The separation of the welfare of body and soul had never occurred to the beneficence of Dunstone, and it cost Cecil a qualm to accept it; but she could not be a goody in the eyes of Sirenwood; and besides, she was reading some contemporary literature, which made it plain that any religious instruction was a most unjustifiable interference with the great law, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and so, when she met Anne with a handful of texts neatly written out in printing letters, she administered her warning. Cecil and Anne had become allies to a certain extent, chiefly through their joint disapproval of Rosamond, not to say of Julius; and the order was so amazing that Anne did not at first take it in; and when she understood that all mention of religion was forbidden, she said, "I do not think I ought to yield in this." "Surely," said Cecil, "there is no connection between piety and cutting out." "I don't know," said Anne; "but it does not seem to me to be right to go on with a work where my Master's Name is forbidden." "Religion ought never to be obtruded," said Cecil. "The Word ought to flavour everything, in season or out of season," said Anne, thoughtfully. "Oh! that's impossible. It's your narrow view. If you thrust preaching into everything, we can never work together." "Oh, then," said Anne, quickly, "I must give it up!" And she turned away with a rapid step, to carry her texts back to her room. "Anne!" called Cecil, "I did not mean _that_!" Anne paused for a moment, looked over the baluster, and repeated firmly, "No, Cecil; it would be denying Christ to work where His Name is forbidden." Perhaps there was something in the elevation and the carved rail that gave the idea of a pulpit, for Cecil felt as if she was being preached at, and turned her back, indignant and vexed at what she had by no means intended to incur--the loss of such a useful assistant as she found in Anne. "Such nonsense!" she said to herself, as she crossed the hall alone, there meeting with Rosamond, equipped for the village. "Is not Anne going to-day?" she said, as she saw the pony-carriage at the door. "No. It is so vexatious. She is so determined upon preaching to the women, that I have been obliged to put a stop to it." "Indeed! I should not have thought it of poor Anne; but no one can tell what those semi-dissenters think right." "When she declared she ought to do it in season or out of season, what was one to do?" said Cecil. "I thought that was for clergymen," said Rosamond, hitting the right nail on the head in her ignorance, as so often happened.