Not that Mrs. Warricombe remained in complete ignorance of her husband’s pursuits; social forms would scarcely have allowed this, seeing that she was in constant intercourse, as hostess or guest, with Martin’s scientific friends.  Of fossils she necessarily knew something.  Up to a certain point they amused her; she could talk of ammonites, of brachiopods, and would point a friend’s attention to the~ Calceola sandalina~ which Martin prized so much.  The significance of palaeontology she dimly apprehended, for in the early days of their union her husband had felt it explain to her what was meant by geologic time and how he reconciled his views on that subject with the demands of religious faith.  Among the books which he induced her to read were Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise and the works of Hugh Miller.  The intellectual result was chaotic, and Mrs. Warricombe settled at last into a comfortable private opinion, that though the record of geology might be trustworthy that of the Bible was more so.  She would admit that there was no impiety in accepting the evidence of nature, but held to a secret conviction that it was safer to believe in Genesis.  For anything beyond a quasi-permissible variance from biblical authority as to the age of the world she was quite unprepared, and Martin, in his discretion, imparted to her nothing of the graver doubts which were wont to trouble him.

But as her children grew up, Mrs. Warricombe’s mind and temper were insensibly modified by influences which operated through her maternal affections, influences no doubt aided by the progressive spirit of the time.  The three boys—­Buckland, Maurice, and Louis —­were distinctly of a new generation.  It needed some ingenuity to discover their points of kindred with paternal and maternal grandparents; nor even with father and mother had they much in common which observation could readily detect.  Sidwell, up to at least her fifteenth year, seemed to present far less change of type.  In her Mrs. Warricombe recognised a daughter, and not without solace.  But Fanny again was a problematical nature, almost from the cradle.  Latest born, she appeared to revive many characteristics of the youthful Buckland, so far as a girl could resemble her brother.  It was a strange brood to cluster around Mrs. Warricombe.  For many years the mother was kept in alternation between hopes and fears, pride and disapproval, the old hereditary habits of mind, and a new order of ideas which could only be admitted with the utmost slowness.  Buckland’s Radicalism deeply offended her; she marvelled how such depravity could display itself in a child of hers.  Yet in the end her ancestral prejudices so far yielded as to allow of her smiling at sentiments which she once heard with horror.  Maurice, whom she loved more tenderly, all but taught her to see the cogency of a syllogism—­amiably set forth.  And Louis, with his indolent good-nature, laughed her into a tolerance of many things which had moved her