"I think we should study both," Mrs Sommers intervened, with a view to soothing the ruffled feelings of her visitor, who was chafing visibly under this downright attack. "The schools are certainly charming. I should hate to see them pulled down myself. We will have to effect some compromise." Compromise, in Mrs Chadwick's opinion, was as ineffectual as patching a worn-out garment; the worn-out garment could but fulfil its destiny, and become rags. But she let the subject drop. It could be revived at some future date. The schools were being slowly drawn into the network of her revolutionary schemes for the modernising of Moresby. Miss Simpson, less diplomatic, and more assertive than Mrs Sommers, showed her disapproval by abruptly changing the subject, and introducing an entirely new, and, in Mrs Chadwick's opinion, distinctly quaint topic of conversation. She referred with considerable vim to certain matters of local importance which had been given prominence in the pages of the current number of the _Parish Magazine_. Mrs Chadwick betrayed such absorbed interest in these matters that Miss Simpson was beguiled into inquiring whether she had seen the current number of the _Parish Magazine_. She spoke of the magazine as a lover of the poets might speak of the works of Shakespeare, with a certain reverential awe for the importance of proved literary merit. Mrs Chadwick wore the vaguely distressed look that a well-read woman wears on discovering an unsuspected limitation in her literary attainments. She had not even heard before of the _Parish Magazine_. "I am afraid I don't know it," she answered. "There are such a number of magazines, aren't there? And so many new ones always coming out. One can't keep pace with these things. I stick to the old magazines, like the _Century_, and the _Strand_, and the _Contemporary Review_. If one ought to read the _Parish Magazine_, of course I should wish to." Miss Simpson stared, and Mrs Sommers laughed softly, albeit she did not consider this quizzing altogether fair. "The publications you refer to are not of the same nature as the _Parish Magazine_," the visitor observed crushingly. "Our magazine is a purely local pamphlet for local circulation. It deals solely with parish matters." Mrs Chadwick considered this dull, but she did not say so. She appeared politely impressed. "That must be very interesting to--to Moresby inhabitants," she said gravely. "That is its object," Miss Simpson returned. "Most parishes have their magazines. The people like to know what takes place locally; and they find it all noted down." She spoke with the laboured forbearance of one who seeks to instruct a very ignorant person on a subject which should not have required explanation. "Our magazine is a new venture," she added, with the conscious pride of the literary aspirant. "I started it last year. I edit it."