"You know," continued the girl, very seriously, "how anxious mamma is because papa won’t go to church, and because of his studies and the strange things he says at times; and sometimes she gets very sad about it. It is the only thing she is ever sad about; and when I tell her that there can’t be much wrong in what so good a man believes, she only gets the sadder, and sometimes cries a little bit. Well, this Sunday morning she and I were talking about it all the way to church, and she was very much disturbed. I don’t think she had ever paid any attention to the Athanasian creed before; but on that morning, Mr. Oldham read it, and I saw her look strangely at him and at the book. Then all at once her face got quite white, she shut the book, and without a word to me walked out of the church and went straight home." "And I suppose my father laughed a little, and tried to make her believe that he had already constructed some theoretical fire-escape from the dangers with which he was threatened?" "Mr. Oldham came over next day to call upon mamma, and he was talking very seriously to her, and making her very miserable—indeed, she was crying nearly all the time—when papa came into the room." "Oh—was it by the door that Mr. Oldham left?" "What do you mean? Papa stood there, with that curious smile he has on his face when he puzzles and perplexes people, you know; and in a few minutes Mr. Oldham was in a terrible rage. I remember distinctly one thing papa said. ’Mr. Oldham,’ he said, with a sort of twinkle in his eye, ’I am not surprised that you have the Athanasian creed in your service; for clergymen, like other men, must be allowed the use of bad language occasionally. But you should indulge yourself privately, and not frighten women when they go to pray in your church.’" "How very wicked of him! But then, Dove, Mr. Oldham belongs to the next parish; and he had no business to go poaching on Mr. Bexley’s manor." "And so very anxious she is about you also, Will. She is sometimes very sad about papa; but she can’t help seeing what a good man he is. She says to me that you are young, and that if you grow up to believe what he believes, you may not be quite the same—you know, dear, that is only a feeling she has." "Who wouldn’t be orthodox to please such a mother?" said Will. "And I, too," said the girl, with a touch of colour in her cheek, and in rather a lower voice, "I should be grieved to think that—that—that you did not care about going to church, and that you did not believe as we do." "What should have made you think about all these things?" asked Anerley, with some astonishment.