a physical type, fortified in the males by
much companionship with horse and hound, and by the corresponding country
pursuits of dowered daughters. At the time of her marriage she had no charms of
person more remarkable than rosy comeliness and the symmetry of supple limb. As
for the nurture of her mind, it had been intrusted to home-governesses of
respectable incapacity. Martin Warricombe married her because she was one of a
little circle of girls, much alike as to birth and fortune, with whom he had
grown up in familiar communication. Timidity imposed restraints upon him which
made his choice almost a matter of accident. As befalls often enough, the
betrothal became an accomplished fact whilst he was still doubting whether he
desired it or not. When the fervour of early wedlock was outlived, he had no
difficulty in accepting as a matter of course that his life's companion should
be hopelessly illogical and at heart indifferent to everything but the small
graces and substantial comforts of provincial existence. One of the advantages
of wealth is that it allows husband and wife to keep a great deal apart without
any show of mutual unkindness, a condition essential to happiness in marriage.
Time fostered in them a calm attachment, independent of spiritual sympathy,
satisfied with a common regard for domestic honour.
    Not that Mrs. Warricombe remained in complete ignorance of her husband's
pursuits; social forms would scarcely have allowed this, seeing that she was in
constant intercourse, as hostess or guest, with Martin's scientific friends. Of
fossils she necessarily knew something. Up to a certain point they amused her;
she could talk of ammonites, of brachiopods, and would point a friend's
attention to the Calceola sandalina which Martin prized so much. The
significance of palæontology she dimly apprehended, for in the early days of
their union her husband had felt it desirable to explain to her what was meant
by geologic time, and how he reconciled his views on that subject with the
demands of religious faith. Among the books which he induced her to read were
Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise and the works of Hugh Miller. The intellectual
result was chaotic, and Mrs. Warricombe settled at last into a comfortable
private opinion, that though the record of geology might be trustworthy that of
the Bible was more so. She would admit that there was no impiety in accepting
the evidence of nature, but held to a secret conviction that it was safer to
believe in Genesis. For anything beyond a quasi-permissible variance from
biblical authority as to the age of the world she was quite unprepared, and
Martin, in his discretion, imparted to