"Stop," said my father, "I am not a sceptic; Mama, you must not set a bad example. I had my little doubts about the Ark, I must confess, until so many people attacked it, among them a Bishop of our Church, who continued to enjoy his income. If he was in earnest, he scarcely could be honest, and in that case, who would listen to him? And if the Ark rested upon Ararat, that would be the neighbourhood to know all about it. I will not contradict Prince Maori." "But it is the girl I care about;" my mother made a great point of the tempers of young women. "George is so peaceable, and he never argues. I cannot risk his happiness with a wife who may be descended from--from even the females mentioned in the Bible." "My dear mother, what a hurry you are in. The young lady does not care a fig about me yet. And I am very much afraid that she never, never will. Only I thought that I had better let you know." "This sort of thing has never happened to you before, and that is very greatly to your credit, George." My father looked stealthily at my mother, lest her conscience should involve her in some misconstruction here. "But we must talk it over first, your mother and myself. We could have no idea that such a thing was happening on our property, I mean--of course, what used to be ours. It seems to be departing from the proper way so much, and the practice of the family. I am sure there are plenty of nice girls round here." "I am not so sure of that," said my mother, rather quickly, and giving me a signal to leave the rest to her; "English girls are not at all as they were in my time. They have dropped all their modest looks and delicacy. They talk slang, and they speak without being introduced, and they call one another Jack and Jemmy, and they let young men give them pairs of gloves, and they come into a room with both arms swinging; and as for their dresses, and the way they do their hair----" "Your opinion upon all these points, dear mother, has influenced me beyond all doubt, even more than I was aware of. But you must remember that Dariel is also of the most ancient English lineage, gone by quite as much as you could wish--Crusaders, probably our Richard the first, and some of his devoted paladins. What can be nobler than to carry on a peaceful crusade of education, literature, Christianity----" "They could never do that without plenty of money," said my father, a man as free from mercenary views as ever tried to raise a shilling. "And you spoke of some emerald mines, I think. But we must be careful, very careful, and insist upon verifying everything, quite independently of their reports. Let me see! I have met the Russian ambassador--but no, there have been two more since then. However I am not without influence altogether."