"'Twould be to the soul too if I were engaged in them, for I have such hatred of hardship that I should spend my time bewailing the task I had undertaken." "Nay, daughter, for ere thou wert called to the trial thou wouldst have faced the tests that do lead up to it as the _via dolorosa_ to Calvary. Before we take the final vows we undergo three probations, the first devoted to the mind, and the last a year of penance and privation, that we may test our strength and learn to forego all that hampers our spiritual progress; this is called _the school of the heart_." "Would there were such for a woman!" "There is," said Neville from the other side; "but it is where she rules instead of being ruled." Elinor turned and looked at him with that lack of comprehension which a woman knows how to assume when she understands everything. "He loves her," thought the priest; "but she only loves his love." Yet, knowing how many matches have been brought about by this state of things, Father Mohl set himself to study Neville. He found him reserved in general, with the suavity and self-command of a man of the world, but outspoken under irritation. "We must make him angry," thought the priest. Seeing that Neville was a Protestant, he began relating the deeds wrought by priests. "Do you recall, Father White," he said, "how the natives brought their chief to die in the mission house, and how Father Copley laid on him a sacred bone, and how the sick man recovered, and went about praising God and the fathers?" "I do remember it well," Father White answered. "Yes," continued the younger priest, "and I recall how Brother Fisher found a native woman sick unto death. He instructed her in the catechism, laid a cross on her breast, and behold, the third day after, the woman rose entirely cured, and throwing a heavy bag over her shoulder walked a distance of four leagues." "Wonderful! wonderful!" murmured Mary Brent. Neville was irritated, and thought to turn Father Mohl's tales to ridicule. Whom the gods would destroy they first make droll. "Did you ever hear of the miracle of the buttered whetstone?" he asked. "Pray you tell it," said Father Mohl, with his ominous smile. "Why, there was a friar once in London who did use to go often to the house of an old woman; but ever when he came she hid all the food in the house, having heard that friars and chickens never get enough." If only Neville had looked at Elinor! but he steered as straight for destruction as any rudderless bark in a storm on a rocky coast. "This day," he went on, "the friar asked the goodwife had she any meat." "'Devil a taste!' she said. "'Well,' quoth the friar, 'have you a whetstone?' "'Yes.' "'Marry, I'll eat that.' "So when she had brought the whetstone, he bade her fetch a frying-pan, and when he had it, he set it on the fire and laid the whetstone in it. "'Cock's body!' said the poor wife, 'you'll burn the pan!'