“There are times that I doubt my own nobility of soul, Cicely Adair,” she said, her mobile lips twisting with a tiny mocking smile. “But when I’m before the hearth fire, and hand someone else the tools to stir and mend it, then I know that I am fit to rank with the noblest Roman matron! Perhaps I mean Roman ladies living in the catacombs; I’ve no doubt that they were more self-sacrificing than the Mother of the Gracchi and the rest of ’em! Do lift that log end, Cis! It’s wasting there, smoldering out; make it blaze.” Cis obediently lifted the charred end of a log into the heart of the fire, and then, at: “Now tell me!” from Miss Braithwaite, told her story of Mr. Lucas’ reception of her confession to him, and his comments on her obedience to her conscience. Miss Braithwaite sat erect as she listened, her face expressing her interest. “My dear child, you never can tell!” she cried as Cis ended. “Robert Lucas became a Catholic about ten years after I did; he is fifteen years younger than I. Wilmer Lucas was no less disgusted than he was angry. He said that Robert had made a fool of himself, that with his mind continually hovering over kisses upon the pope’s toe he never could get anywhere, amount to anything! Wilmer always enjoyed vigorous symbolical language! In point of fact Robert Lucas has gone far, has amounted to a great deal. He is not involved in national politics, as our lawyer Wilmer is, but he is a successful man, and no one ever speaks of him without paying tribute in the highest terms to his lofty character. Wilmer Lucas is honorable and honored, but it is Robert, not he, whose goodness seems to impress people over and above his other qualities. Wilmer Lucas has been most intolerant of the Church all these years; he is protestant, not only against her directly, but against her intrusion into his family. He is exceedingly fond of Robert’s daughter Jeanette, by the way. I have always seen that in the case of Father Morley, whom he avoids; my own case; his unwillingness to allow his brother ever to speak on the subject, Wilmer Lucas betrays his perception of the impregnable position of the Old Church, that he pays her tribute, though it is in a form not unlike the tribute to her Founder recorded in the Gospel. He is a man of logical mind, highly trained to sift evidence; he cannot fail to perceive the immense difference between her consistent logic and the shifting sands of mere opinion outside of her, nor can he account for her hold on men’s souls down through the ages by natural means. Now, to-day, you have startled him by a new instance of the power of conscience. I am glad that you look pale, Cis dear, that you show suffering! And how it must have impressed him that, though you could not withstand Rodney’s pleading with you to do what you held wrong in a lesser matter, you have held your Faith against all pressure from without and within! Evidently Mr. Lucas is impressed, the more so that he had not thought