"By roasting their bodies at the stake," added Mr. Crowe.
Mildred said, in her quiet, arch manner,--
"We may roast people alive in the coming age of science for much less important reasons, if physiologists have their way!"
This was a particularly nasty cut, as it was well known Mr. Crowe had often lamented to his class that criminals under sentence of death could not be used for scientific purposes.
"We should not burn people alive, I hope," said he.
"I am not so sure of that. I have read somewhere of one of your profession boasting that he took particular delight in inflicting 'atrocious pain' on dogs."
Aunt Janet interposed, as the discussion was getting rather acrid, and philosophically attempted an apology for the persecutions of the dark ages.
Having paid a visit to the Cartuja Convent, they returned to the hotel for luncheon, and afterwards wandered about the delicious gardens of the Generalife till it was time for dinner. As the night was moonlight, they obtained permission to enter the Alhambra again, and saw it with all the glamour and witchery of the midnight hour.
The circumstance of circumstance is timing and placing. When a man meets his accurate mate, society begins, and life is delicious.
Be not amazed at life; 'tis still The mode of God with His elect Their hopes exactly to fulfil In times and ways they least expect. _Coventry Patmore._
The romance of the novelist and the startling incident of melodrama are colourless and insignificant in comparison with the events of real life. Every day things happen around us which would appear far-fetched and absurd if transferred to the pages of a novel. We go to our peaceful slumbers at night little reckoning of the letter lying at the post-office close by which at breakfast-time will have destroyed the work of our lives, and given us a heart wound no time can heal. We sit down to dinner in weariness with the common-place monotony of our existence which the telegraph boy, already on his way to us, will startle into most unseemly agitation. We wander along Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, wondering why the stream of life in the world's chief artery so little affects our pulses, and we meet the man who with a word changes the current of our existence in an instant.