"You are very provoking! Do you want Ernest to think me a fool?"
"Have you waked to a consciousness of that danger?"
"Yes; and I want you to teach me something. Come, tell me what that thing is I asked you about."
"Tell you what?"
"Why, what a—a 'Fourieristic-phalanx' is?" said she earnestly.
Beulah could not avoid smiling, and wondered how he managed to look so very serious, as he replied:
"I know very little about the tactics of Fourieristic-phalanxes, but believe a phalange is a community or association of about eighteen hundred persons, who were supposed or intended to practice the Fourieristic doctrines. In fine, a phalange is a sort of French Utopia."
"And where is that, sir?" asked Pauline innocently, without taking her eyes from his face.
"Utopia is situated in No-country, and its chief city is on the banks of the river Waterless."
"Oh, Uncle Guy! how can you quiz me so unmercifully, when I ask you to explain things to me?"