Captain Rexford brushed his hat with his sleeve.  The thing that he was most anxious to do at that moment was to pacify his daughter.

“But if you feel this difference so keenly, Sophia, what then perplexes you?”

“I want to know how to deal with these differences, for the way we have been accustomed to deal with them is false.  This case, where one brother is at the top of our little society and the other at the bottom, shows it.  Not all false—­there comes the difficulty” (her face was full of distress), “but largely false.  If we have any spiritual life in us it is because we have heard the call that Lazarus heard in the tomb, but the opinions we will not let God transform are the graveclothes that are binding us hand and foot.”

“My dear, I certainly think it right that we should live as much as possible as we should wish to have lived when we come to die, but I do not know that for that it is necessary to make a radical change in our views.”

“Look you, dear father, if we were willing to step out of our own thoughts about everything as out of a hindering garment, and go forth in the thoughts in which God is willing to clothe us, we should see a new heaven and a new earth; but—­but—­” she sought her word.

“There may be truth in what you say” (his words showed how far he had been able to follow her), “but your views would lead to very revolutionary practices.”

“Revolution!  Ah, that takes place when men take some new idea of their own, like the bit, between their teeth, and run.  But I said to live in His ideas—­His, without Whom nothing was made that was made; Who caused creation to revolve slowly out of chaos” (she looked around at the manifold life of tree and flower and bird as she spoke); “Who will not break the reed of our customs as long as there is any true substance left in it to make music with.”

“It sounds very beautiful, my dear, but is it practicable?”

“As practicable as is any holy life!” she cried.  “We believe; if we do not live by a miracle we have no sort or manner of right to preach to those who do not believe.”

Captain Rexford would have died for his belief in miracles, but he only believed in them at the distance of some eighteen hundred years or more.

“How would you apply this?” he asked, mildly indulgent.

“To the question of each hour as it comes.  What, for instance, is the right way to act to Alec Trenholme?”

When she came to his name for some reason she left her standing-place, and they were now walking on side by side.

“Well, Sophia, you bring an instance, and you say, ‘put it practically.’  I will do so.  This village is badly in need of such a tradesman.  Even the hotel, and other houses that can afford it, grumble at having to obtain their supplies by rail, and we are badly enough served, as you know.  I have no idea that this young man has any notion of settling here, but, suppose he did” (Captain Rexford said his last words as if they capped a climax), “you will see at a glance that in that case any recognition of equality such as you seem to be proposing, would be impossible.  It would be mere confusion.”