 view of things dangerous: Nature was
more just than that; it would be easy for any felon to say that his ancestors
ought to have been hanged instead of him. If those who had bad fathers and
mothers were bad themselves, they were hanged for that. There was no need to go
back on what you couldn't see.
    »My mother is like old George the Third,« said the Vicar, »she objects to
metaphysics.«
    »I object to what is wrong, Camden. I say, keep hold of a few plain truths,
and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr. Lydgate, there never
was any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was
enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had
the same opinions. But now, if you speak out of the Prayer-book itself, you are
liable to be contradicted.«
    »That makes rather a pleasant time of it for those who like to maintain
their own point,« said Lydgate.
    »But my mother always gives way,« said the Vicar, slyly.
    »No, no, Camden, you must not lead Mr. Lydgate into a mistake about me. I
shall never show that disrespect to my parents, to give up what they taught me.
Any one may see what comes of turning. If you change once, why not twenty
times?«
    »A man might see good arguments for changing once, and not see them for
changing again,« said Lydgate, amused with the decisive old lady.
    »Excuse me there. If you go upon arguments, they are never wanting, when a
man has no constancy of mind. My father never changed, and he preached plain
moral sermons without arguments, and was a good man - few better. When you get
me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading
you the cookery-book. That's my opinion, and I think anybody's stomach will bear
me out.«
    »About the dinner certainly, mother,« said Mr. Farebrother.
    »It is the same thing, the dinner or the man. I am nearly seventy, Mr.
Lydgate, and I go upon experience. I am not likely to follow new lights, though
there are plenty of them here as elsewhere. I say, they came in with the mixed
stuffs that will neither wash nor wear. It was not so in my youth: a Churchman
was a Churchman, and a clergyman,
