e should soon have plenty; Mr. Charlton has as
good as told him he was to have Bolton Hall and Grange: "Six hundred
acres, Kate, besides the park and paddocks."

In his warmth he forgot that Catharine was to have been Mr. Charlton's
heir. Catharine was too high-minded to bear Griffith any grudge; but she
colored a little, and said she was averse to come to him a penniless
bride.

"Why, what matters it which of us has the dross, so that there is enough
for both?" said Griffith, with an air of astonishment.

Catharine smiled approbation, and tacitly yielded that point. But then
she objected the difference in their faith.

"Oh, honest folk get to heaven by different roads," said Griffith,
carelessly.

"I have been taught otherwise," replied Catharine, gravely.

"Then give me your hand and I'll give you my soul," said Griffith Gaunt,
impetuously. "I'll go to heaven your way, if you can't go mine. Anything
sooner than be parted in this world or the next."

She looked at him in silence; and it was in a faint, half apologetic
tone she objected, that all her kinsfolk were set against it.

"It is not their business; it is ours," was the prompt reply.

"Well, then," said Catharine, sadly, "I suppose I must tell you the true
reason: I feel I should not make you happy; I do not love you quite as
you want to be loved, as you deserve to be loved. You need not look so;
nothing in flesh and blood is your rival. But my heart bleeds for the
Church; I think of her ancient glory in this kingdom, and, when I see
her present condition, I long to devote myself to her service. I am very
fit to be an abbess or a nun,--most unfit to be a wife. No, no,--I must
not, ought not, dare not, marry a Protestant. Take the advice of one who
esteems you dearly; leave me,--fly from me,--forget me,--do everything
but hate me. Nay, do not hate me; you little know the struggle in my
mind. Farewell; the saints, whom you scorn, watch over and protect you!
Farewell!"

And with this she sighed, and struck her spur into the gray, and he
darted off at a gallop.

Griffith, little able to cope with such a character as this, sat
petrified, and would have been rooted to the spot, if he had happened to
be on foot. But his mare set off after her companion, and a chase of a
novel kind commenced. Catharine's horse was fresher than Griffith's
mare, and the latter, not being urged by her petrified master, lost
ground.

But when she drew near to her father's gat