But the baby, in being at least, was only a relaxation to be enjoyed in odds and ends of time, for the solid hours were full. She seemed to have taken on her shoulders the responsibility for the whole of Wroxton. She had already written a paper for the Literary Ladies, which had caused a kind of revolution in that gentle society, and Mrs. Collingwood had left the room in a marked manner in the middle. It is true that she came back again, and spoke venomously about it, but that was an after-thought, for by going away she expressed her silent disapproval, which she repeated not at all silently in the discussion that followed. Indeed, she might well be horror-struck, for Jeannie, taking as her text that notorious and scandalous novel, The Sheltered Life, had made remarks about “realism” and artistic treatment which made Mrs. Collingwood not exactly blush, but bristle. In the first place, the hero of the work was a professed unbeliever, and though, if we are to believe the author, he sought for light, and lived a sober and innocent life, there was no doubt about his religious opinions. It is unnecessary to go into details of the rest of the story; that one fact was enough for Mrs. Collingwood. But Jeannie seemed hardly to have noticed it. Instead, she spoke of the admirable development of his characters, of the sobriety and reticence of the narrative; of the skilled surgical dissection of the man’s actions, and the exhibition of the real forces that swayed them, partly the result of heredity, partly of early training and circumstance, and the one thing that, according to Mrs. Collingwood, condemned the book, even had it been written by Shakespeare and corrected by Milton, she passed over with the remark that the description of the struggle of the reason against a faith his reason could not accept was wonderfully rendered. Dead silence followed her reading; and the Literary Ladies, who for the most part had followed her with great interest, saw Mrs. Collingwood enter again (she came in so punctually as Jeannie sat down that it seemed almost as if she had been listening at the door) and cowered. Most of them looked guilty, but it was noticed that Miss Clara, in her place as president, sat bolt upright, and looked as brave as a lion. Indeed, several times during the lecture she had applauded with her silver pencil-case on the table. Miss Fortescue, who sat next Jeannie, also appeared unterrified, but, as her niece sat down, she said in a whisper to her: “You’ve done it now, dear. There’s war in that woman’s eye. But I’ll see you through.”