“Her pernicious principles! Was poor Aunt Bridget an unbeliever?” cried Agnes, with an involuntary interest, and yet an equally involuntary and natural spirit of opposition to this stately young man. “The word is a wide one. No--not an unbeliever, nor even a disbeliever, so far as I am aware,” said the churchman, “but, even more dangerous than a positive error of doctrine, holding these fatal delusions concerning private opinion, which have been the bane of the Church.” There was a little pause after this, the unaccustomed audience being somewhat startled, yet quite unprepared for controversy, and standing beside in a little natural awe of the Rector, who ought to know so much better than they did. Agnes alone felt a stirring of unusual pugnacity--for once in her life she almost forgot her natural diffidence, and would have liked nothing better than to throw down her woman’s glove to the rampant churchman, and make a rash and vehement onslaught upon him, after the use and wont of feminine controversy. “My own conviction is,” said the Rector with a little solemnity, yet with a dissatisfied and fiery gleam in his eager dark eyes, “that there is no medium between the infallible authority of the Church and the wildest turmoil of heresy. This one rock a man may plant his foot upon--all beyond is a boundless and infinite chaos. Therefore I count it less perilous to be ill-informed or indifferent concerning some portions of the creed, than to be shaken in the vital point of the Church’s authority--the only flood-gate that can be closed against the boiling tide of error, which, but for this safeguard, would overpower us all.” Having made this statement, which somehow he enunciated as if it were a solemn duty, Mr Rivers left the subject abruptly, and returned to common things. “You are acquainted, I understand,” he said, with haste and a little emotion, “with my unfortunate young relatives at the Hall?” The question was so abrupt and unlooked for, that all the three, even Mamma, who was not very much given to blushing, coloured violently. “Louis and Rachel? Yes; we know them very well,” said Mrs Atheling, with as much composure as she could summon to meet the emergency--which certainly was not enough to prevent the young clergyman from discovering a rather unusual degree of interest in the good mother’s answer. He looked surprised, and turned a hurried glance upon the girls, who were equally confused under his scrutiny. It was impossible to say which was the culprit, if culprit there was. Mr Rivers, who was tall enough at first, visibly grew a little taller, and became still more stately in his demeanour than before.