"You can't make fish of one and flesh of another," continued my wife, majestically. "The mischief was done when they walked arm-in-arm for weeks together while they were becoming intimate. It makes little difference, it seems to me, as to the precise nature of the development. If Winona hadn't embraced (as she calls it) Christian Science, she would in all probability have worn bloomers, in which case I should not have held Dr. Cora Jacket guiltless merely because that young woman continued to wear petticoats. Neither do I in the present emergency. Who was it introduced Winona to Mrs. Titus, I should like to know?" "Was Miss Jacket responsible for that?" I inquired, respectfully, not venturing to contest further the soundness of my wife's logic in her present excited frame of mind. "She was indeed, and it is very little consolation to me that she professes to be sorry for it now." Josephine tapped her foot with a worried air, which found voice presently in a laugh born of sheer desperation. "Isn't it perfectly ludicrous, Fred? Do you realize what the child wishes to do?" "I understood you to state that she wishes to enter upon a crusade to show that all our aches and pains are hallucinations. There ought to be a fortune in that, my dear, compared with which the profits from David's electrical discovery will pale into insignificance." "This is no laughing matter, Fred. She is intensely in earnest; her heart is set upon the plan, and there is no use in arguing with her. She simply looks calm and tells you that you don't know." I scratched my head and pondered. My younger daughter's plan, as it had been unfolded to me, was this: She proposed to set up as a practitioner of Christian Science in partnership with another young woman of the same faith. They were to cure disease apparently by dint of assuring their patients that because there is no such thing as matter, nothing could be the matter with any one. Their instructress, Mrs. Titus, had demonstrated the truth of this theory by a varied line of cures, and they had been encouraged by her to go on with the good work. Had I any objection to the scheme? "Perhaps I had better talk the matter over with her and try to bring her to her senses," I remarked. "I wish you joy of the experience," said my wife, with a wry smile. "She is like a seraph in her serenity, and I might just as well have been talking to a stone wall for all the effect my words seemed to have. Of course you can prevent her; she understands that; but I should like to see you alter her opinion."