separated. Supper was not served, as it was found to be too great an
expense. The husbands of the ladies generally came to escort them
home, but did not come upstairs. Some of the gentlemen waited below in
the dining-room, but most of them preferred the shop, for, although it
was shut, the gas was burning to enable the assistants to put away the
goods which had been got out during the day.

When it first became my turn to read I proposed the Vicar of Wakefield;
but although no objection was raised at the time, Mr. Snale took an
opportunity of telling me, after I had got through a chapter or two,
that he thought it would be better if it were discontinued. "Because,
you know, Mr. Rutherford," he said, with his smirk, "the company is
mixed; there are young leedies present, and perhaps, Mr. Rutherford, a
book with a more requisite tone might be more suitable on such an
occasion." What he meant I did not know, and how to find a book with a
more requisite tone I did not know.

However, the next time, in my folly, I tried a selection from George
Fox's Journal. Mr. Snale objected to this too. It was "hardly of a
character adapted for social intercourse," he thought; and furthermore,
"although Mr. Fox might be a very good man, and was a converted
character, yet he did not, you know, Mr. Rutherford, belong to us." So
I was reduced to that class of literature which of all others I most
abominated, and which always seemed to me the most profane--religious
and sectarian gossip, religious novels designed to make religion
attractive, and other slip-slop of this kind. I could not endure it,
and was frequently unwell on Dorcas evenings.

The rest of the small congregation was of no particular note. As I
have said before, it had greatly fallen away, and all who remained