what not, we somehow
give them their opportunity. And one naturally wishes to be on the safe
side."

She looked at him with doubt, considering.

"You don't seriously believe all that?" she said.

"No, I don't seriously believe it. But one breathes it in with the air
of one's nursery, and it sticks. I don't believe it, but I fear it just
enough to be made uneasy. The evil eye, for instance. How can one spend
any time in Italy, where everybody goes loaded with charms against it,
and help having a sort of sneaking half-belief in the evil eye?"

She shook her head, laughing.

"I 've spent a good deal of time in Italy, but I have n't so much as a
sneaking quarter-belief in it."

"I envy you your strength of mind," said he. "But surely, though
superstition is a luxury forbidden to Catholics, there are plenty of
good Catholics who indulge in it, all the same?"

"There are never plenty of good Catholics," said sire. "You employ a
much-abused expression. To profess the Catholic faith, to go to Mass on
Sunday and abstain from meat on Friday, that is by no means sufficient
to constitute a good Catholic. To be a good Catholic one would have to
be a saint, nothing less--and not a mere formal saint, either, but a
very real saint, a saint in thought and feeling, as well as in speech
and action. Just in so far as one is superstitious, one is a bad
Catholic. Oh, if the world were populated by good Catholics, it would be
the Millennium come to pass."

"It would be that, if it were populated by good Christians--wouldn't
it?" asked Peter.

"The terms are interchangeable," she answered sweetly, with a
half-comical look of defiance.

"Mercy!" cried he. "Can't a Protestant be a good Christian too?"

"Yes," she said, "because a Protestant can be a Catholic without knowing
it."

"Oh--?" he puzzled, frowning.

"It's quite simple," she explained. "You can't be a Christian unless
you're a Catholic. But if you believe as much of Christian truth as
you've ever had a fair opportunity of learning, and if you try to live
in accordance with Christian morals, you are a Catholic, you're a
member of the Catholic Church, whether you know it or not. You can't be
deprived of your birthright, you see."

"That seems rather broad," said Peter; "and one had always heard that
Catholicism was nothing if not narrow."

"How could it be Catholic if it were narrow?" asked she. "However, if
a Protestant uses his intelligence, and is logical, he'll n