"The general run of people are so dull," she would remark in her confidential moments; "there are so few who can talk, without being disgustingly egotistical. Most people's idea of conversation is autobiography in instalments. I have always been liked for my high spirits and flow of conversation." High spirits at forty-five are apt to pall, unless accompanied by the rare gift of wit. Mrs. Torrington was not witty, but she had read a good deal of light literature, kept a commonplace book, and had gone through life believing herself a Sheridan or a Sidney Smith, in petticoats. "A woman's wit is like dancing in fetters," she complained sometimes: "there are so many things one must not say!" Christabel was more than content that her acquaintance should envy her. She wished to be thought happy. She had never for a moment posed as victim or martyr. In good faith, and with steady purpose of well-doing, she had taken upon herself the duties of a wife, and she meant to fulfil them to the uttermost. "There shall be no shortcoming on my side," she said to herself. "If we cannot live peaceably and happily together it shall not be my fault. If Leonard will not let me respect him as a husband, I can still honour him as my boy's father." In these days of fashionable agnosticism and hysterical devotion--when there is hardly any middle path between life spent in church and church-work and the open avowal of unbelief--something must be said in favour of that old-fashioned sober religious feeling which enabled Christabel Tregonell to walk steadfastly along the difficult way, her mind possessed with the ever-present belief in a Righteous Judge who saw all her acts and knew all her thoughts.