Mrs. Hulver regarded her seriously. She had expected to create something of a sensation by the announcement, but Eola took it as a trifle hardly worth mention. "Begging your pardon, miss, there is a great deal in it to create a fuss; and what is more the whole town is working itself up into a ferment over it. They say that they have never had a caste man go Christian before. The Christians have always been pariahs and they have no caste to matter. As William--that was my third--used to say: 'Change your clothes; change your food; change your house if you like; but to change your religion is the very divil;' and he knew; for he'd been a Roman Catholic and he turned Protestant to marry me." "How did you manage to persuade him?" asked Eola, her mind once more adrift. Mrs. Hulver was always ready to talk incidentally of her late spouses. At the same time she never lost sight of the subject that caused the digression. "He wanted me to change my religion; but I was firm. I told him that if he couldn't take me as I was he might go without me. I could get on without him. Besides it was only right that he should be the one to change, being the gentleman; it is the gentleman that ought to give way to the lady all the world over." "And he fell in with your suggestion?" "It was the bit of property that did it, though he didn't admit it," replied Mrs. Hulver confidently, the shrewdness of her Scotch ancestry peeping out. "He was drawn to me by two strings, myself for one, and my little fortune for the other. As William--that was my first, him that left me the property--used to say: 'It's money that gives you the pull when the balance is even.' But as I was telling you; this son of Pantulu Iyer has gone and changed his religion and stirred up a bees' nest of buzzing in the town." "Was it Mr. Alderbury's doing?"