Mrs. Gaunt remonstrated gently with
Griffith, but received short, sullen replies. Then, as the servile
element of her sex was comparatively small in her, she turned bitter and
cold, and avenged Leonard indirectly, but openly, with those terrible
pins and needles a beloved woman has ever at command.

Then Griffith became moody, and downright unhappy, and went more and
more to the "Red Lion," seeking comfort there now as well as company.

Mrs. Gaunt saw, and had fits of irritation, and fits of pity, and sore
perplexity. She knew she had a good husband; and, instead of taking him
to heaven with her, she found that each step she made with Leonard's
help towards the angelic life seemed somehow to be bad for Griffith's
soul and for his earthly happiness.

She blamed herself; she blamed Griffith; she blamed the Protestant
heresy; she blamed everybody and everything--except Brother Leonard.

One Sunday afternoon Griffith sat on his own lawn, silently smoking his
pipe. Mrs. Gaunt came to him, and saw an air of dejection on his genial
face. Her heart yearned. She sat down beside him on the bench, and
sighed; then he sighed too.

"My dear," said she, sweetly, "fetch out your _viol da gambo_, and we
will sing a hymn or two together here this fine afternoon. We can praise
God together, though we must pray apart; alas that it is so!"

"With all my heart," said Griffith. "Nay, I forgot; my _viol da gambo_
is not here. 'T is at the 'Red Lion.'"

"At the 'Red Lion'!" said she, bitterly. "What, do you sing there as
well as drink? O husband, how can you so demean yourself?"

"What is a poor man to do, whose wife is priest-ridden, and got to be no
company--except for angels?"

"I did not come here to quarrel," said she, coldly and sadly. Then they
were both silent a minute. Then she got up and left him.

* * * * *

Brother Leonard, like many earnest men, was rather intolerant. He urged
on Mrs. Gaunt that she had too many Protestants in her household: her
cook and her nursemaid ought, at all events, to be Catholics. Mrs. Gaunt
on this was quite ready to turn them both off, and that without
disguise. But Leonard dissuaded her from so violent a measure. She had
better take occasion to part with one of them, and by and by with the
other.

The nursemaid was the first to go, and her place was filled by a Roman
Catholic. Then the cook received warning. But this did not pass off so
quietly. Jane Bannis