an impossible ideal--an unsatisfactory ideal which aspired to no more
than saving oneself after all.

Lies and all kinds of subterfuge were strictly against her character.
But it was impossible for her to do or say anything when by so doing she
knew she might cause suffering or give pain to anyone, even an enemy;
and this defect in her character forced her to live up to what she
deemed a lie. She had longed to tell the truth and thereby be saved the
mummery of attending at Mass; but when she realized the consternation,
the agony of mind, it would cause the nuns she loved, she held back the
word. But since she had left the convent she had begun to feel that her
life must correspond to her ideas and she had determined to speak to her
mother on this (for her) all-important subject--the conformity of her
outer life to her inner life. The power to prevail upon herself to do
what she thought wrong merely because she did not wish to wound other
people's feelings was dying in her. Sooner or later she would have to
break away; and as the hour approached when they should go to Mass to
meet Captain Hibbert, the desire to be allowed to stay away became
almost irresistible; and at the last moment it was only a foolish fear
that such a declaration might interfere with her sister's prospects that
stayed the words as they rose to her lips. She picked up her gloves, and
a moment after found herself in the brougham--packed into it, watching
the expressionless church-going faces of her family.

From afar the clanging of a high-swinging bell was heard, and the harsh
reverberations, travelling over the rocky town-lands, summoned the
cottagers to God. The peasants stepped aside to let the carriage pass.
Peasants and landlords were going to worship in the same chapel, but it
would seem from the proclamations pasted on the gate-posts that the
house of prayer had gone over into the possession of the tenantry.