Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/59

Rh he is, that he is no rascal. He seems religious in his way; though what his religion is I cannot detect. He speaks most reverently of every phase of Christianity, and appears in conduct to be quite consistent. His manner at St, Anselm's church was most devout, and as for the fashionable scepticism of the age he always spoke of it with ineffable contempt, as even more silly than wicked; for, again and again, he urged to me that piety was true wisdom."

"Perhaps he is a hypocrite," said Mr. Christopherson, breaking in on our talk. "I do not like these mysterious folk. He may be a Nihilist, or head-centre of the Fenians, or some such dreadful thing."

So we often talked over Posela, and the more I spoke the more the ladies seemed—excited by curiosity—to wish to meet this strange being, so different from everybody else.

One morning, when I came down to breakfast, I found a letter in a strange, but fine, hand on my table, addressed on from my college at Oxford. It bore the Bombay postmark. I broke the seal, and was both surprised and pleased to read the following:—