“Here is the letter,” said Lady Muriel, returning. “Let me read you a piece of it.” “_When, as a child, I first opened my eyes on a Sunday-morning, a feeling of dismal anticipation, which began at least on the Friday, culminated. I knew what was before me, and my wish, if not my word, was ‘Would God it were evening!’ It was no day of rest, but a day of texts, of catechisms (Watts’), of tracts about converted swearers, godly char-women, and edifying deaths of sinners saved._ “_Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be learned by heart till 8 o’clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast, which I was never able to enjoy, partly from the fast already undergone, and partly from the outlook I dreaded._ “_At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me indignant to be put into the class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some mistake of mine, I should be put below them._ “_The Church-Service was a veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in it, pitching the tabernacle of my thoughts on the lining of the square family-pew, the fidgets of my small brothers, and the horror of knowing that, on the Monday, I should have to write out, from memory, jottings of the rambling disconnected extempore sermon, which might have had any text but its own, and to stand or fall by the result._ “_This was followed by a cold dinner at 1_ (_servants to have_ no _work_), _Sunday-School again from 2 to 4, and Evening-Service at 6. The intervals were perhaps the greatest trial of all, from the efforts I had to make, to be less than usually sinful, by reading books and sermons as barren as the Dead Sea. There was but one rosy spot, in the distance, all that day: that was ‘bed-time,’ which never could come too early!_” “Such teaching was well meant, no doubt,” said Arthur; “but it must have driven many of its victims into deserting the Church-Services altogether.” “I’m afraid _I_ was a deserter this morning,” she gravely said. “I had to write to Eric. Would you—would you mind my telling you something he said about _prayer_? It had never struck me in that light before.” “In what light?” said Arthur. “Why, that all Nature goes by fixed, regular laws—Science has proved _that_. So that asking God to _do_ anything (except of course praying for _spiritual_ blessings) is to expect a miracle: and we’ve no right to do _that_. I’ve not put it as well as _he_ did: but that was the outcome of it, and it has confused me. Please tell me what you can say in answer to it.” “I don’t propose to discuss _Captain Lindon’s_ difficulties,” Arthur gravely replied; “specially as he is not present. But, if it is _your_ difficulty,” (his voice unconsciously took a tenderer tone) “then I will speak.” “It _is_ my difficulty,” she said anxiously. “Then I will begin by asking ‘Why did you except _spiritual_ blessings?’ Is not your mind a part of Nature?”