Eh, the blessed angil!
You'll let me bring my Aaron one o' these days, and he'll show her his
little cart as his father's made for him, and the black-and-white
pup as he's got a-rearing.'
Baby was christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism
was the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making
himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time
within the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his
neighbours. He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw,
to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith: if he could at
any time in his previous life have done so, it must have been by the
aid of a strong feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, rather than by
a comparison of phrases and ideas; and now for long years that feeling
had been dormant. He had no distinct idea about the baptism and the
church-going, except that Dolly had said it was for the good of the
child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to months, the child created
fresh and fresh links between his life and the lives from which he had
hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation. Unlike the gold
which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude-
which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of
birds, and started to no human tones- Eppie was a creature of
endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving
sunshine, and living sounds, and living movements; making trial of
everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness
in all eyes that looked on her.
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