“They must be very gratifying to you,” I answered with a little confusion, for I perceived that I might easily mistake my footing, and I began to have a presentiment of an examination for which I was by no means crammed.

“On the whole—­yes,” said Vorticella, in a tone of concession.  “A few of the notices are written with some pains, but not one of them has really grappled with the chief idea in the appendix.  I don’t know whether you have studied political economy, but you saw what I said on page 398 about the Jersey fisheries?”

I bowed—­I confess it—­with the mean hope that this movement in the nape of my neck would be taken as sufficient proof that I had read, marked, and learned.  I do not forgive myself for this pantomimic falsehood, but I was young and morally timorous, and Vorticella’s personality had an effect on me something like that of a powerful mesmeriser when he directs all his ten fingers towards your eyes, as unpleasantly visible ducts for the invisible stream.  I felt a great power of contempt in her, if I did not come up to her expectations.

“Well,” she resumed, “you observe that not one of them has taken up that argument.  But I hope I convinced you about the drag-nets?”

Here was a judgment on me.  Orientally speaking, I had lifted up my foot on the steep descent of falsity and was compelled to set it down on a lower level.  “I should think you must be right,” said I, inwardly resolving that on the next topic I would tell the truth.

“I know that I am right,” said Vorticella.  “The fact is that no critic in this town is fit to meddle with such subjects, unless it be Volvox, and he, with all his command of language, is very superficial.  It is Volvox who writes in the ‘Monitor,’ I hope you noticed how he contradicts himself?”

My resolution, helped by the equivalence of dangers, stoutly prevailed, and I said, “No.”

“No!  I am surprised.  He is the only one who finds fault with me.  He is a Dissenter, you know.  The ‘Monitor’ is the Dissenters’ organ, but my husband has been so useful to them in municipal affairs that they would not venture to run my book down; they feel obliged to tell the truth about me.  Still Volvox betrays himself.  After praising me for my penetration and accuracy, he presently says I have allowed myself to be imposed upon and have let my active imagination run away with me.  That is like his dissenting impertinence.  Active my imagination may be, but I have it under control.  Little Vibrio, who writes the playful notice in the ‘Medley Pie,’ has a clever hit at Volvox in that passage about the steeplechase of imagination, where the loser wants to make it appear that the winner was only run away with.  But if you did not notice Volvox’s self-contradiction you would not see the point,” added Vorticella, with rather a chilling intonation.  “Or perhaps you did not read the ‘Medley Pie’ notice?  That is a pity.  Do take up the book again.  Vibrio is a poor little tippling creature, but, as Mr Carlyle would say, he has an eye, and he is always lively.”