But, she considered, for all that, that it was probably true enough
as far as the facts and the theology went; and she couldn't
understand why a person like mamma should cut herself off
contumaciously from the rest of the world by presuming to
disbelieve a body of doctrine which so many rich and well-gaitered
bishops held worthy of credence. All stylish society accepted the
tenets of the Church of England. But in time it began to occur to
her that there might be some deeper and, as she herself would have
said, more disgraceful reason for her mother's alienation from so
respectable a family. For to Dolly, that was disgraceful which the
world held to be so. Things in themselves, apart from the world's
word, had for her no existence. Step by step, as she grew up to
blushing womanhood, it began to strike her with surprise that her
grandfather's name had been, like her own, Barton. "Did you marry
your cousin, mamma?" she asked Herminia one day quite suddenly.
And Herminia, flushing scarlet at the unexpected question, the
first with which Dolly had yet ventured to approach that dangerous
quicksand, replied with a deadly thrill, "No, my darling.
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