"But, you see, it must be difficult, Ferlie, to legislate for so many tastes and, despite certain things of which you may disapprove, the Misses Mayne seem kind to you all."
"I think I could do with less kindness and more common sense," she persisted, "and far less prayer!"
He looked at the eager profile, bordered by a riot of autumn-tinted curls, and wondered, a little anxiously, whether Ferlie was growing up a sceptic like her father. And himself. And most of his friends.
He would rather she took both Testaments at a gulp like a pill, in the unquestioning faith that they would purge her as with hyssop according to promise.
He recognized his attitude to be decidedly illogical. Perhaps the simplicity of Mrs. Carmichael was not quite such a matter for humorous reflection, after all. Supposing the Woman-of-the-Future, no longer sheltered from the rough and tumble of things, began universally to don the materialistic armour suited to her defence, and ceased to set her marching song to the awe-inspiring chant:
"We love Thine altar, Lord;
Oh, what on earth so dear?
For there in faith adored,
We find Thy presence near!"
The singers might possess the undeveloped minds of little children. They might. Nevertheless...
"They are such good women, Ferlie."
"I don't consider them any better members of the world's community than you," Ferlie informed him carelessly, adding, "and they have, according to their ideas, much more to gain by being good."
Cyprian did not quite know what to answer. A less humble man might have suspected that he was fast becoming the child's ideal. He only knew that they cared a great deal for one another and that Life, for him, seemed less meaningless, though more unreal, when they were together.