He entered on the subject which was so familiar to him; and he seemed to challenge her to an argument in divinity.

She gently declined the conversation, and remarked, that such profound speculations were ill suited to the natural imbecility of her sex.

Women, she said, by their first creation, were made subject to men: the male was created after the image of God, the female after the image of the male: it belonged to the husband to choose principles for his wife; the wife's duty was, in all cases, to adopt implicitly the sentiments of her husband: and as to herself, it was doubly her duty, being blest with a husband who was qualified by his judgment and learning not only to choose principles for his own family, but for the most wise and knowing of every nation.

"Not so! by St.
Mary," replied the king; "you are now become a doctor, Kate, and better fitted to give than receive instruction." She meekly replied, that she was sensible how little she was entitled to these praises; that though she usually declined not any conversation, however sublime, when proposed by his majesty, she well knew that her conceptions could serve to no other purpose than to give him a little momentary amusement, that she found the conversation apt to languish when not revived by some opposition, and she had ventured sometimes to feign a contrariety of sentiments, in order to give him the pleasure of refuting her; and that she also purposed, by this innocent artifice, to engage him into topics, whence she had observed, by frequent experience, that she reaped profit and instruction.

"And is it so, sweetheart ?" replied the king, "then are we perfect friends again." He embraced her with great affection, and sent her away with assurances of his protection and kindness.