The Canon sighed heavily and went on reading
“Hilda taught me the two-step at rec. Another girl (also in my class and jolly nice) played them.”
The Canon looked up with a puzzled expression. I explained as well as I could.
“The two-step,” I said, “is a dance. What the jolly, nice girl played is a little obscure, but I think it must have been tunes suitable to the performance of the two-step. ‘Rec.’ is a shortened form of recreation. Lalage is fond of these contractions. She writes to me about her comp.”
The canon read: “On the other days, the old Pet takes us herself at Scrip: We were at Genesis, and she read out, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven, and the earth.’ ‘But of course you all know He didn’t. Modern science teaches us——’ Then she went on with a lot of rot about gases and forces and nebulous things.”
“The Archdeacon,” said the Canon, “is going to write to the Archbishop of Dublin about it. He says that kind of teaching ought not to be allowed.”
“We must head him off somehow,” I said, “if he really means it. But he hardly can. I don’t expect he’ll run into extremes. He certainly won’t without taking advice. The Archdeacon isn’t a man to do anything definite in a hurry. He’s told me over and over again that he deprecates precipitancy of action.”
“He feels very strongly about the Higher Criticism. Very strongly indeed. He says it’s poisoning the wells of religion in the home.”
“Last time he lunched with us he said it was sapping the foundations. Still I scarcely think he’ll want to institute a heresy prosecution against Miss Pettigrew.”
“I’m very much afraid—he seemed most determined——”