it is a
mixture of two things, each good in itself, and incongruous together.
It's a mixture of the first and second courses at table. It's like the
architecture of the facade at Milan, half Gothic, half Grecian."

"It's what is always used, I believe," said Charles.

"Oh yes, we must not go against the age," said Campbell; "it would be
absurd to do so. I only spoke of what was right and wrong on abstract
principles; and, to tell the truth, I can't help liking the mixture
myself, though I can't defend it."

Bateman rang for tea; his friends wished to return home soon; it was
the month of January, and no season for after-dinner strolls. "Well," he
said, "Campbell, you are more lenient to the age than to me; you yield
to the age when it sets a figured bass to a Gregorian tone; but you
laugh at me for setting a coat upon a cassock."

"It's no honour to be the author of a mongrel type," said Campbell.

"A mongrel type?" said Bateman; "rather it is a transition state."

"What are you passing to?" asked Charles.

"Talking of transitions," said Campbell abruptly, "do you know that your
man Willis--I don't know his college, he turned Romanist--is living in
my parish, and I have hopes he is making a transition back again."

"Have you seen him?" said Charles.

"No; I have called, but was unfortunate; he was out. He still goes to
mass, I find."

"Why, where does he find a chapel?" asked Bateman.

"At Seaton. A good seven miles from you," said Charles.

"Yes," answered Campbell; "and he walks to and fro every Sunday."

"That is not like a transition, except a physical one," observed Reding.

"A person must go somewhere," answered Campbell; "I suppose he went to
church up to the week he joined the Romanists."

"Very awful, these defections," said Bateman; "but very satisfactory, a
melancholy satisfaction," with a look at Charles, "that the victims of
delusions should be at length recovered."

"Yes," said Campbell; "very sad indeed. I am afraid we must expect a
number more."

"Well, I don't know how to think it," said Charles; "the hold our Church
has on the mind is so powerful; it is such a wrench to leave it, I
cannot fancy any party-tie standing against it. Humanly speaking, there
is far, far more to keep them fast than to carry them away."

"Yes, if they moved as a party," said Campbell; "but that is not the
case. They don't move simply because others move, but, poor fellows,
because they can't help it.--Bate