_Joan and Mary whom I’ve always thought of as just wrapped up in the good works of their dear good selves, really rose in their wrath and scorched me with the fieriest opposition. I could not have believed they had in them to say as much in all their lives as they said to me when I announced my intention. Nor had I any idea they knew so many English clergymen. I believe that to gratify them I have interviewed half the Anglican ministry. Even a Bishop was invoked to demonstrate my apostacy. Nancy, too, wrote furious letters. She was not outraged so much theologically, but her sense of social fitness was shattered._
_My darling old mother was the only person who took my resolve calmly. “As long as you don’t try to convert me,” she said, “and don’t leave incense burning about the house, well—you’re old enough to know your own mind.” She was so amusing while Joan and Mary were marshaling arguments against me. She used to sit playing “Miss Milligan” with a cynical smile, and said, when it was all over and in spite of everyone I had been received, that she had really enjoyed Patience for the first time, as Joan and Mary were too busy to prevent her from cheating._
_How are you and dear old Alan getting on? Of course you can read him this letter. I’ve not written to him because I fancy he won’t be very much interested. Forgive me that I did not take you into my confidence beforehand, but I feared a controversy with a real historian about the continuity of the Anglican church._
“Great scott!” Michael exclaimed, as he finished the letter. “Alan! could you ever in your wildest dreams have imagined that Mrs. Ross, the most inveterate Whig and Roundhead and Orange bigot, at least whenever she used to argue with me, would have gone over?”
“What do you mean?” Alan asked, sinking slowly to earth from his Platonic _ovpavos_. “Gone over where?”
“Who?” gasped Alan, staggered now more than Michael. “Mrs. Ross—Aunt Maud?”
“It’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard,” said Michael. “She—and Kenneth,” he added rather maliciously, seeing that Alan’s Britannic prejudice was violently aroused. “I’ll read you her letter.”
Plato was shut up for the evening before Michael was halfway through, and almost before the last sentence had been read, Alan’s wrath exploded.