“Have you an idea of expatriating yourself—­of ’quitting your country for your country’s good’?”

“One never knows what contingencies may arise, and I should like to avail myself of your knowledge; for I feel assured only very charming places would have detained you long.”

“Then, were I at liberty to select a home, tranquil, blessed beyond all expression, I should certainly lose no time in domesticating myself in the Peninsula of Mount Athos.”

“Ah! yes; the scenery all along that coast is described as surprisingly beautiful and picturesque.”

“Oh, bah! the scenery is quite as grand in fifty other places.  Its peculiar attraction consists in something far more precious.”

“To what do you refer?”

“Its marvelous and bewildering charm is to be found entirely in the fact that, since the days of Constantine, no woman has set foot on its peaceful soil; and the happy dwellers in that sole remaining earthly Eden are so vigilant, dreading the entrance of another Eve, that no female animal is permitted to intrude upon the sacred precincts.  The embargo extends even to cats, cows, dogs, lest the innate female proclivity to make mischief should be found dangerous in the brute creation.  Constantine lived in the latter part of the third and the beginning of the fourth century.  Think of the divine repose, the unapproachable beatification of residing in a land where no woman has even peeped for fifteen hundred years!”

“May all good angels help me to steer as far as possible from such a nest of cynics!  I would sooner confront an army of Amazons headed by Penthesilea herself, than trust myself among a people unhumanized and uncivilized by the refining influence and companionship of women!  St. Elmo, you are the most abominable misogamist I ever met, and you deserve to fall into the clutches of those ’eight mighty daughters of the plow,’ to which Tennyson’s Princess consigned the Prince.  Most heartily I pity you!”

“For shame, St. Elmo!  A stranger listening to your gallant diatribe would inevitably conclude that your mother was as unnatural and unamiable as Lord Byron’s; and that I, your most devoted, meek, and loving cousin, was quite as angelic as Miss Edgeworth’s Modern Griselda!”

Affecting great indignation, Estelle attempted to quit his side; but, tightening his arm, Mr. Murray bowed and resumed: 

“Had your imaginary stranger ever heard of the science of logic, or even dreamed of Whately or Mill, the conclusion would, as you say, be inevitable.  More fortunate than Rasselas, I found a happy spot where the names of women are never called, where the myths of Ate and Pandora are forgotten, and where the only females that have successfully run the rigid blockade are the tormenting fleas, that wage a ceaseless war with the unoffending men, and justify their nervous horror lest any other creature of the same sex should smuggle herself into their blissful retreat.  I