"Not at all, my son," said the old Jesuit, placidly wiping his spectacles. "The Protestants are welcome to work against us as much as they please. They cannot combine; they have no organism; hence their wiles are mere shadows compared with ours. They are sure to fade and fail, sooner or later. However, we are not above learning even from enemies. It might be as well to have a friend so employed on some few Whig papers. Could you manage that?" he asked, suddenly turning to the young stranger. The person addressed smiled, but shook his head rather hopelessly. "I do not think I could, Father Boniface," said he. "No," assented the old man; "your talents do not lie in that direction. Brother Cuthbert, here is employment for you--yours do." "My talents commonly lie in any direction to which I find it convenient to turn them, Father," said Stevens, with as modest an air as if he were disclaiming praise instead of bestowing it upon himself. "And as I hold a general dispensation for anything that may be needful, I have no scruples in using it." The old man, having finished a very careful cleansing of his glasses, put them on, and inspected Stevens through them. "Brother Cuthbert," said he, "had you been suffered to sink into the abyss of heresy, as at one time seemed likely, it would have been a great loss to the Church." "Well, I rather think it would," was the cool reply of Mr. Cuthbert Stevens. "It was a blessed act of our Brother Arnold," resumed Father Boniface, "an inspired thought, which led him to steal you away, an infant untainted by heresy, from the cradle wherein your heretic mother had laid you, while she went to watch the dancing on the village-green. That was Brother Cuthbert's introduction to the Church, Jerome," observed he, turning to his companion. "Our Brother Arnold--he is among the blessed now, I trust, for I have myself offered hundreds of masses for the repose of his soul--he found, in a village in France, an infant in a cradle, by a cottage-door, with none to watch over it. Impelled by philanthropy, he inquired how this was from the next-door neighbor, and was told that a Huguenot carpenter lived in the cottage; he was out at work, and his wife had gone to see the dancers. 'This must not be,' said Arnold; 'I will myself carry the infant to his mother, and reprove her for such foolish conduct.' I should have told you that, the village being full of these misguided heretics, Arnold, in his zeal to recover some of these straying sheep to the true fold, had attired himself as a heretic teacher. 'You will do well, Master Pastor,' said the neighbor; 'for though she is kindly and well-meaning, 'tis her worst fault to love gadding about, and she is very young and needs teaching.' So Arnold took the babe, and instead of going to the green, piously brought it to us at the monastery. Thou wert a sad trouble for a long time, Brother Cuthbert; for the brethren were not