"Why couldn't you do it quietly?" "I should always in such places do it quietly; not aloud." "But I mean--without letting anybody know it?" "Why should not people know it?" "Excuse me, Mr. Murray; but I always think it is making a show--making a pretence." "If it is a pretence, the worse for me, whether at home or abroad. But a _show_ I want it to be, Miss Flora; a show that I am a child of God, and love to own my Father's hand everywhere." "You are very good to let me talk just what I think, without being offended," said Flora. "You will not think me rude, Mr. Murray? I really want to know your opinions. Don't you think that in such things there is a tacit implied reproof of the other persons present who do not as you do?" "How can I help that?" "But is that polite?" "That question sinks before the other--Is it duty?" "I cannot see it to be duty," said Flora. "I have always been a little confused about it," said Meredith; "in such cases and places, I mean." "It makes one very disagreeably singular," Flora added. "It is impossible to follow Christ fully, Miss Flora, and not be that more or less." "_Disagreeably_ singular, Mr. Murray?" "I agree with you, I am sure, in thinking that it is disagreeable to be singular." "But must one? I always thought it was such bad taste." "You perceive it is not a question of taste." "Why then of necessity?" "Because whoever follows the Lord fully will live in a way the very opposite of that which is followed by the world. He will be marked out from it--even as the Lord was Himself." "Still, one is not to make one's self unnecessarily odd," said Meredith; "and I have until now been in doubt whether people did not do it in this very matter of asking a blessing at tables where nobody else followed the practice." "I am sure it is not unnecessary," said Mr. Murray. "I am sure that thought is a temptation of the enemy. I am sure that the simple fact of having, though in so small a matter, shown one's colours and confessed Christ, is a help all through the day to go on confessing Him, as occasion may serve."