"Oh, it isn't the actual _religion_ I was thinking of," said Mrs. St. George, rather hurriedly, Larry's disadvantages having temporarily escaped her memory. "It was rather--well--"
"For boys it doesn't matter so much," broke in Mrs. Kirby, "but I really _did_ dislike seeing Christian on the platform with that party!"
"She was only playing accompaniments," said Miss Coppinger still resentful.
"That only made it worse! If she had sung a solo it would have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of front. "I was indignant! Christian, with her charming voice, only playing accompaniments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable Mangan girl posing as the Prima Donna, and oh! her clothes!"
"Or her want of them!" interposed Mrs. St. George, on a profound bass note.
"And her songs! I don't profess to know much about music, but I _do_ know what I like!" continued Mrs. Kirby with the finality and decision that usually accompany the admission. "People may tell me she has a fine voice, but I _detest_ enormous contralto voices! _What_ I suffered during the last thing she sang as an encore! And that final yell of 'Asthore'! at least an octave below her voice! I could only think of the bellow of the cow that jumped over the moon!"
"What made _me_ indignant," said Mrs. St. George, in emulous depreciation, ignoring this flight of fancy, "was their not having 'God save the King'! A cowardly concession to the Gaelic League, of course! I really think that Georgy, who is in the Navy, might have insisted upon it!"
"They did discuss it," said Frederica, forced by her friend into the position of devil's advocate, "but they were afraid of the sixpenny seats. The Mangans said that there would inevitably be rows. They have had to give up having it at anything now."
This was unanswerable, and Mrs. St. George tacitly accepted defeat.
"I believe that young Mangan is simply a _Rebel_" resumed Mrs. Kirby, portentously. "Bill thinks he'll go too far some day, and the police will _have_ to take notice of him. But with the Government yielding and pandering--"
Here, at least, was a subject on which all three disputants were in complete agreement. Wolfe Tone or Robert Emmet could hardly have abhorred the Government of England more heartily than did these three respectable, law-abiding, unalterably-Unionist ladies, and for some time the more recent enormities of the rule upon which they theoretically bestowed their unshakable, allegiance, took precedence of Miss Mangan as a subjct of disapproval.