“Oh, my good woman,” she said, as soon as she could speak, good-humoredly and contemptuously, “you don’t mean to say that you believe in eternal punishment? What is the use of getting old Khris to furnish for you and ask me to show you the way about, if you weigh yourself down with such an old-fashioned funny packful of antiquated ideas as that? You must not say such things really; you will never get on amongst us if you do.” The countenance of Margaret Massarene grew piteous to behold; she was a feeble woman, but obstinate; she was ready to sell her soul to “get on,” but the ghastly terrors inculcated to her in her childhood were too strongly embedded in her timid and apprehensive nature to leave her a free agent. “Anything else, ma’am--anything else,” she murmured wretchedly. “But not Romanism, not Papistry. You don’t know what it means to me, you don’t indeed.” Lady Kenilworth shrugged her shoulders and got up from the tea-table. “I always said,” she observed slightingly, “that the Orange people were the real difficulty in Ireland. There would never have been any trouble without them.” “But you are not a Papist yourself, my lady?” asked Mrs. Massarene with trembling accents. “Oh, I? no,” said the pretty young woman with the same contemptuous and indifferent tone. “We can’t change. We must stick to the mast--fall with the colors--die in the breach--all that kind of thing. We can’t turn and twist about. But you new people can, and you are geese if you don’t. You want to get in the swim. Well, if you’re wise you’ll take the first swimming-belt that you can get. But do just as you like, it does not matter to me. I am afraid I must go now, I have half a hundred things to do.” She glanced at the watch in her bracelet and drew up her feather boa to her throat. Tears rose to the pale gray eyes of her hostess. “Pray don’t be offended with me, my lady,” she said timidly. “I hoped, I thought, perhaps you’d be so very kind and condescending as to tell me what to do; things bewilder me, and nobody comes. Couldn’t you spare me a minute more in the boudoir yonder? where these men won’t hear us,” she added in a whisper. She could not emulate her guest’s patrician indifference to the presence of the men in black; it seemed to her quite frightful to discuss religious and social matters beneath the stony glare of Mr. Winter and his colleagues. But Lady Kenilworth could not share or indulge such sentiments, nor would she consent to take any such precautions. She seated herself where she had been before by the tea-table, her eyes always fascinated by the Leo the Tenth urn. She took a bonbon and nibbled it prettily, as a squirrel may nibble a filbert. “Tell me what you want,” she said bluntly; she was often blunt, but she was always graceful.