"But, do you know, I think so often what an admirable, harmonious, earthly preface to eternal bliss in the natural order would Anglicanism be—Anglicanism of the moderate type, a little quickened with the evangelical element, but neither high nor low. The life, as I remember it in the close at ——, was so pleasant, so decorous, so amiable, so full of good, comfortable, luxurious things, so ladylike and gentlemanly, so reputable. One kept the commandments mainly; one was never anything but high-bred and high-toned; one did one's duty too—taught a little in the schools; looked after the rheumatic old bodies in cottages delightfully picturesque to sketch, but dark and damp as graves to live in; handed buns and tea at the school treats; one wasn't always thinking about delicate matters of conscience, about renunciation, self-abnegation, and what it must mean to be a soldier under a captain who neither lived delicately, nor slept softly, nor was used to stately shelter—a crucified head whose arms are the instruments of the Passion—and how well off one's body was!"
And I've been—no, I've been bidden to the Dialectical Society. You don't know what that is, my barbaric New Zealander? And I didn't know either when Mr. Malise sent me tickets for one evening, specially urging my attendance, as there would be something well worth hearing—a paper on "Celibacy" read by its author, a gifted young girl of only twenty-two!
I took my tickets to my liege. "Ronayne, fount of wisdom and light, whatever may the Dialectical Society be?"
"The Dialectical Society, madam, is a body of men and women who meet to rake up, turn over, and discuss to all their verges subjects which the weaker mass of mortals think upon only on compulsion, with fear and trembling, and in mental sackcloth and ashes. And pray, what have you to do with Dialecticals, Eve? We are not going there, if that's what those tickets mean!"
"Oh, Adam! And why not? Because I'm, unluckily, married, am I to stop trying to improve myself, and not care to know what grand heights happier, unhampered women are scaling? And, Adam, only see, here's to be a paper read by a young lady only twenty-two, Mr. Malise says, and there couldn't be anything so very dreadful to hear in the little composition of an innocent young creature like that!"
"'Subject, Celibacy, by Eliza Stella Greatheart, M.D.,'" read Ronayne. "Humph! charming young creature! Well, madam Lil, you'll have to imagine what the medical young lady will say on the state she's proved to such ripeness of years, for you're not likely to hear, and Mr. Malise has wasted his tickets. And as if you cared what anybody could say about single blessedness—a woman with an angel in the nursery crib, and a husband who breathes but to serve her! Go away this minute!" And I left monseigneur to his moutons, a little huffed, no doubt, at being interrupted in the fine middle of a working morning—always "The Growth of Language"; and you should see the pile of MSS. I used to copy for him, but lately it has taken so much time to sketch my baby! Every new attitude is prettier than the last, and every day adds a charm. You need not laugh; I never had a baby before. Just wait until you know for yourself! I've painted the darling twice, once for Ronayne's father, though a little against the grain, for the old gentleman thinks it dreadfully infra dig. that I, a lady born, and I most especially a lady wed, should ever have been publicly catalogued as an artist in exhibition lists and newspaper notices, and have sold the labor of my hands, eyes, and brain in the marketplace. What would happen if he caught sudden sight of a memento that always goes with me in one of my boxes—a little tin sign, my first one; and how proud I was of it!
Fraulein Lilian Macfarlane.
I don't like, for the family's sake, to imagine. When Ronayne gave him the picture on his birthday, our joint offering, my work set in the loveliest frame Ronayne could find, he couldn't help being pleased, and he couldn't help knowing it was baby's very self; but if the picture had been the work of a paid artist, I know he would have been wonderfully soothed. The picture was on exhibition for some days in the morning room, and being one day in the conservatory with Ronayne, I heard his father expatiating upon the striking likeness that had been happily caught, to a lady visitor. Presently I heard her read the signature, "Lil. De Vere, del., 1873." "Why, it is your daughter-in-law's work! How charming for a mother to be able to paint such an admirable portrait of her child. That must double the picture's value to you!"
And the beau père hemmed and hawed, and made the general inarticulate noises of an Englishman embarrassed, or wishful to make an impressive speech, and finally got out:
"Aw, yes, yes—of course! A nice and amateur talent has Mrs. De Vere."