As regards private social life, I know of no happier phase of it than that which allows you to have only a few intimate friends, and which does not compel you to fritter away your hours among a host of acquaintances who have no heart-regard for you--paying a cold visit here, a cold visit there, glad when they are over; receiving these conventional visits in return, and uttering commonplaces the while which are devoid of meaning and have no suspicion of earnestness. Where you have within hail a few friends between whom and yourself a sincere esteem exists, room is given for earnest feeling to flower; the true heart-glow is felt, and you give and receive smiles which are not artificial, and speak and hear words which are good and glad utterances. In time the ties which bind you and your friends grow as strong as ties of blood-kindred, and when a face is missed from the circle, you mourn for it with genuine grief and affection. Such a phase of social life existed with the Silvers and their friends, of whom Robert Truefit was not the least esteemed. Wherever he was, the conversation was always animated. He was a man who thought for himself, and was not willing to be led unless his reason approved. Under any circumstances, Robert Truefit would not have been satisfied with going through the world blindfold. In no sense of the word an agitator, he was always ready to express his opinion, and you might depend that that opinion would be the result of a fairly-exercised judgment. He was contented with his position as an ordinary workman, but this does not imply that he was without ambition. He simply recognised that it is folly to knock your head against stones. In a new country, such as America, Canada, or any of the Australasian colonies, he would have risen by sheer force of character; but in England, with the ties that he had gathered about him, the chances were against him. I am anxious that the character of Robert Truefit should not be misunderstood. He was in no wise discontented with the groove in which he laboured. He was a good husband and a good father. Fond of an argument he certainly was; but he was not that kind of man who justifies himself by a proverb. He chafed at injustice to others, and he often expressed indignation at the neglect of public morality which, he contended, characterised the government of the country. 'They look after the trees,' he said, 'and neglect the flowers. It is a cant saying that you cannot make people moral by Act of Parliament. Keep dinning a thing in the people's ears, and, whether it be true or false, it will come to be believed in as something not to be controverted. They will believe that a bread pill will prolong life indefinitely, if it be advertised sufficiently. I say you can make people moral by Act of Parliament. You can make them clean and you can compel them to be decent, and those qualities go a very long way towards morality.'