argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his
charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she
had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters,
rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect.

"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps
better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I
wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right _for
you_--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for
this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some
outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising
association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well,
as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you
need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I
represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with
all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some
other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to
say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your
father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of
life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our
eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended,
abruptly, "what do you think?"

"I'll do it," said Dot.

"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness
to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your
father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where
you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear
Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches."

So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony,
all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even
Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this
still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his
hymn-book during the sermon.

To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a
somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs
find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and
superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite
could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered
it, it was certainly made t