s not forthcoming.
Strawberries were being served with the tea; some sort of cold pudding
was also on the table; and all this to be eaten without cream,--these
young people might have been asked to go without their supper, so
indignant they were.

Now, Mr. Torrance had been decorously trying to talk of the young
minister's last sermon and of the affairs of the small Scotch church of
which he was an elder, and Miss Torrance was ably seconding his effort
by comparing the sentiments of the sermon to a recent magazine article,
but against her will she was forced to attend to the young people's
clamour about the cream.

It seemed that Trilium, the cow, had recently refused to give her milk.
Mary Torrance was about eighteen; she suddenly gave it as her opinion
that Trilium was bewitched; there was no other explanation, she said, no
other possible explanation of Trilium's extraordinary conduct.

A flush mounted Miss Torrance's face; she frowned at her sister when the
student was not looking.

'It's wonderful, the amount of witchcraft we have about here, Mr.
Howitt,' said the master of the house tentatively to the minister.

Howitt had taken Mary's words in jest. He gave his smooth-shaven face
the twist that with him always expressed ideas wonderful or grotesque.
It was a strong, thin face, full of intelligence.

'I never could have conceived anything like it,' said he. 'I come across
witch tales here, there, everywhere; and the marvellous thing is, some
of the people really seem to believe them.'

The younger members of the Torrance family fixed their eyes upon him
with apprehensive stare.

'You can't imagine anything more degrading,' continued the student, who
came from afar.

'Degrading, of course.' Mr. Torrance sipped his tea hastily. 'The Cape
Breton people are superstitious, I believe.'

An expression that might have betokened a new resolution appeared upon
the fine face of the eldest daughter.

'_We_ are Cape Breton people, father,' she said, with dignified
reproach. 'I hope'--here a timid glance, as if imploring support--'I
hope we know better than to place any real faith in these degrading
superstitions.'

Howitt observed nothing but the fine face and the words that appeared to
him natural.

Torrance looked at them both with the air of an honest man who was still
made somewhat cowardly by new-fashioned propriety.

'I never put much o' my faith in these things myself,' he said at last
in broad accents