the country I shall always be uneasy lest there should be some more
of our late experience. And I don't care to lessen it by explaining, for one
thing, all about the boy's history. To cut him off from his past I have
determined to keep silence. I am sickened of ecclesiastical work now; and I
shouldn't like to accept it, if offered me!«
    »You ought to have learnt Classic. Gothic is barbaric art, after all. Pugin
was wrong, and Wren was right. Remember the interior of Christminster Cathedral
- almost the first place in which we looked in each other's faces. Under the
picturesqueness of those Norman details one can see the grotesque childishness
of uncouth people trying to imitate the vanished Roman forms, remembered by dim
tradition only.«
    »Yes - you have half converted me to that view by what you have said before.
But one can work, and despise what one does. I must do something, if not
church-gothic.«
    »I wish we could both follow an occupation in which personal circumstances
don't count,« she said, smiling up wistfully. »I am as disqualified for teaching
as you are for ecclesiastical art. You must fall back upon railway stations,
bridges, theatres, music-halls, hotels - everything that has no connection with
conduct.«
    »I am not skilled in those.... I ought to take to bread-baking. I grew up in
the baking business with aunt, you know. But even a baker must be conventional,
to get customers.«
    »Unless he keeps a cake and gingerbread stall at markets and fairs, where
people are gloriously indifferent to everything except the quality of the
goods.«
    Their thoughts were diverted by the voice of the auctioneer: »Now this
antique oak settle - a unique example of old English furniture, worthy the
attention of all collectors!«
    »That was my great-grandfather's,« said Jude. »I wish we could have kept the
poor old thing!«
    One by one the articles went, and the afternoon passed away. Jude and the
other two were getting tired and hungry, but after the conversation they had
heard they were shy of going out while the purchasers were in their line of
retreat. However, the later lots drew on, and it became necessary to emerge into
the rain soon, to take on Sue's things to their temporary lodging.
    »Now the next lot: two pairs of pigeons, all alive and plump - a nice pie
for somebody