‘I will go with pleasure,’ he answered. Be it observed that in Wellfield’s nature there was not, and never had been, one grain of scepticism in matters religious. It is true he was utterly indifferent so far as practice was concerned, and that, according to the company he happened to be in, he would, for weeks or months at a time, either go diligently to some place of worship once, or even twice each Sunday, or never enter one at all, or even think of the matter. Where he went was also almost entirely a matter of indifference, except that he never frequented conventicles, not at all because he disapproved of the tenets held by their supporters, of which he knew nothing, or less than nothing, but because the services held in them were so bald and tame, so ugly and ascetic; they appealed in no way to his æsthetic sense, but rather repelled it. Anywhere where he could have a fine service, hear fine voices read or intoned, and where there was good music in which he could join, was acceptable to him, and all his life he had wandered indifferently whither friends or fancy led him, to services and churches of all kinds, but perhaps more to Roman Catholic ones than to any others. As a small child he had always attended mass with his mother, had learnt to say his _Ave Maria_ and his _Pater Noster_; and these remembrances remained with him; part of the influences of Italy. He remembered them as he remembered his mother’s dark eyes, and gem-like brilliance of beauty—like a delicious dream of another world. All this, however, did not prevent his putting on his hat and walking with Nita and her father down the river walk, across the field to the church. They sat in the stalls, one row of which ‘went’ with the Abbey property. How well he remembered it all. If the service were not of the most elaborate or beautiful, there were other objects in Wellfield Church which made up for a somewhat bald ritual. There was for instance, much charm for an æsthetic soul in the magnificent carved work of the splendid old black-oak stalls in which they sat, and in the many other odd old pews and strange devices dotted up and down. The singing was of a nature to make the blood freeze in the veins of him who had any pretence to being a musician. The choir consisted of a number of young men and women accommodated with seats in the west gallery, a conspicuous position, close to the organ; and to do justice to their exalted places, no doubt, they were in the habit of attiring themselves in the very height of the Wellfield fashion, which fashion, for brilliance of hue and boldness of contrast, would have put to shame Solomon in all his glory. Jerome found himself seated next to Miss Margaret Shuttleworth, who looked uncompromising. In the dim distance he saw John Leyburn, alone in a great square carved oak pew, the pew that belonged to his house, Abbot’s Knoll, for free and open benches were as yet unheard of in Wellfield.