Enid," said Garthorne almost angrily, as they
walked away together, "you are not doing this because Maxwell said it
was wrong to use carriages on a Sunday! Good heavens, if we were to
translate sermons into everyday life it would be rather a funny world to
live in."

"Then what is the use of going to hear them, if they are not to be taken
seriously?" she said, looking up quickly at him. "Why should they be
preached, or why should we go to church at all?"

"Because it is the proper thing to do, I suppose, and because Society,
whose slaves we are, makes it one of the social functions of the week,"
replied Garthorne, who had as much real religion in his composition as
a South African Bushman. "We men go because you women do, and you women
go to show others how nicely you can dress, and to see what they have
got on."

"My dear Reginald, that is about as true as it is original, and that is
not saying very much for it. If we don't go to church for any other
reasons than those it is merely mockery and wickedness to go at all. I
was very glad to see that a great many people did send their carriages
away. Next Sunday I hope they will have the decency to walk."

"Especially if the British climate, as it probably will, ends up the
season with a pouring wet Sunday!" laughed Garthorne. "No, dear, those
godly precepts are all very well when you read them in Sunday School
books or hear them from the pulpit, and I am sure Vane put them most
admirably to-day, although I confess I was slightly surprised to hear a
really clever fellow like him preaching such hopelessly impossible
nonsense. Of course I don't mean any offence to him--far from it, but
really, you know, if theories like those could be put into practice they
would simply turn the world upside down."

"I think you might have found a better word than nonsense," she replied
a trifle sharply; "but the world of to-day certainly would have to be
turned upside down or inside out to make it anything like Christian.
That, at least, Vane--I mean Mr. Maxwell--taught us this morning."

"Christian according to the Reverend Vane Maxwell," he said, with the
suspicion of a sneer. "Fortunately the Churches have agreed that such a
violent operation is not necessary. By the way, though, won't Maxwell
get himself into a howling row with the ecclesiastical powers that be!
Just imagine the bench of Bishops standing anything like that!"

"Yes," she said quietly, "the preaching of the Sermon o