"You can usually count on my support, dearest father, feeble as it may be. But what is the disputed point to-day?"
"There is a proposition to alter the interior of the church, and our neighbour Gouge has brought the plans, on which, as he says, he has lately altered several churches in the county. The idea is, to remove the pews entirely, converting them into what are called 'slips,' to lower the pulpit, and to raise the floor, amphitheatre fashion."
"Can there be a sufficient reason for this change?" demanded Eve, with surprise. "Slips! The word has a vulgar sound even, and savours of a useless innovation. I doubt its orthodoxy."
"It is very popular, Miss Eve," answered Aristabulus, advancing from a window, where he had been whispering assent. "This fashion takes universally and is getting to prevail in all denominations."
Eve turned involuntarily, and to her surprise she perceived that the editor of the Active Inquirer was added to their party. The salutations, on the part of the young lady, were distant and stately, while Mr. Dodge, who had not been able to resist public opinion, and had actually parted with his moustachios, simpered, and wished to have it understood by the spectators, that he was on familiar terms with all the family.
"It may be popular, Mr. Bragg," returned Eve, as soon as she rose from her profound curtsey to Mr. Dodge; "but it can scarcely be said to be seemly. This is, indeed, changing the order of things, by elevating the sinner, and depressing the saint."
"You forget, Miss Eve, that under the old plan, the people could not see; they were kept unnaturally down, if one can so express it, while nobody had a good look-out but the parson and the singers in the front row of the gallery. This was unjust."
"I do not conceive, sir, that a good look-out, as you term it, is at all essential to devotion, or that one cannot as well listen to instruction when beneath the teacher, as when above him."
"Pardon me, Miss;" Eve recoiled, as she always did, when Mr. Bragg used this vulgar and contemptuous mode of address; "we put no body up or down; all we aim it is a just equality--to place all, as near as possible, on a level."
Eve gazed about her in wonder; and then she hesitated a moment, as if distrusting her ears.