Is there truth anywhere?
Endless shams surround them; people listen to sermons, then they shake off the dust of the holy place carefully from the very hem of their garments; their religion, as Jill expressed it, is left beside their prayer-books.

Ah! if one could but see clearly, with eyes purged from every remnant of earthliness,--see as the angels do,--the thick fog of unrisen and unprayed prayers clinging to the rafters of every empty church, we might well shudder in the clogging heavy atmosphere.
Jill had not more religion than many other girls, but she wanted to be true; the inconsistency of human nature baffled and perplexed her; she was not more ready to renounce the world than Sara was, but she wished to know the inner meaning of things, and in this I longed to help her.
I could not help thinking of her tenderly and pitifully as I walked down the road leading to the little Norman church.

I was early, and the building was nearly empty when I entered the porch; but it was quiet and restful to sit there and review the past week, and watch the sunshine lighting up the red brick walls and touching the rood-screen, while a faint purple gleam fell on the chancel pavement.
Two ladies entered the seat before me, and I looked at them a little curiously.
They were both very handsomely dressed, but it was not their fashionable appearance that attracted me.

I had caught sight of a most beautiful and striking face belonging to one of them that somehow riveted my attention.
The lady was apparently very young, and had a tall graceful figure, and strange colourless hair that looked as though it ought to have been golden, only the gloss had faded out of it; but it was lovely hair, fine and soft as a baby's.
As she rose she slightly turned round, and our eyes met for a moment; they were large, melancholy eyes, and the face, beautiful as it was, was very worn and thin, and absolutely without colour.

I could see her profile plainly all through the service, but the dull impassive expression of the countenance that she had turned upon me gave me a sensation of pain; she looked like a person who had experienced some great trouble or undergone some terrible illness.