“Every one looks so silly and so sleepy,” she went on. “Mr. MacNab is so ugly. Besides, he is an unkind man: he whips his children all the time; not whippings when they deserve it--like mine,”--Gavan looked at her, startled by this impersonally just remark,--“he whips them because he is cross himself. Why should he tell us about being good if he is as ill-tempered as possible? And he has a horrid voice,--not like the village people, who talk in a dear, funny way,--he has a horrid, pretend voice. And you stand up and sit down and have nothing to do for ages and ages. I don’t see how anybody _can_ like church.” Gavan kicked vaguely at the lichen spots. “Do you really _like_ it?” “Yes,” he answered, with his shy abruptness. “But why? It’s different, I know, for old people--I don’t suppose that they mind things any longer; but I don’t see how a boy, a young boy”--and Eppie allowed herself a reproachful emphasis--“can possibly like it.” “I’m used to it, you see, and I don’t think of it in your way at all.” Gavan could not speak to this funny child of its sacred associations. In church he had always felt that he and his mother had escaped to a place of reality and peace. He entered, through his love for her, into the love of the sense of sanctuary from an ominous and hostile world. And he was a boy with a deep, sad sense of God. “But you don’t _like_ it,” said the insistent Eppie. “I more than like it.” She eyed him gravely. “I suppose it is because you are so grown up. Yet you are only four years older than I am. I wonder if I will ever get to like it. I hope not.” “Well, it will be more comfortable for you if you do,--since you have to go,” said Gavan, with his faint, wintry smile. She felt the kindness of his austere banter, and retorting, “I’d rather not be comfortable, then,” joined him in the sunlight on the broad, stone step, going on with quite a sense of companionship: “Only one thing I don’t so much mind--and that is the hymns. I am so glad when they come that I almost shout them. Sometimes--I’m telling you as quite a secret, you know--I shout as loud as I possibly can on purpose to disturb Aunt Rachel. I know it’s wrong, so don’t bother to tell me so; besides, it’s partly because I really like to shout. But I always do hope that some day they may leave me at home rather than have me making such a noise. People often turn round to look.” Gavan laughed. “You think that wicked no doubt?” “No, I think it funny, and quite useless, I’m sure.” After all, Gavan wasn’t a muff, as a boy fond of church might have been suspected of being. Yet after the walk through the birch-woods and over a corner of moor to the bare little common where the church stood, and when they were all installed in the hard, familiar pew, a new and still more alienating impression came to her--alienating yet fascinating. A sense of awe crept over her and she watched Gavan in an absorbed, a dreamy wonder.