“What kind of thing?”
“Talking piously, giving away texts, and so on; just the way to make the women think we intended to impose religious instruction and give a sectarian character, defeating our own object.”
“Was there any flaw in what she said?”
“I can’t tell what she said. It was just a little murmur over the work.”
“Not preaching?”
“Not in that sense,” said Cecil, with a little compunction.
“I am glad to hear it; it makes a great difference.”
“You see,” said the lady, “our institution is merely intended to support these women in the time of want; and if we were to couple our assistance with religion we should just sink into a mothers’ meeting, and make the women think—”
“Think that you prize the soul more than the body,” said Julius, as she halted in search of a word. “I understand, Cecil; you would not be in the prevailing fashion. I don’t want to argue that point, only to understand about Anne.”
So saying, he went at once to Anne’s abode, the old schoolroom, which, like everything else belonging to Mrs. Miles Charnock, had a sad-coloured aspect, although it had been fitted up very prettily. The light was sombre, and all the brighter pictures and ornaments seemed to have been effaced by a whole gallery of amateur photographs, in which the glories of the African bush were represented by brown masses of shade variegated by blotches of white. Even in Miles’s own portrait on the table, the gold seemed overwhelmed by the dark blue; and even as Julius entered, she shut it up in its brown case, as too sacred for even his brother’s eyes.