"Dear aunt, please keep that, and buy with it the pair of pewter tankards you liked so much, to remember your little Winifred! I have money by me, and Lady Corbet will let me want for nothing." "Well, well, we shall see about that. But, Winifred—" turning back at the last moment—"is it true that Mrs. Paulina has turned papist?" "No, I should think not," answered Winifred. "I have seen no signs of it." "Well, all I know is that neighbor Joyce says so, and pretends that she had her news from her sister Jones, who is a papist herself. Dame Joyce says she has been seen talking with that Doctor Butler they make such a fuss about, and people talk of her giving him meetings and going to confession. Moreover she is sure that she herself saw Mrs. Paulina in the new Romish chapel on Ascension-day, whither she went herself—more shame to her—to see the sights. She says Mrs. Paulina had her hood pulled over her face, but she knew her directly!" "I hardly think that can be true. Dame Joyce must be mistaken." "Not she! She has eyes in the back of her head, I think. Well, farewell, sweetheart, and God bless thee!" Winifred returned to the chamber of her patient, too much startled by what she had just heard to think as much as she would otherwise have done of the parting with her aunt. She could not believe the story, and yet, if it were true, it explained many little things which had puzzled her. Paulina's severe penances—her evident desire of late to avoid the Bible readings—her self-righteous notions—her reserved and burdened air, as if she had always something to conceal—all tended that way! Nay, upon that very Ascension-day, Paulina had refused to go to church with the rest on the ground of a headache, which excuse was fully borne out by her paleness and her heavy, downcast eyes. She remembered, too, that, when they returned, Paulina was nowhere to be found, and that by-and-by she had come in from the garden, looking flurried and flushed. Could it possibly be that the girl was deceiving her parents and all about her? And if so, what could be done about the matter? The last year of James the Second's most unfortunate reign was one of great activity among that portion of the English Roman Catholics—not by any means the most respectable or intelligent portion—who with the king were guided by the counsels of the Jesuits rather than by those of the pope. What might be called the Country party believed with the pontiff that James was injuring the cause instead of benefiting it, and that a reaction must inevitably follow, which would leave the English Roman Catholics in a worse position than ever. Events proved them to have been in the right, but nothing could induce the king or his advisers to pause in their career. A good many people joined themselves to them, some from policy, some, no doubt, from sincere conviction, and the new recruits were more zealous than those who had grown up in the faith from their childhood.