its contents.
She studied the envelope, turning it about in the hope of gleaning
enlightenment from its external aspect. Still wondering, slightly
oppressed even by a persuasion--of which she could not rid herself--that
it held matters of no common moment closely affecting her father, she
went out of the house, down the sheltered drive, and through the entrance
gates. Here, as she turned inland, the verve of the clear autumn morning
rushed on her, along with a wild flurry of falling leaves dancing to the
breath of the crisp northerly breeze.

A couple of fine days, with a hint of frost in the valley by night, after
a spell of soft mists and wet, sent the leaves down in fluttering
multitudes, so that now all trees, save the oaks only, were bare.
These--by which the road is, just here, overhung--still solidly clothed
in copper, amber and--matching our maiden's gown--in russet-red, offered
sturdy defiance to the weather. The sound of them, a dry crowded
rustling, had a certain note of courage and faithfulness in it which
caused Damaris to wait awhile and listen; yet a wistfulness also, since
to her hearing a shudder stirred beneath its bravery, preluding the
coming rigours of winter.

And that wistfulness rather strangely enlarged its meaning and area, as
the reiterated ting, tang, tong of Deadham's church bells recalled the
object of her walk. For English church services, of the parochial variety
such as awaited her, had but little, she feared, to give. Little, that
is, towards the re-living of those instants of exalted spiritual
perception which had been granted to her at distant Avila.

In overstrained and puritanic dread of idolatory, the English Church has
gone lamentably far to forfeit its sacramental birthright. It savours too
strongly of the school and class-room, basing its appeal upon words, upon
spoken expositions, instructive no doubt, but cold, academic. It offers
no tangible object of worship to sight or sense. Its so-called altars are
empty. Upon them no sacrifice is offered, no presence abidingly dwells.
In its teaching the communion of saints and forgiveness of sins are
phrases rather than living agencies. Its atmosphere is self-conscious,
its would-be solemnity forced.--This, in any case, was how Damaris saw
the whole matter--though, let us hasten to add, she was modest enough to
question whether the fault might not very well be in herself rather than
in our national variant of the Christian Faith. Man