"I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life—never! except by my dear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don't count, when it comes to kissing.
"Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good time together, we three!...
"But your mistress is a parson's daughter, and believes everything she's been taught from a child, just as you do—at least, I hope so. And I like her for it—and you too.
"She has believed her father—will she ever believe me, who think so differently? And if she does, will it be good for her?—and then, where will her father come in?
"Oh! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in your father, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has been a good father—till some one else comes and teaches you better—or worse!
"And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of all that early teaching—and how are you to sift the wheat from the chaff?...
"Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth or above it!
"Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her pretty head bowed over her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy folds about her: I see it all!
"And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman—great heart and slender brain—forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free ... that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love ... ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fulness of that pure love.