did not by any means understand
all about it.

"What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?" demanded Arthur, in a resolute
and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was
about to hear.

"Yes, yes," continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound
sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture--"yes; yes! I
see, I see!"

Arthur was quite vexed.

"Now really my dear aunt," said he, remonstratingly, "you must be aware
that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You
ought to explain what you mean," he added, decidedly.

"Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don't you see?"

Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It
was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:

"Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose
my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal
parables!"

"Infernal parables!" cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.

"Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal
parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!"

The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly
back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub
his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and
putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,

"There, Arthur! now that you are reasonable, I'll tell you what I meant."

The artist looked over his shoulder and laughed.

"Go on, dear aunt."

"I understand now why you don't go to our church."

It was a remark so totally unexpected that Arthur stopped short and
turned quite round.

"What do you mean, Aunt Winnifred?"

"I mean," said she, holding up the study as if to overwhelm him with
resistless proof, "I mean, Arthur--and I could cry as I say it--that you
are a Roman Catholic!"

Aunt Winnifred, who was an exemplary member of the Dutch Reformed Church,
or, as Arthur gayly called her to her face, a Dutch Deformed Woman, was
too simple and sincere in her religious faith to tolerate with equanimity
the thought that any one of the name of Merlin should be domiciled in the
House of Sin, as she poetically described the Church of Rome.

"Arthur! Arthur! and your father a clergyman. It's too dreadful!"

And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.

But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation