"Bless me!" said I, "I am very glad to hear these things, but must own that your account is most unexpected. The ladies whom I have heard called 'pious,' at our post town in Buckinghamshire, sit up, I imagine, all Saturday night, and starve all Sunday. They defile along in troops, looking sour enough to curdle milk into whey by their presence, and are always to be seen loaded with tracts, and carrying bags which are filled with other implements of the trade. These saintly damsels are, I firmly believe, a set of whale-boned exclusionists, who deny salvation to all who are not within their pale, and able to answer their _qui va là?_ by the signs and countersigns of their free masonry." "Arthur," replied Emily, "though your anger diverts, I must scold you for being too severe. Why should you judge so hardly upon hearsay testimony of people whom it is your boast not to be acquainted with? Surely starving, without food or rest by day, and sleep at night, cannot be matter of _amusement_; and if your picture be not greatly exaggerated, we may at least hope that the motives are pure, which dictate so much self-denial." "Not a bit of it, I assure you," answered I. "I promise you that these folks are self-sufficient, as they are generally weak; and have as much pride, vanity, and dogmatism, in their own _plain_ way, as their neighbours. They set up to be teachers, when they would be much better employed in learning; and both men and women of the new light get into the cant, and are sworn in to the confederacies to serve very secular purposes. See how they nestle into the houses of the great, marry the best fortunes, and while they preach a religious republic, always take care if they can, to secure the dictatorship." "We know nothing here of these abuses," said Emily; "I have heard of noble characters who devote all their time, money, and influence, to the high purposes of reclaiming the vicious, and teaching the Word of God to the ignorant. But if we lived in a less refined spot than this, we should not even then be likely to join any of the societies to which you allude, composed of such as are technically, and most improperly called, when with design to convey a _taunt_, 'good people.' Mamma dislikes _liveries_, whether of dress or manners. She disapproves of bazaars, working parties, and all religious exhibitions and excitements: in short, of all demonstrations of what she calls a _gregarious_ spirit of piety; though she makes it a point never to express an opinion in the presence of any one who could wrest it to the unworthy purpose of throwing either ridicule or reproach on numbers of excellent persons of both sexes who differ from her in theory as well as practice."