d."

"I fancy," said the rector, "they would withhold the name of brother
from those they abuse."

"No; not always."

"They would from an unbeliever."

"Yes. But let them then call him an enemy, and behave to him as
such--that is, love him, or at least try to give him the fair play to
which the most wicked of devils has the same right as the holiest of
saints. It is the vile falsehood and miserable unreality of Christians,
their faithlessness to their Master, their love of their own wretched
sects, their worldliness and unchristianity, their talking and not
doing, that has to answer, I suspect, for the greater part of our
present atheism."

"I have seen a good deal of Mr. Faber of late," Juliet said, with a
slight tremor in her voice, "and he seems to me incapable of falling
into those vile conditions I used to hear attributed to atheists."

"The atheism of some men," said the curate, "is a nobler thing than the
Christianity of some of the foremost of so-called and so-believed
Christians, and I may not doubt they will fare better at the last."

The rector looked a little blank at this, but said nothing. He had so
often found, upon reflection, that what seemed extravagance in his
curate was yet the spirit of Scripture, that he had learned to suspend
judgment.

Miss Meredith's face glowed with the pleasure of hearing justice
rendered the man in whom she was so much interested, and she looked the
more beautiful. She went soon after luncheon was over, leaving a
favorable impression behind her. Some of the ladies said she was much
too fond of the doctor; but the gentlemen admired her spirit in standing
up for him. Some objected to her paleness; others said it was not
paleness, but fairness, for her eyes and hair were as dark as the night;
but all agreed, that whatever it was to be called, her complexion was
peculiar--some for that very reason judging it the more admirable, and
others the contrary. Some said she was too stately, and attributed her
carriage to a pride to which, in her position, she had no right, they
said. Others judged that she needed such a bearing the more for
self-defense, especially if she had come down in the world. Her dress,
it was generally allowed, was a little too severe--some thought, in its
defiance of the fashion, assuming. No one disputed that she had been
accustomed to good society, and none could say that she had made the
slightest intrusive movement toward their circle. Still, why w