The arrivals of the post were always interesting to them, for during the weeks after marriage letters are apt to be more numerous than usual, and to contain delicate and enchanting surprises. Both of them were always strictly ceremonious in the handling of each other's letters, and yet both deprecated this ceremoniousness in the beloved. Louis urged Rachel to open his letters without scruple, and Rachel did the same to Louis. But both--Louis by chivalry and Rachel by pride--were prevented from acting on the invitation. The envelope in Louis' hand did not contain a letter, but only a circular. The fact that the flap of the envelope was unsealed and the stamp a mere halfpenny ought rightly to have deprived the packet of all significance as a subject of curiosity. Nevertheless, the different, inimical Rachel, probably out of sheer perversity, went up to Louis and looked over his shoulder as he read the communication, which was a printed circular, somewhat yellowed, with blanks neatly filled in, and the whole neatly signed by a churchwarden, informing Louis that his application for sittings at St. Luke's Church (commonly called the Old Church) had been granted. It is to be noted that, though applications for sittings in the Old Church were not overwhelmingly frequent, and might indeed very easily have been coped with by means of autograph replies, the authorities had a sufficient sense of dignity always to circularize the applicants. This document, harmless enough, and surely a proof of laudable aspirations in Louis, gravely displeased the different, inimical Rachel, and was used by her for bellicose purposes. "So that's it, is it?" she said ominously. "But wasn't it understood that we were to go to the Old Church?" said the other Louis, full of ingenious innocence. "Oh! Was it?" "Didn't I mention it?" "I don't remember." "I'm sure I did." The truth was that Louis had once casually remarked that he supposed they would attend the Old Church. Rachel would have joyously attended any church or any chapel with him. At Knype she had irregularly attended the Bethesda Chapel--sometimes (in the evenings) with her father, oftener alone, never with her brother. During her brief employment with Mrs. Maldon she had been only once to a place of worship, the new chapel in Moorthorne Road, which was the nearest to Bycars and had therefore been favoured by Mrs. Maldon when her limbs were stiff. In the abstract she approved of religious rites. Theologically her ignorance was such that she could not have distinguished between the tenets of church and the tenets of chapel, and this ignorance she shared with the large majority of the serious inhabitants of the Five Towns. Why, then, should she have "pulled a face" (as the saying down there is) at the Old Parish Church?