usly; "only I can
not let you be taken in by a stuck-up fool without trying to open your
eyes; I shouldn't be your friend if I could." And he actually believed
that this was the case. He forgot that it is not the trick of
friendship, but of love, to make "a corner" in affection, and to
monopolize the whole stock of the commodity.

"You see," Elisabeth explained, "I am so frightfully modern, and yet I
have been brought up in such a dreadfully old-fashioned way. It was all
very well for the last generation to accept revealed truth without
understanding it, but it won't do for us."

"Why not?"

"Oh! because we are young and modern."

"So were they at one time, and we shall not be so for long."

Elisabeth sighed again. "How difficult you are! Of course, the sort of
religion that did for Cousin Maria and Mr. Smallwood won't do for Mr.
Tremaine and me. Can't you see that?"

"I can not, I am sorry to say."

"Their religion had no connection with their intellects."

"Still, it changed their hearts, which I have heard is no unimportant
operation."

"They accepted what they were told without trying to understand it,"
Elisabeth continued, "which is not, after all, a high form of faith."

"Indeed. I should have imagined that it was the highest."

"But can't you see that to accept blindly what you are told is not half
so great as to sift it all, and to separate the chaff from the wheat,
and to find the kernel of truth in the shell of tradition?" Elisabeth
had not talked to Alan Tremaine for over a year without learning his
tricks of thought and even of expression. "Don't you think that it is
better to believe a little with the whole intellect than a great deal
apart from it?"

Christopher looked obstinate. "I can't and don't."

"Have you no respect for 'honest doubt'?"

"Honest bosh!"

Elisabeth's face flushed. "You really are too rude for anything."

Christopher was penitent at once; he could not bear really to vex her.
"I am sorry if I was rude; but it riles me to hear you quoting
Tremaine's platitudes by the yard--such rotten platitudes as they are,
too!"

"You don't do Mr. Tremaine justice, Chris. Even though he may have
outgrown the old faiths, he is a very good man; and he has such lovely
thoughts about truth and beauty and love and things like that."

"His thoughts are nothing but empty windbags; for he is the type of man
who is too ignorant to accept truth, too blind to appreciate beauty, and
too self