Pursuing her theme Mrs. Wilson singled out for urgent protest the one point which stood out like an excrescence on the surface of the sorry story, and put all else in the background--the projected hasty marriage. Its precipitancy offended her most cherished sensibilities. With all the sentiment and mental suppleness at her command she endeavored to point out the vulgarity of the proceeding. How was it to be reconciled with true womanly refinement? Was the holy state of matrimony to be shuffled off and on as though it were a misfit glove? She appealed to the claims of good taste and family pride. But, though Lucille listened decorously, it was obvious that the effect of the scandal of mutual prompt remarriages had no terrors for her. Or, rather, when her mother paused, she disputed it, claiming that the affair would be a seven days' wonder; that the world would speedily forget, or, at least, forgive, if the new ventures proved successful; that precipitancy in such cases was not novel, and that the people whose social approbation she desired would consider her sensible for putting an end to an intolerable relation and claiming her happiness at the earliest possible date. From a wholesale plea of what she referred to as spiritual decency directed against unseemly haste, Mrs. Wilson, sick at heart, began to particularize, and at the same time enlarged her attitude so as to disclose her innate feeling against divorce in general. She spoke of the plight of the children concerned, and in alluding to her grandchild, her tone was piteous. The thought seemed to give her courage, so that when Lucille, who evidently had a pat response to this contention ready, sought to interrupt, Mrs. Wilson raised a warning hand to signify that she must insist on being heard to the end. She dwelt upon the value of the home to human society, and in this appeal she gave free utterance to her religious convictions, defending the sacredness of the marriage tie from the point of view of Christian orthodoxy. She spoke with emotion and at some length, though she had never thought the matter out hitherto as a personal issue, she found that she had in reserve a whole set of argumentative principles to back her æsthetic eloquence. She urged upon her daughter that if neither good taste, family pride, nor maternal solicitude would restrain her, she heed the teachings of the church, which had prescribed the law of strict domestic ties as essential to the righteous development of human civilization, and which regarded the family as the corner-stone of social order and social beauty. Was her only child prepared to fly so flagrantly in the face of this teaching? Would she refuse to reverence this standard? As she evolved this final plea, Mrs. Wilson felt herself on firmer ground. It seemed to her that she had welded all her protesting instincts into a comprehensive claim which could not be resisted, for, though emphasizing the obligations of the soul, she had