between argument and sarcasm, something after the model of the Invalid’s Letters; but it was scarcely lightly touched enough, the irony was wormwood, the gravity heavy and sententious, and where there was a just thought or happy hit, it seemed to travel in a road-waggon, and be lost in the rumbling of the wheels.  Ermine did not restrain a smile, half of amusement, half of relief, at the self-antidote the paper contained; but the smile passed with the authoress as a tribute to her satire.

“In this age,” she said, “we must use those lighter weapons of wit, or no one will attend.”

“Perhaps,” said Ermine, “if I approve your object, I should tell you you don’t use them lightly.”

“Ah! but I know you don’t approve it.  You are not lay woman enough to be impartial, and you belong to the age that was trying the experiment of the hierarchy modified:  I to that which has found it will not do.  But at least you understand my view; I have made out my case.”

“Yes, I understand your view; but—­”

“You don’t sympathize.  Of course not; but when it receives its full weight from the printer’s bands, you will see that it will tell.  That bit about the weak tea fumes I thought of afterwards, and I am afraid I did not read it well.”