Why do we call Mr. Alfred Challis _unpractical_? it may be asked. Simply because, while he avoided or ignored all experts in Applied Religion, he himself was unprepared with any substitute for it. And this was so even in the case of his own children. He had, however, given _carte blanche_, by implication of supineness, to the partner of his joys, sorrows, and admixtures of the two. He knew perfectly well that if he could have cancelled the little restored church at Royd, and the Parsonage and all its belongings, and left Royd free from what he counted superstition, of a sort, he would have held his hand--simply because he could not for the life of him have suggested any alternative that would not have worked round to the same thing in the end. He was convinced at heart, even while he made mental notes about Clerical Humbugs who pretended to believe what they knew German criticism had exploded long ago--for Mr. Challis had read whatever fostered his predispositions, just like yourself and the present writer--that if this athletic-looking, upright gentleman and his serious sister--for it seemed he was a widower--were to be suddenly removed from Royd, as well as any religious outscourings of a Dissenting nature hanging about--if all these were cleared away and the village left in charge of the human heart and intellect _ed id genus omne_, the human stomach _et istud genus omne_ would get their way in double-quick time, and a perfect Saturnalia would come about of Bacchus and Priapus, of Cabiric deformities lurking round the corner for a chance, and Beer. At any rate, he was enough convinced of this to be rather grateful to the Clerical Humbugs for pretending, pending enlightenment. He felt it was benevolent in him to be mean at the cost of his own conscience, and to hold his tongue and leave them undenounced, in the interest of Humanity.
This chronicle has no opinions--note that! The foregoing is only a peep into the mind of a literary man who was never at a University. Had he been at one, many college-chums in Orders would have checked his condemnations. The man one has read with, swum with, cricketed with--_cannot_ be a Hypocrite. Absurd!
Our snapshots of Mr. Alfred Challis's mind have taken long to record, but they serve their turn in this place better, perhaps, than the few trifling incidents of the visit at the Rectory. Consider that the lady and gentleman are on their way back to the Hall, in a golden sunset-light which makes the former resplendent, and does no harm to the appearance of the latter. Judith weighs him more carefully than she has done yet, and the result may be more favourable in such a glow. Quite passable!--is her verdict. And she knows how _she_ looks, bless you, reasoning by analogy! For all her previous verdicts about her companion's looks--so far as they were favourable--have run on lines of intellectual rather than physical beauty.