obble Place
during the Easter holidays; but Mrs. Fane was much upset by the idea of
being left alone, and Michael had to decline the invitation, which was a
great disappointment. In the end he and his mother went to Bournemouth,
staying rather grandly at one of the large hotels, and Michael was able
to look up some old friends, including Father Moneypenny of St.
Bartholomew's, Mrs. Rewins, their landlady of three years back, and Mr.
Prout.

The passion-flower at Esdraelon had grown considerably, but that was the
only thing which showed any signs of expansion, unless Mr. Prout's
engagement to be married could be accepted as evidence of expansion.
Michael thought it had a contrary effect, and whether from that cause or
from his own increased age he found poor Prout sadly dull. It was
depressing to hear that unpleasantness was expected at the Easter vestry
that year; Michael could not recall any year in which that had not been
the case. It was depressing to learn that the People's Churchwarden was
still opposed to the Assumption. It was most depressing of all to be
informed that Prout saw no prospect of being married for at least five
years. Michael, having failed with Prout, tried to recapture the emotion
of his first religious experience at St. Bartholomew's. But the church
that had once seemed so inspiring now struck him as dingily and poorly
designed, without any of the mystery which once had made it beautiful.
He wondered if everything that formerly had appealed to his imagination
were going to turn out dross, and he made an expedition to Christchurch
Priory to test this idea. Here he was relieved to find himself able to
recapture the perfect thrill of his first visit, and he spent a rich
day wandering between the grey church and the watery meadows near by,
about whose plashy levels the green rushes were springing up in the
fleecy April weather.

Michael concluded that all impermanent emotions of beauty proved that it
was merely the emotion which had created an illusion of beauty, and he
was glad to have discovered for himself a touchstone for his aesthetic
judgments in the future. He would have liked to see Alan in the
cloistral glooms of the Priory, and thought how he would have enhanced
with his own eternity of classic shape the knights and ladies praying
there. Michael sympathized with the trousered boy whom Flaxman, contrary
to every canon, might almost be said to have perpetrated. He felt
slightly muddled betw