"But, papa darling, Miss Grey won't care about what you call sensible subjects any more than I. She won't know anything about them." "Yes, dear, she will; look at her forehead." "Oh, I have looked at it! Isn't it beautiful?" "I didn't mean that," Mr. Money said with a smile; "I meant that it looked sensible and thoughtful. Now, go away, Lucelet, like a dear little girl." Miss Grey sat quietly through all this. She was not in the least offended. Mr. Money seemed to her to be just what a man ought to be--uncouth, rough, and domineering. She was amused meanwhile to observe the kind of devotion and enthusiasm with which Mr. Heron was entering into conversation with Mrs. Money and her elder daughter. That, too, was just what a man ought to be--a young man--silly in his devotion to women, unless, perhaps, where the devotion was to be accounted for otherwise than by silliness, as in a case like the present, where the unmarried women might be presumed to have large fortunes. So Miss Grey liked the whole scene. It was as good as a play to her, especially as good as a play which confirms all one's own theories of life. "England, Mr. Heron," said Mrs. Money in her melancholy voice, "is near her fall." "Oh, Mrs. Money, pray pardon me--England! you amaze me--I _am_ surprised--do forgive me--to hear an Englishwoman say so; our England with her glorious destiny!" The young man blushed and grew confused. One might have thought his mother had been called in question or his sweetheart. Mrs. Money shook her head and twirled one of her bracelets. "She is near her fall, Mr. Heron! You cannot know. You have lived far away, and do not see what _we_ see. She has proved faithless to her mission." "Something--yes--there I agree," Mr. Heron eagerly interposed, thinking of the St. Xavier's settlements. "She was the cradle of freedom," Mrs. Money went on. "She ought to have been always its nursery and home. What have we now, Mr. Heron? A people absolutely in servitude, the principle of caste everywhere triumphant--corruption in the aristocracy--corruption in the city. No man now dares to serve his country except at the penalty of suffering the blackest ingratitude!" Mr. Heron was startled. He did not know that Mrs. Money was arguing only from the assumption that her husband was a very great man, who would have done wonderful things for England if a perverse and base ruling class had not thwarted him, and treated him badly. "England," Theresa Money said, smiling sweetly, but with a suffusion of melancholy, "can hardly be regenerated until she is once more dipped in the holy well." "You see we all think differently, Mr. Heron," said the eager Lucy. "Mamma thinks we want a republic. Tessy is a saint, and would like to see roadside shrines." "And you?" Heron asked, pleased with the girl's bright eyes and winning ways.