"Well, sir," suggested Rufus, "in your place, I should have a notification circulated through the ship, announcing a lecture on the subject (weather permitting) in the course of the afternoon. That's the way we should do it at Coolspring."

Amelius listened without conviction. "It's certainly useless to make a secret of the matter now," he said; "but I don't see my way to making it more public still." He paused, and looked at Mr. Hethcote. "It so happens, sir," he resumed, "that this unfortunate affair is an example of some of the Rules of our Community, which I had not had time to speak of, when Mr. Dingwell here joined us. It will be a relief to me to contradict these abominable falsehoods to somebody; and I should like (if you don't mind) to hear what you think of my conduct, from your own point of view. It might prepare me," he added, smiling rather uneasily, "for what I may find in the English newspapers."

With these words of introduction he told his sad story--jocosely described in the newspaper heading as "Miss Mellicent and Goldenheart among the Socialists at Tadmor."

CHAPTER 3

"Nearly six months since," said Amelius, "we had notice by letter of the arrival of an unmarried English lady, who wished to become a member of our Community. You will understand my motive in keeping her family name a secret: even the newspaper has grace enough only to mention her by her Christian name. I don't want to cheat you out of your interest; so I will own at once that Miss Mellicent was not beautiful, and not young. When she came to us, she was thirty-eight years old, and time and trial had set their marks on her face plainly enough for anybody to see. Notwithstanding this, we all thought her an interesting woman. It might have been the sweetness of her voice; or perhaps it was something in her expression that took our fancy. There! I can't explain it; I can only say there were young women and pretty women at Tadmor who failed to win us as Miss Mellicent did. Contradictory enough, isn't it?"

Mr. Hethcote said he understood the contradiction. Rufus put an appropriate question: "Do you possess a photograph of this lady, sir?"