“I don’t know!  I had no power to read or think for a long time, and now, since I have been here, I hope it has not been hypocrisy, for going on in your way and his has been very sweet to me, and made me feel as I used when I was a young girl, with only an ugly dream between.  I don’t like to look at it, and yet that dream was my real life that I made for myself.”

“Dear child, I have little doubt that Alick knew it would come to this.”

Rachel paused.  “What, you and he think a woman’s doubts so vague and shallow as to be always mastered by a husband’s influence?”

Mr. Clare was embarrassed.  If he had thought so he had not expected her to make the inference.  He asked her if she could venture to look back on her dream so as to mention what had chiefly distressed her.  He could not see her frowning effort at recollection, but after a pause, she said, “Things will seem to you like trifles, indeed, individual criticisms appear so to me; but the difficulty to my mind is that I don’t see these objections fairly grappled with.  There is either denunciation or weak argument; but I can better recollect the impression on my own mind than what made it.”

“Yes, I know that feeling; but are you sure you have seen all the arguments?”

“I cannot tell—­perhaps not.  Whenever I get a book with anything in it, somebody says it is not sound.”

“And you therefore conclude that a sound book can have nothing in it?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, most of the new ‘sound’ books that I have met are just what my mother and sister like—­either dull, or sentimental and trashy.”

“Perhaps those that get into popular circulation do deserve some of your terms for them.  Illogical replies break down and carry off some who have pinned their faith to them; but are you sure that though you have read much, you have read deep?”

“I have read more deeply than any one I know—­women, I mean—­or than any man ever showed me he had read.  Indeed, I am trying not to say it in conceit, but Ermine Williams does not read argumentative books, and gentlemen almost always make as if they knew nothing about them.”

“I think you may be of great use to me, my dear, if you will help me.  The bishop has desired me to preach the next visitation sermon, and he wishes it to be on some of these subjects.  Now, if you will help me with the book work, it will be very kind in you, and might serve to clear your mind about some of the details, though you must be prepared for some questions being unanswered.”

“Best so,” replied Rachel, “I don’t like small answers to great questions.”

“Nor I. Only let us take care not to get absorbed in admiring the boldness that picks out stones to be stumbled over.”

“Do you object to my having read, and thought, and tried?”

“Certainly not.  Those who have the capability should, if they feel disturbed, work out the argument.  Nothing is gained while it is felt that both sides have not been heard.  I do not myself believe that a humble, patient, earnest spirit can go far wrong, though it may for a time be tried, and people often cry out at the first stumbling block, and then feel committed to the exclamations they have made.”