mysterious errand, and the Dean subsequently discovered, with intense
amusement and pleasure, that she had gone to inspect a house in which
she intended to spend her widowhood. The Dean told the whole story in
her presence to some of the young men who were dining there, and
sympathised with her on the suspension of her plans. I remember, too,
that my brother described to me how, in the course of the same illness,
Mrs. Vaughan, who was greatly interested in some question of the Higher
Criticism, had gone to the Dean's room to read to him, and had suggested
that they should consider and discuss some disputed passage of the Old
Testament. The Dean gently but firmly declined. Mrs. Vaughan coming
downstairs, Bible in hand, found a caller in the drawing-room who
inquired after the Dean. "I have just come from him," said Mrs.
Vaughan, "and it is naturally a melancholy thought, but he seems to have
entirely lost his faith. He would not let me read the Bible with him; he
practically said that he had no further interest in the Bible!"

Hugh was very happy at Llandaff. He says that he began to read John
Inglesant again, and explored the surrounding country to see if he could
find a suitable place to set up a small community house, on the lines of
Nicholas Ferrar's Little Gidding. This idea was thenceforth much in his
mind. At this time his day-dream was that it should be not an ascetic
order, but rather devotional and mystical. It was, I expect, mainly an
Êsthetic idea at present. The setting, the ceremonial, the order of the
whole was prominent, with the contemplation of spiritual beauty as the
central principle. The various strains which went to suggest such a
scheme are easy to unravel. Hugh says frankly that marriage and
domesticity always appeared to him inconceivable, but at the same time
he was sociable, and had the strong creative desire to forth and express
a definite conception of life. He had always the artistic impulse to
translate an idea into visible and tangible shape. He had, I think,