might have owned, if Heaven had been kind
to me."

Low as I was of heart and spirit, I could not help looking up at him;
for Mother Pring's voice, though her meaning was so good, sounded like
a cackle in comparison to this. But when I looked up, such encouragement
came from a great benign and steadfast gaze that I turned away my eyes,
as I felt them overflow. But he said not a word, for his pity was too
deep, and I thanked him in my heart for that.

"Pardon me if I am wrong," I said, with my eyes on the white flowers
I had brought and arranged as my father would have liked them; "but
perhaps you are the clergyman of this old church." For I had lain
senseless and moaning on the ground when my father was carried away to
be buried.

"How often am I taken for a clerk in holy orders! And in better times I
might have been of that sacred vocation, though so unworthy. But I am a
member of the older church, and to me all this is heresy."

There was nothing of bigotry in our race, and we knew that we must put
up with all changes for the worst; yet it pleased me not a little that
so good a man should be also a sound Catholic.

"There are few of us left, and we are persecuted. Sad calumnies are
spread about us," this venerable man proceeded, while I gazed on the
silver locks that fell upon his well-worn velvet coat. "But of such
things we take small heed, while we know that the Lord is with us. Haply
even you, young maiden, have listened to slander about us."

I told him with some concern, although not caring much for such things
now, that I never had any chance of listening to tales-about anybody,
and was yet without the honour of even knowing who he was.

"Few indeed care for that point now," he answered, with a toss of his
glistening curls, and a lift of his broad white eyebrows. "Though there
has been a time when the noblest of this earth--but vanity, vanity, the
wise man saith. Yet some good I do in my quiet little way. There is a
peaceful company among these hills, respected by all who conceive them
aright. My child, perhaps you have heard of them?"

I replied sadly that I had not done so, but hoped that he would forgive
me as one unacquainted with that neighbourhood. But I knew that there
might be godly monks still in hiding, for the service of God in the
wilderness.

"So far as the name goes, we are not monastics," he said, with a sparkle
in his deep-set eyes; "we are but a family of ancient lineage, expelled
fr