The apostle and the poet began to speak simultaneously, but the female key was the highest, and prevailed.
"We all agree in admiring Miss Gresley's delicate piece of workmanship," said the apostle, both elbows on the table after the manner of her kind, "but it is a misfortune to the cause of suffering humanity—to our cause—when the books which pretend to set forth certain phases of its existence are written by persons entirely ignorant of the life they describe."
"How true!" said Sybell. "I have often thought it, but I never could put it into words as you do. Oh! how I agree with you and Mr. Harvey! As I often say to Hester, 'How can you describe anything if you don't go anywhere or see anything? I can't give you my experience. No one can.' I said that to her only a month ago, when she refused to come up to London with me."
Rachel's white face and neck had taken on them the pink transparent color that generally dwelt only in the curves of her small ears.
"Why do you think Miss Gresley is ignorant of the life she describes?" she said, addressing the apostle.
The author and the apostle both opened their mouths at the same moment, only to register a second triumph of the female tongue.
Miss Barker was in her element. The whole table was listening. She shrugged her orange-velvet shoulders.
"Those who have cast in their lot with the poor," she said, sententiously, "would recognize at once the impossibility of Miss Gresley's characters and situations."
"To me they seem real," said Rachel.
"Ah, my dear Miss West, you will excuse me, but a young lady like yourself, nursed in the lap of luxury, can hardly be expected to look at life with the same eyes as a poor waif like myself, who has penetrated to the very core of the city, and who has heard the stifled sigh of a vast perishing humanity."