It was Father White who spoke, and his shrewd gray eyes were fixed upon Elinor, who turned to the fire without a word. Mary Brent sat tapping her foot on the floor. "'Tis strange he should have left without a word," she said at last. "Never fear, Mary! We have not lost him. He is too large to be mislaid like a parcel. He did but go out to fulfil a behest of mine, and if Father White understands him, as he says he does, he will have divined that it was an errand of courtesy and good-will on which he set out." A silence fell on the group. Then Father White, looking out, exclaimed: "'Tis a bitter night and the snow is falling again! No wonder the settlers grumble over such a winter in this land where they were promised all sunshine and flowers." "Yes," said Mary Brent. "If the weather is to be like this, we might as well have settled on the bleak Massachusetts coast." "It cannot last long. The natives all say they never knew such a season. They fear to go abroad at night, there are so many half-starved wild beasts prowling around." Elinor rose and began to pace the floor uneasily. "But," continued Father White, "there are more reasons than those of climate for preferring Maryland to Massachusetts. How wouldst thou have prospered in a Puritan colony?" "I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways." "Yet," interrupted Elinor, "they too are serving God in their own way." Mary Brent shook her head. "I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood's Barn." Elinor murmured something about "toleration." "Toleration!" repeated her cousin scornfully. "I hate the word. He that tolerates any religion against his own is either a hypocrite or a backslider." "Shall there be no liberty of conscience?" "Ay, but liberty to think wrong is no liberty." "These be deep matters, my daughters, and best left to the schoolmen," said Father White. "None doubt that Mistress Brent hath kept her fidelity unspotted to the Church. Let Elinor Calvert pattern after her kinswoman." Thereafter Father White turned again to the subject of missions, and the two women listened till the hour-glass had been turned and the candles began to burn low in their sockets. At last Mary Brent grew somewhat impatient. If she had a vice it was excess of punctuality. She was willing to share her last crust with a stranger; but he must be on hand when it came out of the oven. The hours for meals and especially for bedtime were scrupulously observed in her household, and to-night it irked her to be kept up thus beyond her usual hour for retiring. Elinor, perceiving this and feeling some sense of responsibility for the cause, said at last,--