efore."

Clara sighed as she thought how little she herself had known till
lately.

"You had better not talk any more about your school," she said; "let us
speak rather about what we read, and things of real importance."

Clara had become very much alarmed about Mary. Wholesome and regular
food, and gentle exercise in the carriage when the weather was fine,
somewhat restored her strength; but there was the hectic spot on her
check, and the brightness of the eyes, which too surely told of
consumption. Mr Lennard at length arrived; he looked much depressed,
and was shocked at seeing the change in his daughter. He had a most
unsatisfactory account to give of his son, whom he had searched for for
some time in vain. At last he discovered that the young gentleman had
been formally received into the Romish Church, and that his friend the
priest was concealing him somewhere in London. The poor father found
out where his son was through a letter which was forwarded from Luton,
in which the youth asked for a remittance for his support, as he had
expended all his means, and could not longer, he observed, encroach on
the limited stipend of his friend, Father Lascelles. Mr Lennard, still
hoping that it might be possible to win back the youth, wrote entreating
him to return home, and on his declining to do this, he offered to let
him continue his course at Oxford, that he might fit himself for
entering one of the learned professions. After a delay of two or three
days, Alfred wrote saying that he had applied to his bishop, who would
not consent to his doing so, and that as he was now under his spiritual
guidance, he must obey him rather than a heretic father.

"You will pardon me for calling you so," continued Master Alfred; "but
while you remain severed from the one true Church, such you must be in
the eyes of all Catholics, one of whom I have become."

"I was too much grieved to laugh, as I might otherwise have done, at the
boy's impertinence," observed Mr Lennard to the general; "but as I look
upon him as deceived by artful men, I cannot treat him with the rigour
he deserves. What do you recommend, general?"

"We must, if possible, get him to come home, and then put the truth
clearly before him," remarked the general.

"I am afraid that I cannot say enough to induce him to change," said Mr
Lennard, with a deep sigh.

"We must have recourse, whatever we do, to earnest prayer," observed the
general. "I cannot suppo