'By going to those who have parted asunder from us?'

'I never said I was going over—only to hold out a hand of fellowship—to hear and learn.'

'I'm afraid your hand of fellowship is hardly strong enough to unite the two bodies, Angela. Don't you think it might end in your being led captive, like certain silly women we have heard of—ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth. That is what I want to save my sister from.'

'Then it is Wilmet's old "what it may lead to!"'

'Exactly, her old wisdom. See, Angela, I cannot tell how long I may have any authority; at any rate you will be of age in a few weeks, and then I do not know what you may do, for there is something very dangerous in your passion for excitement. I have thought a great deal about you, my poor Angel, for yours is the disposition that has always made me the most anxious of all, especially since the shock that has cast you loose from your old bearings; but all I can do, while I am still responsible for you, is to restrain you as far as possible, both because I think going among schismatics wrong in itself, and because I hope the delay may give you time to be steadied, and to perceive that the Divine appointments of the Church are not darkenings, but lamps of faith.'

'I think you are in earnest, Felix,' said Angela. 'Miss Isa says you and Lance are true Christians in spite of it all! Tell me honestly now. Your objection is not because it is unladylike, not fit for Squire Underwood's sister.'

He laughed, 'Really that never occurred to me.'

'Then I don't mind. I say, did Miss Isa put you up to this? Yes? I can't understand. It was she who first opened my eyes to the light, and taught me what true Christianity is, showing me the hollowness of all I had lived in, and bringing me from darkness to light. It was she who gave me Captain Gudgeon's books. They are beautiful. Will you look at them?'

'Very well.'

'She does not think, like you, of what you call schism, only of its not being proper for ladies. She says we can read at home, as if that were like living words, and that we ought not to mix with "that kind of people," as she calls them. I can't understand such worldly nonsense in a person like her.'