Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/74



the Vicar of Dulham held what he was pleased to call a clerical meeting at his home, it was well understood by all the guests that no parochial ‘shop,’ was to be talked, but instead of it, the politics and science of the great outside world were to form a sort of intellectual symposium, with the aid of good wines. A still more peculiar feature of these gatherings was the presence at table of the vicar’s niece throughout the entire proceedings; the two holding firmly to the principle that whatever is fit to be said at all on any subject is fit to be said before women. ‘This soon came to be understood by those who attended the meetings, and they chatted away just as if no female were present, the only slip of the tongue that had to be carefully avoided being any sort of commonplace implying inequalities or differences between the sexes; if such a slip were ever made, the hosts, of course, took it good-humouredly, but the unlucky person who had made it at once felt that he had committed a solecism.

On the present occasion, however, after other topics of the day had been well thrashed out, Mr Smeeth, the oldest acquaintance of the family, saw an opening to take the bull by the horns.