2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



trimmings for the curate's vestments ; she bowed 

 at church as often and profoundly as possible; 

 she enjoyed nothing so much as going to con- 

 fession ; she learned to despise the world. In- 

 deed, such utter dross did her riches now seem to 

 her, that, despite all the arguments of her ghost- 

 ly counselor, she remained convinced that they 

 were too worthless to offer to the Church, and she 

 saw nothing for it but to still keep them for her- 

 self. The mingled humility and discretion of this 

 w«lve so won the heart of a gifted colonial 

 bishop, then on a visit to England, that, having 

 first assured himself that Miss St. John was sin- 

 cere in making it, he besought her to share with 

 him his humble mitre, and make him the happi- 

 est prelate in the whole Catholic Church. Miss 

 St. John consented. The nuptials were cele- 

 brated with the most elaborate ritual, and after a 

 short honey-moon the bishop departed for his 

 South-Pacific diocese of the Chasuble Islands, to 

 prepare a home for his bride, who was to follow 

 him by the next steamer. 



Prof. Paul Darnley, in his own walk of life, 

 was even more renowned than "Virginia had been 

 in hers. He had written three volumes on the 

 origin of life, which he had spent seven years in 

 looking for in infusions of hay and cheese ; he 

 had written five volumes on the entozoa of the 

 pig, and two volumes of lectures, as a corollary 

 to these, on the sublimity of human heroism and 

 the whole duty of man. He was renowned all 

 over Europe and America as a complete embodi- 

 ment of enlightened modern thought. His mind 

 was like a sea, into which the other great minds 

 of the age discharged themselves, and in which 

 all the slight discrepancies of the philosophy of 

 the present century mingled together and formed 

 one harmonious whole. He criticised every- 

 thing; he took nothing on trust, except the 

 unspeakable sublimity of the human race and 

 its august terrestrial destinies. And, in his dou- 

 ble capacity of a seer and a savant, he had 

 destroyed all that the world had believed in the 

 past, and revealed to it all that it is going to 

 feel in the future. Nor was he less successful 

 in his own private life. He married, at the age 

 of forty, an excellent evangelical lady, ten years 

 his senior, who wore a green gown, gray cork- 

 screw curls, and who had a fortune of two hun- 

 dred thousand pounds. Orthodox though she 

 was, Mrs. Darnley was yet proud beyond measure 

 of her husband's world-wide fame, for she did 

 but imperfectly understand the grounds of it. In- 

 deed, the only thing that marred her happiness 

 was the single tenet of his that she fiad really 



mastered. This, unluckily, was that he disbe- 

 lieved in hell. And so, as Mrs. Darnley conceived 

 that that place was designed mainly to hold those 

 who doubted its existence, she daily talked her 

 utmost, and left no text unturned to convince her 

 darling of his very dangerous error. These as- 

 siduous arguments soon began to tell. The pro- 

 fessor grew moody and brooding, and he at last 

 suggested to his medical man that a voyage round 

 the world, unaccompanied by his wife, was the 

 prescription most needed by his failing patience. 

 Mrs. Darnley at length consented with a fairly 

 good grace. She made her husband pledge him- 

 self that he would not be absent for above a 

 twelvemonth, or else, she said, she should imme- 

 diately come after him. She bade him the ten- 

 derest of adieux, and promised to pray till his 

 return for his recovery of a faith in hell. 



The professor, who had but exceeded his time 

 by six months, was now on board the Australa- 

 sian, homeward bound to his wife. Virginia was 

 outward bound to her husband. 



in. 



The sensation created by the presence of these 

 two celebrities was profound beyond description ; 

 and the passengers were never weary of watching 

 the gleaming spectacles and the square-toed boots 

 of the one, and the liquid eyes and the ravishing 

 toilets of the other. There were three curates, 

 who, having been very quick in making Virginia's 

 acquaintance, soon sang at nightfall with her a 

 beautiful vesper hymn. And so lovely did the 

 strains sound, and so devotional did Virginia 

 look, that most of the passengers the night after 

 joined in a repetition of this touching evening 

 office. 



The professor, as was natural, held quite 

 aloof, and pondered over a new species of bug, 

 which be had found very plentiful in his berth. 

 But it soon occurred to him that he often heard 

 the name of God being uttered otherwise than in 

 swearing. He listened more attentively to the 

 sounds which he had at first set down as negro- 

 melodies : and he soon became convinced that 

 they were something whose very existence he 

 despised himself for remembering — namely, 

 Christian hymns. He then thought of the three 

 curates, whose existence he despised himself for 

 remembering also. And the conviction rapidly 

 dawned on him that, though the passengers 

 seemed fully alive to his fame as a man of sci- 

 ence, they could yet know very little of all that 

 science had done for them, and of the death-blow 

 it had given to the foul superstitions of the past. 



