Paul did not quite understand this latter bit of smart profanity at the time; but he learnt eventually to estimate it at its true value, and understand how much of the practical unbelief of the day arises from the want of downright earnestness on the part of many professed religious teachers. Mr. Williamson often talked about questions of this character with Paul in after days at his quiet chambers in the Temple, and Paul found at the bottom of Williamson’s philanthropy a fine vein of religious feeling. And yet Mr. Williamson was a disappointed man. The world had not gone well with him, he used to say. He commenced life with grand theories and sentiments, and with convictions too strong, and a heart too susceptible of honour and truth and honesty, to let him register vows which he did not feel that he could perform to the letter. Otherwise he might have been a shining light perchance in the Church: at all events he would have been true to her, not like that miserable fellow who talked about Hebrew mythology, and chuckled over his own infamy. Mr. Williamson had avoided this religious writer ever afterwards; not, as he said, for being an unbeliever, not because he was an atheist, but because he belonged to the holiest and best of all professions and made a boast of his perjury and unfaithfulness. Mr. Williamson gave the greatest latitude to free-thinking, and never interfered in religious controversies, and he instilled into Paul’s mind opinions of liberality and toleration. It was strange that Williamson should have taken such a fancy to Paul Somerton; but he was an eccentric, amiable, kindly fellow, and his ways and mode of life, his likes and dislikes, his selection of companions, and his general motives of action were not influenced by common impulses: he had habits of thought and ways of his own, and he took it into his head that he would help this young fellow whom Fortune had thrown in his way. CHAPTER XXIV. CHRISTABEL TAKES DIBBLE INTO HER CONFIDENCE. Though Thomas Dibble never, during all his connection with “The Temple of Magic,” had seen a performance from beginning to end, he had seen enough to surprise and delight him, and whenever an opportunity offered, he communicated to Christabel the feelings of wonder with which he regarded her. “You be certainly the cleverest lady as ever I see,” said Thomas, one night after business, as the pair sat alone over supper, in a corner of the general room of the lodging-house where the magician’s company were quartered. The renowned Digby had gone out to a lamb’s fry supper given in honour of the birth-day of the Yorkshire giant, whose acquaintance he had recently made. “Do you think so?” said the amiable young lady, looking all kinds of sweet things at Dibble. “Ah, I might have been, if poor old Carkey had lived.”