‘Don’t cross-question me,’ cried Mrs. Hilliard; ‘I won’t have one of my own dining-room chairs converted into a witness-box. There are liberal-mindedness and liberal-mindedness. The French, the wittiest nation in Europe, invented that splendid definition. I am ready to depose solemnly that I never professed to be a chartist or a communist or a red republican—nothing of the kind. I only call myself a friendly easy-going sort of woman, who would not condescend to turn her back on her kindred, and who could not do without her neighbours to laugh with and laugh at. Therefore she was not disposed to weed out her visiting list at Friarton to a few straggling aspirants to gentility. But if Oliver Constable commit a marriage with one of the Miss Polleys, I shall turn my coat and become as exclusive as Mrs. Wright. Her father was actually a fashionable London physician, who drove about in a pill-box and attended peers and aldermen for their gout and fine ladies and citizenesses for their nerves. Think how his daughter has to condescend to us country clodhoppers! By the way, I may as well turn my coat as you take back your word. I am glad, my love, that you do anything so nineteenth century and fallible—so unlike a vestal virgin or a _précieuse ridicule_.’ Oliver was taking one step to which Fan had no objection. Harry Stanhope, with a curious echo of old and young Dadd, told Oliver: ‘I say, old man, lectures ain’t in my way, as you know, but I’ll see you through yours.’ Agneta also expressed her full intention of being present. But as it happened, when the evening came, no Stanhope put in an appearance. They had been decoyed away by some prospect of greater entertainment elsewhere. Agneta admitted afterwards that she had left the schoolroom too lately to relish lectures, any more than Harry cared for them. But in spite of the Stanhopes’ desertion, if Oliver’s sole or even principal intention had been to bring together the upper and lower middle classes of Friarton, and unite them superficially, by a common bond of interest for one evening, he might have been satisfied. But unfortunately, his aspirations went far beyond these modest results. The lecturer began stiffly with involuntary bodily contortions which monopolised much of the attention, and were fruitful in small titters and grins from the ’Mily Polleys and Jack Dadds among the audience. Mrs. Hilliard neither tittered nor grinned. She looked preternaturally sedate, but her grey eyes danced under the great flat expanse of her forehead. Catherine Hilliard leant back in her chair perfectly unstirred to mirth. Her hands were loosely clasped in her lap. A shade of expectation kindled a little light in the face, which under its warmly tinted hair looked like That orbèd maiden, White—fire-laden, Whom mortals call the moon,