Gradually from underneath what Philip called "a mass of affectation," but what Sylvia divined as an armor assumed against the unsympathetic majority by a shy, sensitive, and lovable spirit, there emerged for her the reality of Mr. Dorward. She began to comprehend his faith, which was as simple as a little child's; she began to realize also that he was impelled to guard what he held to be most holy against the jeers of unbelievers by diverting toward his own eccentricity the world's mockery. He was a man of the deepest humility who considered himself incapable of proselytizing. Sylvia used to put before him sometimes the point of view of the outside world and try to show how he could avoid criticism and gain adherents. He used always to reply that if God had intended him to be a missionary he would not have been placed in this lowly parish, that here he was unable to do much harm, and that any who found faith in his church must find it through the grace of God, since it was impossible to suppose they would ever find it through his own ministrations. He insisted that people who stayed away from church because he read the service badly or burned too many candles or wore vestments were only ostentatious worshipers who looked upon the church as wax-works must regard Madame Tussaud's. He explained that he had been driven to discourage the work of Miss Horne and Miss Hobart because he had detected in himself a tendency toward spiritual pride in the growth of a congregation that did not belong either to him or to God; if he had tolerated Miss Horne's methods for a time it was because he feared to oppose the Divine intention. However, as soon as he found that he was thinking complacently of a congregation of twenty-four, nearly every one of which was a pensioner of Miss Horne, he realized that they were instruments of the devil, particularly when at lunch they began to suggest.... "What?" Sylvia asked, when he paused. "The only thing to do was to finish my lunch under the table," he snapped; nor would he be persuaded to discuss the quarrel further. Sylvia, who felt that the poor ladies had, after all, been treated in rather a cavalier fashion and was reproaching herself for having deserted them, went down to Oaktown shortly after this to call at Sunny Bank. They received her with freezing coldness, particularly Miss Hobart, whose eyes under lowering eyelids were sullen with hate. She said much less than Miss Horne, who walked in and out of the shivery furniture, fanning herself in her agitation and declaiming against Mr. Dorward at the top of her voice. "And your little friends?" Miss Hobart put in with a smile that was not a smile. "We thought them just a little badly brought up." "You liked them very much at first," Sylvia said. "Yes, one often likes people at first." And as Sylvia looked at her she realized that Miss Hobart was not nearly so old as she had thought her, perhaps not yet fifty. Still, at fifty one had no right to be jealous.