id not, however, as becomes a sound tactician, approach the point
with undue directness. Lady Isabel had sent her daughters to school in
Paris; Lady Isabel had, on a bygone occasion, been goaded by Mrs.
Cotton into a declaration that her servants' religion was a matter
with which she only concerned herself if they neglected their
religious duties. Mrs. Cotton, remembering these things and being ever
filled to brimming with what Christian has called The Spirit of the
Nation, opened with a general attack upon the Church of Rome, and
narrowed to a tale of "a friend of mine and Mr. Cotton's. A clergyman.
A man of private means." After this stimulating prelude, the tale
ceased for a moment, while Mrs. Cotton blinked her small black eyes at
her hostess, several times, as was her practice. "Oh, a very wealthy
man!" she continued, imposingly, "and he bought a lovely house, with a
garden; a lovely garden!" The thought of a garden was a fortunate one,
and enlisted Lady Isabel's wandering attention. "But at the end of the
garden what was there but a Nunnery. And the clergyman found that his
daughters were always slipping out into the garden, and what was it
but the nuns that were getting hold of the girls! Very refined women
they were, and well able to deceive young girls!" The tale was flowing
swiftly now, but Mrs. Cotton paused dramatically, and continued on a
lower key. "The clergyman had had bookshelves made to fit the study,
and a splendid antique sideboard to fitanitch--" Mrs. Cotton spoke
fast, and the last three words ran bewilderingly into one. "But he
sold the house AT ONCE! Yes, indeed, Lady Isabel! Weren't his
daughters' souls more to him than bookshelves?"

Lady Isabel, who was still wrestling with the apparently Russian
problem in connection with the antique sideboard, attempted no reply
to this inquiry, and Mrs. Cotton, considering that her hostess' mind
was now sufficiently prepared, did not wait for her opinion, and swept
on to her objective, which was the denunciation of the conduct of the
recent concert, and more especially of the disposition of the
proceeds. "Of course, _I_ don't know in whose hands it lay, Lady
Isabel," she said, raising her tea cup to her lips, and in order to do
so curtaining it behind her ample veil, "but the Roman Catholics
seemed to consider that it was _all_ to go to them, and the
paltry sum I have mentioned was all they gave Mr. Cotton and me for
_our_ charities!" Her black eyes snapped