'Yes,' said Miss Crofton; 'perhaps they might _not_. That would be all
to the good for the Church; no ideals would be shattered--the reverse--and
dear Julia would--'

'Cherish their pious memories,' said Merton.

'I see that you understand me,' said Miss Crofton.

Merton did understand, and he was reminded of the wicked lady, who, when
tired of her lovers, had them put into a sack, and dropped into the
Seine.

'But,' he asked, 'has this ingenious system failed to work? I should
suppose that each young man, on distant and on deadly shores, was far
from causing inconvenience.'

'The defect of the system,' said Miss Crofton, 'is that none of them has
gone, or seems in a hurry to go. The first--that was Mr. Bathe, Julia?'

Julia nodded.

'Mr. Bathe was to have gone to Turkey during the Armenian atrocities, and
to have _forced_ England to intervene by taking the Armenian side and
getting massacred. Julia was intensely interested in the Armenians. But
Mr. Bathe first said that he must lead Julia to the altar before he went;
and then the massacres fell off, and he remains at Cheltenham, and is
very tiresome. And then there is Mr. Clancy, _he_ was to go out to
China, and denounce the gods of the heathen Chinese in the public
streets. But _he_ insisted that Julia should first be his, and he is at