power of rejecting all premises except those familiar to herself. This gave it a fibre and substance hard as concrete. Here, indeed, was something one could build on; here, indeed, was the strait thing. Her husband would sometimes say to her: “My dear, we don’t know what the poor woman’s circumstances were, we really don’t, you know. I think we should try to put ourselves in her place.” And she would fix his eye, and say: “James, it’s no good. I can’t imagine myself in that woman’s place, and I won’t. Do you think that _I_ would ever leave _you_?” And, watching till he shook his head, she would go on: “Of course not. No. Nor let you leave me.” And, pausing a second, to see if he blinked, because men were rather like that (even those who had the best of wives), she would go on: “She deserves all she gets. I have no personal feeling, but, if once decent women begin to get soft about this sort of thing, then good-bye to family life and Christianity, and everything. I’m not hard, but there are things I feel strongly about, and this is one of them.” And secretly she would think: “That’s why he keeps so thin--always letting himself doubt, and sympathise, where one has no right to. Men!” Next time she passed the woman, she would cut her deader than the last time, and, seeing her smile, would feel a sort of divine fury. More than once this had led her into courts of law on charges of libel and slander. But, knowing how impregnable was her position, she almost welcomed that opportunity. For it was ever transparent to judge and jury from the first that she was that crown of pearls, a virtuous woman, and so she was never cast in damages. On one such occasion her husband had been so ill-advised as to remark: “My dear, I have my doubts whether our duty does not stop at seeing to ourselves, without throwing stones at others.” “Robert,” she had answered, “if you think that, just because there’s a chance that you may have to pay damages, I’m going to hold my tongue when vice flaunts itself, you make a mistake. I always put your judgment above mine, but this is not a matter of judgment--it is a matter of Christian and womanly conduct. I can’t admit even your right to dictate.” She hated that expression, “The grey mare is the better horse”; it was vulgar, and she would never recognise its truth in her own case--for a wife’s duty was to submit herself to her husband, as she had already said. After this little incident she took the trouble to go and open her New Testament and look up the story of a certain woman. There was not a word in it about women not throwing stones; the discouragement referred entirely to men. Exactly! No one knew better than she the difference between men and women in the matter of moral conduct. Probably there _were_ no men without that kind of sin, but there were plenty of women, and, without either false or true pride, she felt that she was one of them. And there the matter rested.