fled from the Baths when Cerinthus entered them, lest the roof should
fall on the heretic, and crush any one in his neighbourhood, and I
looked on all heretics with holy horror. Pusey had indoctrinated me
with his stern hatred of all heresy, and I was content to rest with
him on that faith, "which must be old because it is eternal, and must
be unchangeable because it is true." I would not even read the works
of my mothers favourite Stanley, because he was "unsound," and because
Pusey had condemned his "variegated use of words which destroys all
definiteness of meaning"--a clever and pointed description, be it said
in passing, of the Dean's exquisite phrases, capable of so many
readings. It can then be imagined with what a stab of pain this first
doubt struck me, and with what haste I smothered it up, buried it, and
smoothed the turf over its grave. _But it had been there_, and it left
its mark.




CHAPTER IV.

MARRIAGE.


The last year of my girlish freedom was drawing to its close; how shall
I hope to make commonsense readers understand how I became betrothed
maiden ere yet nineteen, girl-wife when twenty years had struck?
Looking back over twenty-five years, I feel a profound pity for the
girl standing at that critical point of life, so utterly, hopelessly
ignorant of all that marriage meant, so filled with impossible dreams,
so unfitted for the _rôle_ of wife. As I have said, my day-dreams held