of them."

"My uncle says that's just the difference between men and women. He
says women might achieve just as much as men if only they were curious
about things. But they're not. A man will ask a thousand questions,
and never rest till he's found out as much as he can about anything he
sees, and a woman is content hardly even to see it."

"I hope your uncle is a Churchman," was Mrs. Morrison's unexpected
reply.

Priscilla's mind could not leap like this, and she hesitated a moment
and smiled. ("It's the first time she's looked pleasant," thought Mrs.
Morrison, "and now it's in the wrong place.")

"He was born, of course, in the Lutheran faith," said Priscilla.

"Oh, a horrid faith. Excuse me, but it really is. I hope he isn't
going to upset Symford?"

"Upset Symford?"

"New people holding wrong tenets coming to such a small place do
sometimes, you know, and you say he is eloquent. And we are such a
simple and God-fearing little community. A few years ago we had a
great bother with a Dissenting family that came here. The cottagers
quite lost their heads."

"I think I can promise that my uncle will not try to convert anybody,"
said Priscilla.

"Of course you mean pervert. It would be a pity if he did. It wouldn't
last, but it would give us a lot of trouble. We are very good
Churchmen here. The vicar, and my son too when he's at home, set
beautiful examples. My son is going into the Church himself. It has
been his dearest wish from a child. He thinks of nothing else--of
nothing else at all," she repeated, fixing her eyes on Priscilla with
a look of defiance.

"Really?" said Priscilla, very willing to believe it.

"I assure you it's wonderful how absorbed he is in his studies for it.
He reads Church history every spare moment, and he's got it so
completely on his mind that I've noticed even when he whistles it's
'The Church's One Foundation.'"

"What is that?" inquired Priscilla.

"Mr. Robin Morrison," announced Mrs. Pearce.

The sitting-room at Baker's was a small, straightforward place, with
no screens, no big furniture, no plants in pots, nothing that could
for a moment conceal the persons already in it from the persons coming
in, and Robin entering jauntily with the umbrella under his arm fell
straight as it were into his mother's angry gaze. "Hullo mater, you
here?" he exclaimed genially, his face broadening with apparent
satisfaction.

"Yes, Robin, I am here," she said, drawing herself up.

"