‘That’s mostly the way at Bulcester,’ said Mr. Warren.
‘Well,’ Merton went on, ‘you are in the habit of entertaining the lecturers at your house. Now, I know a young lady—one of our staff, in fact—who is very well qualified to lecture on “The Use and Abuse of Novels.” She is a novelist herself; one of the most serious and improving of our younger writers. In her works virtue (after struggles) is always rewarded, and vice (especially if gilded) is held up to execration, though never allowed to display itself in colours which would bring a blush to the cheek of—a white rabbit. Here is her portrait,’ said Merton, taking up a family periodical, The Young Girl. This blameless journal was publishing a serial story by Miss Martin, one of the ladies who had been enlisted at the dinner given by Logan and Merton when they founded their Society. A photograph of Miss
Martin, in white and in a large shadowy hat, was published in The Young Girl, and certainly no one could have recognised in this conscientiously innocent and domestic portrait the fair author of romances of social adventure and unimagined crime. ‘There you see our young friend,’ said Merton; ‘and the magazine, to which she is a regular contributor, is a voucher for her character as an author.’
Mr. Warren closely scrutinised the portrait, which displayed loveliness and candour in a very agreeable way, and arranged in the extreme of modest simplicity.
‘That is a young woman who bears her testimonials in her face,’ said Mr. Warren. ‘She is one whom a father can trust—but has she been vaccinated?’
‘Early and often,’ answered Merton reassuringly. ‘Girls with faces like hers do not care to run any risks.’
‘Jane Truman does, though my son has put it to her, I know, on the ground of her looks. “Nothing,” she said, “will ever induce me to submit to that filthy, that revolting operation.”’
‘“Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” as Bacon says,’ replied Merton, ‘or at least of such of us as are unenlightened. But to come to business. What do you think of asking our young friend down to lecture—on Friday week, I think you said—on the Use and Abuse of Novels? You could easily persuade her, I dare say, to stay over Sunday—longer if necessary—and then young Mr. Warren would at least find out that there is more than one young woman in the world.’
‘I shall be delighted to see your friend,’ answered Mr. Warren. ‘At Bulcester we welcome intellect, and a real novelist of moral tendencies would make quite a sensation in our midst.’
‘They are but too scarce at present,’ Merton answered—‘novelists of high moral tone.’