A man of scientific tastes, like Mr.Warricombe, must consider it respectable enough.

Grant him a little time, and why should he not become a recognised friend of this family?
If he were but resident in Exeter.
For the first time, he lost himself in abstraction, and only an inquiry from Sidwell recalled him.
'You have seen the Cathedral, Mr.Peak ?' 'Oh yes! I attended service there yesterday morning.' Had he reflected, perhaps he would not have added this circumstance; even in speaking he suffered a confused doubtfulness.

But as soon as the words were uttered, he felt strangely glad.

Sidwell bestowed upon him an unmistakable look of approval; her mother gazed with colder interest; Mr.Warricombe regarded him, and mused; Buckland, a smile of peculiar meaning on his close lips, glanced from him to Miss Moorhouse.
'Ah, then, you heard Canon Grayling,' remarked the father of the family, with something in his tone which answered to Sidwell's facial expression.

'How did you like his sermon ?' Godwin was trifling with a pair of nut-crackers, but the nervousness evident in his fingers did not prevent him from replying with a natural air of deliberation.
'I was especially struck with the passage about the barren fig-tree.' The words might have expressed a truth, but in that case a tone of sarcasm must have winged them.