‘Your John S. Mill is a great man,’ said the minister.

‘They tell me so,’ said Mr Glascock.  ’I don’t read what he writes myself.’

This acknowledgment seemed to the minister to be almost disgraceful, and yet he himself had never read a word of Mr Mill’s writings.  ’He is a far-seeing man,’ continued the minister.  ’He is one of the few Europeans who can look forward, and see how the rivers of civilization are running on.  He has understood that women must at last be put upon an equality with men.’

‘Can he manage that men shall have half the babies?’ said Mr Glascock, thinking to escape by an attempt at playfulness.

But the minister was down upon him at once, had him by the lappet of his coat, though he knew how important it was for his dear niece that he should allow Mr Glascock to amuse himself this evening after another fashion.  ‘I have an answer ready, sir, for that difficulty,’ he said.’step aside with me for a moment.  The question is important, and I should be glad if you would communicate my ideas to your great philosopher.  Nature, sir, has laid down certain laws, which are immutable; and, against them—­’

But Mr Glascock had not come to Florence for this.  There were circumstances in his present position which made him feel that he would be gratified in escaping, even at the cost of some seeming incivility.  ‘I must go in to the ladies at once,’ he said, ’or I shall never get a word with them.’  There came across the minister’s brow a momentary frown of displeasure, as though he felt that he were being robbed of that which was justly his own.  For an instant his grasp fixed itself more tightly to the coat.  It was quite within the scope of his courage to hold a struggling listener by physical strength but he remembered that there was a purpose, and he relaxed his hold.

‘I will take another opportunity,’ said the minister.  ’As you have raised that somewhat trite objection of the bearing of children, which we in our country, sir, have altogether got over, I must put you in possession of my views on that subject; but I will find another occasion.’  Then Mr Glascock began to reflect whether an American lady, married in England, would probably want to see much of her uncle in her adopted country.

Mrs Spalding was all smiles when her guest reached her.  ’We did not mean to have such a crowd of people,’ she said, whispering; ’but you know how one thing leads to another, and people here really like short invitations.’  Then the minister’s wife bowed very low to an Italian lady, and for the moment wished herself in Beacon Street.  It was a great trouble to her that she could not pluck up courage to speak a word in Italian.  ‘I know more about it than some that are glib enough,’ she would say to her niece Livy, ’but these Tuscans are so particular with their Bocca Tostana.’