"Father, dear father, come home with me now; You left us before half-past seven. Don't say you'll come soon, with a frown on your brow; 'Twill soon, father dear, be eleven. Your supper is cold, for the fire is quite dead, And mother to bed has gone, too; And these were the very last words that she said; 'I hate those Freemasons, I do!'" Chapter XIV. The Freemason's Home. Late on a dark night in the commencement of November, wind and rain blowing with violence from the mountains, and the streets of Geneva abandoned, we find our young heroines sitting in a comfortable room. They are lounging on easy-chairs before a warm fire; the eldest is reading, and the youngest, although dressed in the pretty uniform of a naval cadet, is working at embroidery with colored wools. Alvira and Aloysia, at the command of their father, have still preserved their disguise, at first irksome to their habits and delicacy of maidenhood; but necessity and fear toned down their objection, and they gradually accustomed themselves to the change. In girlish simplicity they were pleased with the novelty of their position. They knew each other as Charles and Henry, and by these names we must now call them. The old clock of the church on the hill sent the mournful tones of the eleventh hour over the silent city. Charles counted the solemn booms of the church bell, and then, as if resuming the conversation with Henry: "Eleven o'clock, and father not come home yet! I am sure I don't know what keeps father out every night so late; if poor mother were alive, she would never stand this." "But perhaps pa may have important business and can't come home," we hear the amiable Henry suggesting. "Business! Nothing of the kind. He has got in amongst some old fools who pretend to have more knowledge than their grandfathers, and are deceiving old women of both sexes to such a degree that they actually fancy they are inspired to make new Bibles, new commandments, and new churches." "But father might be trying to put them right," replied Henry softly, "and perhaps feels as you do. How sad to see them going astray!" "No," answered the other with greater animation, "he is as bad as any of them. You remember long ago how he used to make poor mother cry when speaking of the great mystery of Redemption; he called it the greatest swindle the world ever saw. You remember what blasphemous and insulting language he addressed to the Sisters of St. Vincent when they asked for alms in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and you know how he is always reading the most impious works. "He is now shut up in one of those mysterious rooms called Freemason lodges, where, if report be true, the enemies of the Church and state plot the ruin of mankind. Henry, he is not only an infidel and a Freemason, but he is unkind to us." Saying these last words, Charles rose and paced up and down the room, as if full of passion.