figure was well developed, and her form softly moulded. He admired
her immensely. How incongruous an outcome from a clerical family!
"It's curious," he said, gazing hard at her, "that you should be a
dean's daughter."

"On the contrary," Herminia answered, with perfect frankness, "I
regard myself as a living proof of the doctrine of heredity."

"How so?" Alan inquired.

"Well, my father was a Senior Wrangler," Herminia replied, blushing
faintly; "and I suppose that implies a certain moderate development
of the logical faculties. In HIS generation, people didn't apply
the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took those for
granted; but within his own limits, my father is still an acute
reasoner. And then he had always the ethical and social interests.
Those two things--a love of logic, and a love of right--are the
forces that tend to make us what we call religious. Worldly people
don't care for fundamental questions of the universe at all; they
accept passively whatever is told them; they think they think, and
believe they believe it. But people with an interest in
fundamental truth inquire for themselves into the constitution of
the cosmos; if they are convinced one way, they become what we call
theologians; if they are convinced the other way, they become what
we call free-thinkers. Interest in the problem is common to both;
it's the nature of the solution alone that differs in the two
cases."

"That's quite true," Alan assented. "And have you ever noticed
this curious corollary, that you and I can talk far more