It was natural that Beth as she grew up should be attracted by the mystery that surrounded the Roman Catholics, and anxious to comprehend the horror that Protestants had of them. She knew more of them herself than any of the people whom she heard pass uncharitable strictures upon them, and knew nothing for which they could justly be blamed. For the old priest himself she had a great reverence. She had never spoken to him, but had always felt strongly drawn towards him; and now, when she overtook him, her impulse was to slip her hand into his, less on her own account, however, than to show sympathy with him, he seemed so solitary and so suffering, with his slow step and bent back; and so good, with his beautiful calm face. As she approached, lost in her own thoughts, she gazed up at him intently. "What is it, my child?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "Can I do anything for you?" "I was thinking of the beauty of holiness," Beth answered, and passed on. The old man looked after her, too surprised for the moment to speak, and by the time he had recovered himself, she had turned a corner and was out of sight. After Beth went home that evening, and had been duly reproached by her mother for her selfish conduct, she stole upstairs to Aunt Victoria's room, and found the old lady sitting with her big Bible on her knee, looking very sad and serious. "Beth," she said severely, "have you had any food? It is long past your dinner-time, and it does not do for young girls to fast too long." "I'll go and get something to eat, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered meekly, overcome by her kindness. "I forgot." She went down to the pantry, and found some cold pie, which she took into the kitchen and ate without appetite. The heat was oppressive. All the doors and windows stood wide open, but there was no air, and wherever Beth went she was haunted by the sickly smell which she had first perceived coming up from the mud in the harbour, and by the lines which seemed somehow to account for it:-- "... the smell of death Came reeking from those spicy bowers, And man, the sacrifice of man, Mingled his taint with every breath Upwafted from the innocent flowers." When she had eaten all she could, she went back to Aunt Victoria. "Shall we read the psalms?" she said. "Yes, dear," the old lady answered. "I have been waiting for you a long time, Beth." "Aunt Victoria, I am very sorry," Beth protested. "I didn't think." "Ah, Beth," the old lady said sorrowfully, "how often is that to be your excuse? You are always thinking, but it is only your own wild fancies that occupy you. When will you learn to think of others?" "I try always," Beth answered sincerely; "but what am I to do when 'wild fancies' come crowding in spite of me, and all I ought to remember slips away?"