"It is precisely for that reason," she said, "that art seems to me to fall below religion. Art can make man contented with life only by keeping his attention fixed upon an ideal, while religion reconciles us to life as it really is." A murmur of assent showed Arthur how much against the feeling of those around him were the views he was advancing. "Oh, well," he said, in a droll _sotto voce_, "if it is coming down to a family difference we will continue it in private." And he abandoned the discussion. "It seems to me," pursued Mr. Candish, only half conscious that Mrs. Fenton had come to his aid, "that Bishop Blougram represents the most dangerous spirit of the age. His paltering with truth is a form of casuistry of which we see altogether too much nowadays." "Do you think," asked a timid feminine voice, "that Blougram was _quite_ serious? That he really meant all he said, I mean?" The president looked at the speaker with despair in his glance; but she was adorably pretty and of excellent social position, so that snubbing was not to be thought of. Moreover, he was thoroughly well trained in keeping his temper under the severest provocation, so he expressed his feelings merely by a deprecatory smile. "We have the poet's authority," he responded, in a softly patient voice, "for saying that he believed only half." There was a little rustle of leaves, as if people were looking over their books, in order to find the passage to which he alluded. Then a young girl in the front row of chairs, a pretty creature, just on the edge of womanhood, looked up earnestly, her finger at a line on the page before her. "I can't make out what this means," she announced, knitting her girlish brow,-- "'Here, we've got callous to the Virgin's winks That used to puzzle people wholesomely.'" "Of course he can't mean that the Madonna winks; that would be too irreverent." There were little murmurs of satisfaction that the question had been asked, confusing explanations which evidently puzzled some who had not thought of being confused before; and then another girl, ignoring the fact that the first difficulty had not been disposed of, propounded another. "Isn't the phrase rather bold," she asked, "where he speaks of 'blessed evil?'" "Where is that?" some one asked. "On page 106, in my edition," was the reply; and a couple of moments were given to finding the place in the various books. "Oh, I see the line," said an old lady, at last. "It's one--two--three--five lines from the bottom of the page:" "'And that's what all the blessed evil's for.'" "You don't think," queried the first speaker, appealing personally to the president, "that Mr. Browning can really have meant that evil is blessed, do you?" The president regarded her with an affectionate and fatherly smile. "I think," he said, with an air of settling everything, "that the explanation of his meaning is to be found in the line which follows,--