"I am very happy to see you, Mr. Wright. And your friend, Mr.--? Mr. Dennis. Thank you. We are going to read and discuss a passage from 'The Tempest' presently. Shakespeare, you know. Be seated, and my granddaughter will offer you a little refreshment.... I have been consulting various authorities on statical electricity for you, Mr. Armitage. I have marked a few passages in my Encyclopædia, Volume Twenty in my library, which seem to me to treat the subject most lucidly. You might also derive some information from the life of Mr. Faraday--Volume Eighteen. My granddaughter will look up the passage for you presently.... Ah, Mr. Jobson! How are they down at the factory to-day? You are just in time. We are about to read and discuss a passage from 'The Tempest.' Shakespeare, of course. Be seated, pray.... For me to read, Mr. Penton? Thank you: that indeed will be an intellectual treat. I will peruse your manuscript at leisure, and comment upon it at our next meeting.... The Agnostics still bothering you, Mr. Clamworthy? Well, I am no theologian; but for sheer old-fashioned common sense I don't think you can beat Paley's 'Evidences of Christianity.' The late Archdeacon used to say that he always came back to Paley in the end. Ada, my dear, that passage I marked in Volume Forty-Seven! Now friends, 'The Tempest'!" After that the Presentation Shakespeare would be opened, and Mr. Baxter would declaim selected passages. His voice was mellow, and his manner ecclesiastical; plainly his whole deportment was moulded, to the last gesture and inflexion, on one unvarying model. A discussion would follow--a quite naïve and rather pathetic discussion, sometimes. Ultimately Mr. Baxter would sum up, generally with extracts from other Shakespearian passages, which he turned up with great readiness and dexterity, rolling them from off his tongue with obvious relish. Occasionally he would ask Ada for some other volume, and read from that. There were great moments when he would actually call for Homer or Horace and, with apologies for rusty scholarship, offer to our respectful ears a quite coherent rendering of some famous passage. Finally, at a moment selected by herself, the vigilant Ada Weeks would terminate the proceedings with the curt announcement that her grandfather was tired. The precious volumes were locked in the library again, and we were bidden, without ceremony, to say good-night to our host and not to bang the street door. Both of which commands we obeyed promptly and reverently, and departed homeward. IV Possibly it may have occurred to the reader to wonder whether in a community at once so erudite and progressive as Broxborough--it possesses both a Cathedral Close and a Linoleum Factory, you will remember--there can have been no official alternative to Twenty-One, The Common--no Public Library, no Public Lecture Courses, no Municipal Oracle, as it were.