"I believe my husband would rather give up the schools than compromise his principles. He has been intimately acquainted with the management of some Catholic schools in which all parties were admitted: the rule was to all alike, it was difficult to make a distinction. Children, non-Catholics, were admitted to religious societies, services, and processions. {47} He has a very firm conviction that the result was that they were led to believe that assisting with due outward decorum, without the internal feeling of reverence, was all that Catholicity required; while the Catholics themselves, seeing others without faith were thus admitted, naturally ceased to regard faith as so essential a matter as the sermons heard in church proclaim it to be, and became liberal Catholics when they retained their faith at all. My husband knows he is called bigoted, but I do not think it has changed his feeling. He thinks the Catholic school a sacred place; and the soul of a little baptized child a thing to be guarded with reverential awe." "Yes, I know De Villeneuve's reverence: he should have lived in the times when the catechumens were driven out of the church before the sacred mysteries could be performed." "Indeed, father, I have seen his whole frame quiver with terror when any one, Catholic or non-Catholic, behaved irreverently in the presence of the blessed sacrament. He maintains that the worldliness of the age springs from the want of this reverence." "He may be right, but meantime we must provide for the present safety. Your brother is not gone?" "No, he starts to-morrow. I will send for him to come and see you." M. de Villeneuve was not to be found, for the very cause that brought the priest to his dwelling. He was in earnest conference with the priest's man Walter on the subject of the projected attack. "Are you sure it was your brother that you saw?" "Quite sure, sir." "You did not let him see you?" "I did not; I was very careful on that point." "And you are sure they fixed tonight?" "Quite sure, but if disappointed tonight they will try some other night." "Did you hear of any one person marked out for any special object." "There will be an attempt made to carry off Lady Conway and her children." "I suspected as much. Well, we must be prepared; I will row Lady Conway across the lake, and you can drive her up the country to neighbor Friendly's house, without anyone suspecting the matter. Be silent and cautious, I will prepare watches secretly. You get home as quickly as you can from the drive." "I will, sir."