Presently Mr. Gresley’s eloquence, after various tortuous and unnatural windings, swept in the direction of a pun, as a carriage after following the artificial curves of a deceptive approach nears a villa.  Hester had seen the pun coming for half a page, as we see the villa through the trees long before we are allowed to approach it, and she longed to save her brother from what was in her eyes as much a degradation as a tu quoque.  But she remembered in time that the Gresleys considered she had no sense of humor, and she decided to let it pass.  Mr. Gresley enjoyed it so much himself that he hardly noticed her fixed countenance.

Why does so deep a gulf separate those who have a sense of humor and those who, having none, are compensated by the conviction that they possess it more abundantly?  The crevasse seems to extend far inland to the very heights and water-sheds of character.  Those who differ on humor will differ on principles.  The Gresleys and the Pratts belonged to that large class of our fellow-creatures who, conscious of a genius for adding to the hilarity of our sad planet, discover an irresistible piquancy in putting a woman’s hat on a man’s head, and in that “verbal romping” which playfully designates a whiskey-and-soda as a gargle, and says “au reservoir” instead of “au revoir.”

At last, however, Hester nervously put her hand over the next sheet, as he read the final words of the last.

“Wait a moment,” she said, hurriedly.  “This last page, James.  Might it not be well to reconsider it?  Is it politic to assume such great ignorance on the part of Nonconformists?  Many I know are better educated than I am.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Gresley, “ignorance is at the root of any difference of opinion on such a subject as this.  I do not say wilful ignorance, but the want of sound Church teaching.  I must cut at the roots of this ignorance.”

“Dear James, it is thrice killing the slain.  No one believes these fallacies which you are exposing—­the Nonconformists least of all.  Those I have talked with don’t hold these absurd opinions that you put down to them.  You don’t even touch their real position.  You are elaborately knocking down ninepins that have never stood up, because they have nothing to stand on.”

“I am not proposing to play a game of mental skittles,” said the clerical author.  “It is enough for me, as I said before, to cut at the roots of ignorance wherever I see it flourishing, not to pull off the leaves one by one as you would have me do by dissecting their opinions.  This may not be novel, it may not even be amusing, but, nevertheless, Hester, a clergyman’s duty is to wage unceasing war against spiritual ignorance.  And what,” read on Mr. Gresley, after a triumphant moment in which Hester remained silent, “is the best means of coping against ignorance, against darkness”—­("It was a root a moment ago,” thought Hester)—­“but by the infusion of light?  The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”  Half a page more and the darkness was ‘Modern Dissent.’  Hester put her hand over her mouth and kept it there.