m that he did not
care much about church at all. He would generally go of a Sunday
morning; but there was a conviction that he did so chiefly to oblige
his mother. Nothing was ever said of this. There was probably present
to the ladies some feeling, not uncommon, that religion is not so
necessary for men as for women. But Lady George was a woman.

And Lady George was also the daughter of a clergyman. There was now a
double connexion between Manor Cross and the Close at Brotherton. Mr.
Canon Holdenough, who was an older man than the Dean, and had been
longer known in the diocese, was a most unexceptional clergyman, rather
high, leaning towards the high and dry, very dignified, and quite as
big a man in Brotherton as the Dean himself. The Dean was, indeed, the
Dean; but Mr. Holdenough was uncle to a baronet, and the Holdenoughs
had been Holdenoughs when the Conqueror came. And then he also had a
private income of his own. Now all this gave to the ladies at Manor
Cross a peculiar right to be great in church matters,--so that Lady
Sarah was able to speak with much authority to Mary when she found that
the bride, though a Dean's daughter, would only go to two services a
week, and would shirk one of them if the weather gave the slightest
colouring of excuse.

"You used to like the cathedral services," Lady Sarah said to her, one
day, when Mary had declined to go to the parish church, to sing the
praises of St. Processus.

"That was because they were cathedral services," said Mary.

"You mean to say that you attended the House of God because the music
was good!" Mary had not thought the subject over sufficiently to be
enabled to say that good music is supplied with the object of drawing
large congregations, so she only shrugged her shoulders. "I, too, like
good music, dear; but I do not think the want of it should keep me from
church." Mary again shrugged her shoulders, remembering, as she did so,
that her sister-in-law did not know one tune from another. Lady Alice
was the only one of the family who had ever studied music.

"Even your papa goes on Saints' days," continued Lady Sarah, conveying
a sneer against the Dean by that word "even."

"Papa is Dean. I suppose he has to go."

"He would not go to church, I suppose, unless he approved of going."

The subject then dropped. Lady George had not yet arrived at that sort
of snarling home intimacy, which would have justified her in telling
Lady Sarah that if she wanted a