u cannot
do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any
difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to
help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run
away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear
that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear."

And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the
interrupted "Jane Austen."

"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she
entered the room.

"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!"

CHAPTER XVII

DOT'S DECISION

Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one
out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot
and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their
father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than
she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably
balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one
in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world,
who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse
interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic
to understand all those various products of art, which it would be
impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint
with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds
of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would
never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually
rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly
normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight,
brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of
life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity
of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was
not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence
than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended
her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual
instincts not, in any event, clamorous.

As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of
spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow
creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual
activity found ample scope