Jude the Obsure

"Not in our thoughts! Perhaps a little in our feelings."

"And they rule thoughts... Isn't it enough to make one blaspheme

that the composer of that hymn is one of the most commonplace men I

ever met!"

"What--you know him?"

"I went to see him."

"Oh, you goose--to do just what I should have done! Why did you?"

"Because we are not alike," he said drily.

"Now we'll have some tea," said Sue. "Shall we have it here instead

of in my house? It is no trouble to get the kettle and things

brought in. We don't live at the school you know, but in that

ancient dwelling across the way called Old-Grove Place. It is so

antique and dismal that it depresses me dreadfully. Such houses are

very well to visit, but not to live in--I feel crushed into the earth

by the weight of so many previous lives there spent. In a new place

like these schools there is only your own life to support. Sit down,

and I'll tell Ada to bring the tea-things across."

He waited in the light of the stove, the door of which she flung open

before going out, and when she returned, followed by the maiden with

tea, they sat down by the same light, assisted by the blue rays of a

spirit-lamp under the brass kettle on the stand.

"This is one of your wedding-presents to me," she said, signifying

the latter.

"Yes," said Jude.

The kettle of his gift sang with some satire in its note, to his

mind; and to change the subject he said, "Do you know of any good

readable edition of the uncanonical books of the New Testament? You

don't read them in the school I suppose?"

"Oh dear no!--'twould alarm the neighbourhood... Yes, there is one.

I am not familiar with it now, though I was interested in it when my

former friend was alive. Cowper's _Apocryphal Gospels_."

"That sounds like what I want." His thoughts, however reverted with

a twinge to the "former friend"--by whom she meant, as he knew, the

university comrade of her earlier days. He wondered if she talked of

him to Phillotson.

"The Gospel of Nicodemus is very nice," she went on to keep him from

his jealous thoughts, which she read clearly, as she always did.

Indeed when they talked on an indifferent subject, as now, there was

ever a second silent conversation passing between their emotions,

so perfect was the reciprocity between them. "It is quite like the

genuine article. All cut up into verses, too; so that it is like

one of the other evangelists read in a dream, when things are the

same, yet not the same. But, Jude, do you take an interest in those

questions still? Are you getting up _Apologetica_?"