? I mean, oughtn't we to be seeing a great many more
things than we do?
JULIA. What sort of things?
LAURA. Well,... have you seen Moses and the Prophets?
JULIA. I haven't looked for them, Laura. On Sundays, I still go to hear
Mr. Moore.
LAURA. That's you all over! You never would go o the celebrated preachers.
But I mean to. (_Pious curiosity awakens._) What happens here, on
Sundays?
JULIA (_smiling_). Oh, just the same.
LAURA. No _High_ Church ways, I hope? If they go in for that here, I
shall go out!
JULIA (_patiently explanatory_). You will go out if you wish to go
out. You can choose your church. As I tell you, I always go to hear Mr.
Moore; you can go and hear Canon Farrar.
LAURA. Dean Farrar, I _suppose_ you mean.
JULIA. He was not Dean in my day.
LAURA. He ought to have been a Bishop--_Arch_bishop, _I_ think--
so learned, and such a magnificent preacher. But I still wonder why we
don't see Moses and the Prophets.
JULIA. Well, Laura, it's the world as we knew it-that for the present. No
doubt other things will come in time, gradually. But I don't know: I don't
ask questions.
LAURA (_doubtfully_). I suppose it _is_ Heaven, in a way,
though?
JULIA. Dispensation has its own ways, Laura; and we have ours.
LAURA (_who is not going to be theologically dictated to by anyone lower
than Dean Farrar_). Julia, I shall start washing the old china again.
JULIA. As you like; nothing ever gets soiled here.
LAURA. It's all very puzzling. The world seems cut in half. Things don't
seem _real_.
JULIA. _More_ real, I should say. We have them--as we wish them to
be.
LAURA. Then why can't we have our Mother, like other things?
JULIA. Ah, with persons it is different. We all belong to ourselves now.
That one has to accept.
LAURA (_stubbornly_). Does William belong to _him_self?
JULIA. I suppose.
LAURA. It isn't Scriptural!
JULIA. It's better.
LAURA. Julia, don't be blasphemous!
JULIA. To consult William's wishes, I meant.
LAURA. But I want him. I've a right to him. If he didn't mean to belong to
me, he ought not to have married me.
JULIA. People make mistakes sometimes.
LAURA. Then they should stick to them. It's not honourable. Julia, I mean
to have William!
JULIA (_resignedly_). You and he must arrange that between you.
LAURA (_making a dash for it_). William! William, I say! William!
JULIA. Oh, Laura, you'll wake the dead! (_She gasps, but it is too late:
the
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