“I understood,” said Mrs. T. L. Lawson, whose word in intellectual matters was final, “that young Mrs. Spence was wholly uneducated.  A school teacher who met her on the train told my dressmaker that she had heard her admit the fact with her own lips.  So, naturally, not wishing to embarrass a newcomer, I confined my remarks to the simplest matters.  She did not say very much but I must confess—­you will scarcely believe it—­I actually got the impression that she was accommodating her conversation to me,”

“Oh, surely not!” from a shocked chorus.

“It is just a manner she affects,” comforted Mrs. Burton Holmes.  “Far, far too assured, in my opinion, for a young bride.  I hope it does not denote a certain lack of fine feeling.  In a girl who had been brought up to an assured social position, such a manner might be understood.  But—­well, all I can say is that I heard from my friend Marion Walford yesterday, and she assured me that Mrs. Spence is quite unknown in Vancouver society.  But, of course, dear Marion knows only the very smartest people.  For myself I do not allow these distinctions to affect me.  If only for dear Miss Campion’s sake I determined to be perfectly friendly.  But I felt that, in justice to everybody, it might be well for her to know that we know.  So I asked her, casually, if she were well acquainted with the Walfords.  At first she looked as if she had never heard of them, and then—­’Oh, do you mean the soap people?’ she said.  ’I don’t know them—­but one sees their bill-boards everywhere.’  It was almost as if—­”

“Oh—­absurd!” echoed the chorus.  “Though if she is really English,” ventured one of them, “she might, you know.  The English have such a horror of trade.”

These social and educational puzzles were as nothing to the religious problem.  Bainbridge, who had seen. desire more or less regularly at church, had taken for granted that in this respect, at least, she was even as they were.  But, after the reception, Mrs. Pennington thought not.

“I felt quite worried about our pretty bride,” said Mrs. Pennington.  “You know how we all hoped that when the dear professor married he would become more orthodox.  Science is so unsettling.  And married men so often do.  But—­” she sighed.

“Surely not a free thinker?” ventured one in a subdued whisper.

“Or a Christian Scientist?” with equal horror.

Mrs. Pennington intimated that she had not yet sufficient data to decide.  “But,” she added, solemnly, “she is not a.  Presbyterian.”

“She goes to church.”

“Yes.  She was quite frank about that.  She did not scruple to say that she goes to please Miss Campion and because ‘it is all so new.’ "

“New?”

“Exactly what I said to her.  I said, ‘New?’ My dear, what you do mean—­new?’ And she tipped her eyebrows in that oriental way she has and said, ‘Why, just new.  I have never been to church, you know!’”