"Mine," said Tora, with the nearest approach to an expression of discontent that Winnie had ever seen on her face.
Winnie stepped into the breach. "Oh, you look rather tired, and we've a busy day before us! Let me take Alice." So it was agreed, and Alice ran off to get ready.
"Do you always leave the question to her?"
"What else could we do? We say nothing against it, but how could we force her?"
"She's forced at school, I suppose?"
"I don't think any doubts suggest themselves. It's just part of the discipline. As a fact, I think the child's naturally religious. If so——" He waved his hands tolerantly.
Winnie laughed. "If so, she'll soon be rather shocked at her parents."
"It's quite arguable, Winnie, that it's a good thing for children to see their parents doing some things which they would naturally think—or at any rate be taught to think—wrong. They know by experience that the parents are on the whole a decent sort—kind and so on—and they learn not to condemn other people wholesale on the strength of one or two doubtful or eccentric practices. Do you see what I mean? It promotes breadth of view."
"I dare say it's arguable—most things are here—but I won't argue it, or we shall be late for church."
When Godfrey Ledstone attended church with his family on the same day, he went without any questioning, not conscious of any peculiarity in his attitude towards the Church, though well aware of what the Church's attitude would be towards him, if its notice happened to be called to the facts. What of that? One compromised with the Church just as one compromised with the world; the code had provisions as applicable to the one negotiation as to the other. He did not go to church regularly, but, when he did, he took part in the service with an untroubled gratification, if not with any particular spiritual benefit. On this occasion he achieved what was, considering the worries which oppressed him, a very creditable degree of attention.