hope he will meet that rhinoceros on the way home. There!"

Although she disapproved, or tried to think that she did, of such strong
opinions so strongly expressed, Mrs. Dove offered no further opposition to
them. The fact was that her daughter's bodily and mental vigour
overshadowed her, as they did her husband also. Indeed, it seemed curious
that this girl, so powerful in body and in mind, should have sprung from
such a pair, a wrong-headed, narrow-viewed saint whose right place in the
world would have been in a cell in the monastery or one of the stricter
orders, and a gentle, uncomplaining, high-bred woman with a mind
distinguished by its affectionate and mystical nature, a mind so unusual
and refined that it seemed to be, and in truth was, open to influences
whereof, mercifully enough, the majority of us never feel the subtle,
secret power.

Of her father there was absolutely no trace in Rachel, except a certain
physical resemblance--so far as he was concerned she must have thrown back
to some earlier progenitor. Even their intellects and moral outlook were
quite different. She had, it is true, something of his scholarly power;
thus, notwithstanding her wild upbringing, as has been said, she could
read the Greek Testament almost as well as he could, or even Homer, which
she liked because the old, bloodthirsty heroes reminded her of the Zulus.
He had taught her this and other knowledge, and she was an apt pupil. But
there the resemblance stopped. Whereas his intelligence was narrow and
enslaved by the priestly tradition, hers was wide and human. She searched
and she criticised; she believed in God as he did, but she saw His purpose
working in the evil as in the good. In her own thought she often compared
these forces to the Day and Night, and believed both of them to be
necessary to the human world. For her, savagery had virtues as well as
civilisation, although it is true of the latter she knew but little.