'Our discussion? No, no! My dear child, you must forget all about the Settlement while you are here. I want to tell you about the people you are going to meet. First, there's my mother, who, in theory, will spend a good deal of time with your aunt, though in practice I shall be surprised if they often speak to one another, for they are too utterly unlike even to differ. Then there's my cousin, Lord Wantley. I'm afraid you won't like him very much, for he makes fun of me--and of the Settlement, too. But it isn't fair to tell you that! I want you to make friends with him. You must spare him some of the pity you are so ready to lavish on poor people who are unhappy or unlucky--Ludovic has been rather unlucky, and he has a perfect genius for making himself unhappy.' 'Lord Wantley is Catholic, is he not?' Cecily spoke with some hesitation. She knew her aunt had told her something concerning Penelope's cousin, but she could not remember what it was which had been told her. Penelope looked up from the task of unbuttoning her gloves. 'No, he's nothing of the kind,' she said decidedly, 'but perhaps he ought to be. Who knows--Miss Wake may perhaps convert him,' she smiled rather satirically. Cecily looked troubled; she was beginning to realize that her holiday would be very different from what she had hoped and expected it to be. 'Seriously, I want you to interest him in the Settlement. We cannot expect David Winfrith to go on doing as much for us as he has been doing. Besides'--she hesitated, and a shadow crossed the radiant face--'I am thinking of making certain arrangements which will greatly alter his position in the whole affair.' 'But what would the Settlement do without Mr. Winfrith?' There was utter dismay in the tone. 'Well, we needn't discuss all that now. I only mean that Lord Wantley is what people used to call a man of parts, and I have never been able to see why he should not do more for me--I mean, of course, in this one matter of the Settlement--than he has done as yet. He has led a very selfish life.' Penelope spoke with much vigour. 'He has never done anything for anybody, not even for himself, and what energy he has had to spare has always been expended in the wrong direction. The only time I have ever known him show any zeal was just after my father's death, when he presented the chapel of the monastery at Beacon Abbas, near here, with a window in memory of his father.' A whimsical smile flitted across her face. 'I rather admired his pluck, but of course if my mother had been another kind of woman it would have meant that we should have broken with him. For my father, as all the world knew, had a great prejudice against Roman Catholics, and Ludovic could not have done a thing which would have annoyed him more.' Cecily made no comment. Instead, she observed, diffidently, 'I will certainly try and interest him in the Settlement. I have brought down the new report.'