else: this was his mother's ring, and he has mine."

"Mr. Neville?"

"Mr. Neville? No. My old servant, to be sure. What, do you think I would
go and marry for wealth, when I have enough and to spare of my own? O,
what an opinion you must have of me!"

Father Francis was staggered by this adroit thrust. However, after a
considerable silence he recovered himself, and inquired gravely why she
had given him no hint of all this the other night, when he had diverted
her from a convent, and advised her to marry Neville.

"That you never did, I'll be sworn," said Kate.

Father Francis reflected.

"Not in so many words, perhaps; but I said enough to show you."

"O!" said Kate, "such a matter was too serious for hints and innuendoes;
if you wanted me to jilt my old servant and wed an acquaintance of
yesterday, why not say so plainly? I dare say I should have obeyed you,
and been unhappy for life; but now my honor is solemnly engaged; my
faith is plighted; and were even you to urge me to break faith, and
behave dishonorably, I should resist. I would liever take poison, and
die."

Father Francis looked at her steadily, and she colored to the brow.

"You are a very apt young lady," said he; "you have outwitted your
director. That may be my fault as much as yours; so I advise you to
provide yourself with another director, whom you will be unable, or
unwilling, to outwit."

Kate's high spirit fell before this: she turned her eyes, full of tears,
on him. "O, do not desert me, now that I shall need you more than ever,
to guide me in my new duties. Forgive me; I did not know my own
heart--quite. I'll go into a convent now, if I must; but I can't marry
any man but poor Griffith. Ah, father, he is more generous than any of
us! Would you believe it? when he thought Bolton and Hernshaw were
coming to him, he said if I married him I should have the money to build
a convent with. He knows how fond I am of a convent."

"He was jesting; his religion would not allow it."

"His religion!" cried Kate. Then, lifting her eyes to Heaven, and
looking just like an angel, "Love is _his_ religion!" said she, warmly.

"Then his religion is Heathenism," said the priest, grimly.

"Nay, there is too much charity in it for that," retorted Kate, keenly.

Then she looked down, like a cunning, guilty thing, and murmured: "One
of the things I esteem him for is he always speaks well of _you_. To be
sure, just now the poor soul thinks you are his b