"My father sent me to the Ursuline Sisters in Paris," said Miss Irma calmly. The Doctor was secretly astonished and much disappointed, but his face expressed nothing beyond his habitual good nature. He replied, "Then your father has had you brought up a Catholic, Miss Maitland?" "Indeed, no," answered Miss Irma, "only he had often occasion to be away on his affairs, and to keep me out of mischief he left me with the Ursulines and my aunt the Abbess. At my father's death I might have stayed on with the good sisters, but I left because I was not allowed to see my brother." "Then am I right in thinking that--that--in fact--you are a Presbyterian?" said the Doctor, playing with the inlaid snuffbox which he carried in his hand. The amount of time he occupied in tapping the lid and the invisibility of the pinches he had ever been seen to take were alike marvels in the district. "I have no religious prejudices," said Miss Irma to the Doctor, in a calm, well-bred manner which must have secretly amused that distinguished theologian, fresh from editing the works of Manton. "I did not speak of prejudices, dear young lady" (he spoke gently, yet with the thrill in his voice which showed how deeply he was moved), "but of belief, of religion, of principles of thought and action." Miss Irma opened her eyes very wide. The sound of the Doctor's words came to her ears like the accents of an unknown tongue. "The sisters were very good people," she said at last; "they give themselves a great deal of trouble----" "What kind of trouble?" said the Doctor. "Kneeling and scrubbing floors for one thing," said Miss Irma; "getting up at all hours, doing good works, praying, and burning candles to the Virgin." "I should advise you," said the Doctor, with his most gentle accent, "to say as little as possible about that part of your experience here in Eden Valley." Miss Irma looked exceedingly surprised. "I thought I told you they were exceedingly good people. They were very kind to me, though they looked on me as a lost heretic. I am sure they said prayers for me many times a day!" The Doctor looked more hopeful. He was thinking that after all he might make something of his strange parishioner, when the young lady recalled him by a repetition of her former declaration, "As I said, I have no religious prejudices!" "No," said the Doctor a little sharply--for him, "but still each one of us ought to be fully persuaded in his own mind." "And that means," Miss Irma answered, quick as a flash, "that most of us are fully persuaded according to our father and mother's mind, and the way they have brought us up. But then, you see, I never _was_ brought up. I know very well that my family were Presbyterians. Once I read about their sufferings in two great volumes by a Mr. Wodrow, or some such name. But then my grandfather lost most of his estates fighting for the King----"