‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘if there has been no progress before, there will be little indeed after.’
Now of all things, I hated the dogmatic theology of the party in which she had been brought up, and I turned from her with silent dislike.
‘Really,’ said Clara, ‘you gentlemen have been very entertaining this morning. One would think Polly and I had come out for a stroll with a couple of undertaker’s-men. There’s surely time enough to think of such things yet! None of us are at death’s door exactly.’
‘“Sweet remembrancer!”—Who knows?’ said Charley.
‘“Now I, to comfort him,”’ I followed, quoting Mrs Quickly concerning Sir John Falstaff, ‘“bid him, ‘a should not think of God: I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.”’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mary—‘there was no word of Him in the matter.’
‘I see,’ said Clara: ‘you meant that at me, Wilfrid. But I assure you I am no heathen. I go to church regularly—once a Sunday when I can, and twice when I can’t help it. That’s more than you do, Mr Cumbermede, I suspect.’
‘What makes you think so?’ I asked.
‘I can’t imagine you enjoying anything but the burial service.’
‘It is to my mind the most consoling of them all,’ I answered.