"We did not see him; but he had been there," said Aunt Letty. "But Mrs. Townsend found us. And who do you think came up to us in the most courteous, affable, condescending way?" "Who? I don't know. Brady, the builder, I suppose." "No, indeed: Brady was not half so civil, for he kept himself to his own work. It was the Rev. Mr. M'Carthy, if you please." "I only hope you were civil to him," said Herbert, with some slight suffusion of colour over his face; for he rather doubted the conduct of his aunt to the priest, especially as her great Protestant ally, Mrs. Townsend, was of the party. "Civil! I don't know what you would have, unless you wanted me to embrace him. He shook hands with us all round. I really thought Mrs. Townsend would have looked him into the river when he came to her." "She always was the quintessence of absurdity and prejudice," said he. "Oh, Herbert!" exclaimed Aunt Letty. "Well; and what of 'Oh, Herbert?' I say she is so. If you and Mary and Emmeline did not look him into the river when he shook hands with you, why should she do so? He is an ordained priest even according to her own tenets,--only she knows nothing of what her own tenets are." "I'll tell you what they are. They are the substantial, true, and holy doctrines of the Protestant religion, founded on the gospel. Mrs. Townsend is a thoroughly Protestant woman; one who cannot abide the sorceries of popery." "Hates them as a mad dog hates water; and with the same amount of judgment. We none of us wish to be drowned; but nevertheless there are some good qualities in water." "But there are no good qualities in popery," said Aunt Letty, with her most extreme energy. "Are there not?" said Herbert. "I should have thought that belief in Christ, belief in the Bible, belief in the doctrine of a Saviour's atonement, were good qualities. Even the Mahommedan's religion has some qualities that are good." "I would sooner be a Mahommedan than a Papist," said Aunt Letty, somewhat thoughtlessly, but very stoutly. "You would alter your opinion after the first week in a harem," said Herbert. And then there was a burst of laughter, in which Aunt Letty herself joined. "I would sooner go there than go to confession," she whispered to Mary, as they all walked off to dinner. "And how is the Lady Clara's arm?" asked Mary, as soon as they were again once more round the fire. "The Lady Clara's arm is still very blue," said Herbert. "And I suppose it took you half an hour to weep over it?" continued his sister. "Exactly, by Shrewsbury clock." "And while you were weeping over the arm, what happened to the hand? She did not surrender it, did she, in return for so much tenderness on your part?"