way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant. I
have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture
promises to such as myself, for it has not yet materialized to any
appreciable extent."

"There 's more truth than poetry in that," she answered, laughing.
"Poor Mr. Cardington's olive branch has proved a boomerang to himself,
I fear."

It pleased the bishop to be blandly diverted by these sallies, though
it was evident that his mind had set so strongly in one direction as to
require an effort on his part to turn it aside. However, he was not
one to exhibit a family difference before a stranger, when once
recalled to his senses, and the topic that had elicited these few
scintillations of feeling was dropped by common consent.

Presently Miss Wycliffe drew Leigh on to talk of astronomy, of the Lick
Observatory, of California, its climate, its products, and its people,
subjects upon which he alone of the company possessed knowledge at
first hand. He was impressed by his auditors' ignorance of all that
country which lies west of the Mississippi, and a realisation of the
bishop's sceptical attitude aroused him to partisan enthusiasm. Their
conception of the West was as inadequate as the average Englishman's
conception of America. Some few people they had known who had gone out
to California for their health, and in a general way they appreciated
the fact that the fruits and flowers of the coast were of peculiar size
and beauty; but, after all, the place seemed to them more a colony of
the United States than an integral part of the country, a place of such
decidedly inferior interest to Europe that any time in the dim future
would do for its inspection.