that marriage is not what she expected it to be, and that it gives me many unfair advantages over her; and she knows also that ours is a happier marriage than most.  Nevertheless she will encourage other girls to marry; she will maintain that the chain which galls her own wrists so often is a string of honeysuckles; and if a woman identifies herself with any public movement for the lightening of that chain, she wont allow that that woman is fit to be admitted into decent society.  There is not one of these shams to which she clings that I would not like to take by the throat and shake the life out of; and she knows it.  Even in that she has not the consistency to believe me wrong, because it is undutiful and out of keeping with the honeysuckles to lack faith in her husband.  In order to blind herself to her inconsistencies, she has to live in a rose-colored fog; and what with me constantly, in spite of myself, blowing this fog away on the one side, and the naked facts of her everyday experience as constantly letting in the daylight on the other, she must spend half the time wondering whether she is mad or sane.  Between her desire to do right and her discoveries that it generally leads her to do wrong, she passes her life in a wistful melancholy which I cant dispel.  I can only pity her.  I suppose I could pet her; but I hate treating a woman like a child:  it means giving up all hope of her becoming rational.  She may turn for relief any day either to love or religion; and for her own sake I hope she will choose the first.  Of the two evils, it is the least permanent.”  And Conolly, having disburdened himself, resumed his work without any pretence of waiting for the clergyman’s comments.

“Well,” said the Rev. George, cautiously, “I do not think I have quite followed your opinions, which seem to me to be exactly upside down, as if they were projected upon the retina of your mind’s eye—­to use Shakspear’s happy phrase—­just as they would be upon your—­your real eye, you know.  But I can assure you that your view of Marian is an entirely mistaken one.  You seem to think that she does not give in her entire adherence to the doctrines of the Establishment.  This is a matter which I venture to say you do not understand.”

“Admitted,” interposed Conolly, hastily.  “Here is my workman’s tea.  Are you fond of scones?”

“I hardly know.  Anything—­the simplest fare, will satisfy me.”

“So it does me, when I can get nothing better.  Help yourself, pray.”

Conolly did not sit down to the meal, but worked whilst the clergyman ate.  Presently the Rev. George, warmed by the fire and cheered by the repast, returned to the subject of his host’s domestic affairs.

“Come,” he said, “I am sure that a few judicious words would lead to an explanation between you and Marian.”

“I also think that a few words might do so.  But they would not be judicious words.”

“Why not?  Can it be injudicious to restore harmony in a household?”