tact. The discovery that Stephana Temple and Lucy Mitchell had been
born within two days of one another, was the first link of a warm
friendship between the two mammas; and Mr. Mitchell fell at once into
friendly intercourse with Ermine Williams, to whom Bessie herself
conducted him for his first visit, when they at once discovered all
manner of mutual acquaintance among his college friends; and his next
step was to make the very arrangement for Ermine's church-going, for
which she had long been wishing in secret, but which never having
occurred to poor Mr. Touchett, she had not dared to propose, lest
there should be some great inconvenience in the way.

Colonel Keith was the person, however, with whom the new comers
chiefly fraternized, and he was amused with their sense of the space
for breathing compared with the lanes and alleys of their own
district. The schools and cottages seemed to them so wonderfully
large, the children so clean, even their fishiness a form of poetical
purity, the people ridiculously well off, and even Mrs. Kelland's
lace-school a palace of the free maids that weave their thread with
bones. Mr. Mitchell seemed almost to grudge the elbow room, as he
talked of the number of cubic feet that held a dozen of his own
parishioners; and needful as the change had been for the health of
both husband and wife, they almost reproached themselves for having
fled and left so many pining for want of pure air, dwelling upon
impossible castles for the importation of favourite patients to enjoy
the balmy breezes of Avonmouth.

Rachel talked to them about the F. U. E. E., and was delighted by the
flush of eager interest on Mrs. Mitchell's thin face. "Objects"
swarmed in their parish, but where were the seven shillings per week
to come from? At any rate Mr. Mitchell would, the first leisure day,