mayne?"

"What did Julius Caesar for me, Mistress Blanche?"

"Marry, nought at all," said Blanche, laughing, "without his invading of
England should have procured unto us some civility which else we had
lacked."

Civility, at that time, meant civilisation. When, according to the
wondrous dreamer of Bedford Gaol, Mr Worldly Wiseman referred
Christian, if he should not find Mr Legality at home, to the pretty
young man called Civility, whom he had to his son, and who could take
off a burden as well as the old gentleman himself,--he meant, not what
we call civility, but what we call civilisation. That pretty young man
is at present the most popular physician of the day; and he still goes
to the town of Morality to church. The road to his house is crowded
more than ever, though the warning has been standing for two hundred
years, that "notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a
hypocrite,"--as well as another warning far older,--"Behold, the fear of
the Lord, that is wisdom." [Job twenty-eight verse 28.]

"But now," said the Rector, with an answering smile, "tell me, what did
Jesus Christ for me?"

"He is the Saviour," she said in a low voice.

"Of whom, dear maid?"

Blanche felt rather vague on that point, and the feeling was combined
with a conviction that she ought not to be so. She tried to give an
answer which could not be contradicted.

"Of them that believe."

"Certes," said Mr Tremayne, suppressing a smile, for he saw both
Blanche's difficulty and her attempt to evade it. "But that, look you,
landeth us on the self place where we were at aforetime: who be they
that believe?"

Blanche wisely determined to commit herself no further.

"Would it please you to tell me, Sir?"

"Dear child, if you heard me to say, touching some man that we both were
acquaint withal,--`I believe in John'--what should you conceive that I
did signify?"

"I would account," said Blanche readily, thinking this question easy to
answer, "that you did mean, `I account of him as a true man; I trust
him; I hold him well worthy of affiance.'"

"Good. And if, after thus saying, you should see me loth to trust an
half-angel into his hands to spend for me,--should you think that mine
act did go with my words, or no?"

"Assuredly, nay."

"Then look you, Mistress Blanche, that it is greater matter than you
maybe made account, when a man shall say, `I believe in Jesus Christ.'
For it signifieth not only that I believe He wa