"Why should you refrain, my dear boy?
But you are right.

There is a curious unconsciousness about Cresswell--about Valentine--which seems to exclude even definite religious belief as something in a way self-conscious, and so impossible to him.

There is an extraordinary strain of the child in Cresswell, such as I conceive to be in unearthly beings, who have never had the power to sin.

And the best-behaved, sweetest child in the world might catch flies or go to sleep during the Litany or a sermon.

This very absence of controversial or dogmatic religion gives Valentine much of his power, seems positively to lift him higher than religionists of any creed." "You think--you think that perhaps it is something in him of which he is unconscious which does so much for me ?" "Perhaps it is." Valentine now glided into an accompaniment, and began to sing.