I cannot communicate."

The punctilious Italian bowed in silence but he still looked as if he
should have liked to prosecute inquiry.

After a pause, he said, "Whatever your impressions respecting Lord
L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which would lead you to doubt
his honor, or reject his testimonial in my favor?"

"According to fashionable morality," said Mr. Dale, rather precisely, "I
know of nothing that could induce me to suppose that Lord L'Estrange
would not, in this instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably
a high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position in the
world." Therewith the Parson took his leave. A few days afterwards Dr.
Riccabocca inclosed to the Squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he had
received from Harley L'Estrange. It was evidently intended for the
Squire's eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian's
respectability; but this object was fulfilled, not in the coarse form of
a direct testimonial, but with a tact and delicacy which seemed to show
more than the fine breeding to be expected from one in Lord L'Estrange's
station. It argued that most exquisite of all politeness which comes
from the heart: a certain tone of affectionate respect (which even the
homely sense of the Squire felt, intuitively, proved far more in favor
of Riccabocca than the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and
antecedents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in itself to
remove all scruples from a mind much more suspicious and exacting than
that of the Squire of Hazeldean. But, lo and behold! an obstacle now
occurred to the Parson, of which he ought to have thought long
before--viz., the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr. Riccabocca was
professedly a Roman Catholic. He so little obtruded that fact--and,
indeed, had assented so readily to any animadversions upon the
superstition and priestcraft which, according to Protestants, are the
essential characteristics of Papistical communities--that it was not
till the hymeneal torch, which brings all faults to light, was fairly
illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so cast into
the shade burst upon the conscience of the Parson. The first idea that
then occurred to him was the proper and professional one--viz., the
conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to his study, took down from
his shelves long neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed
himself with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, an