our Lady, without repeating Ave and Salve?"

"How could they, indeed, before she was born?" was the retort.

"Oh dear, dear!" said Eularia. "Why, thou knowest nothing."

Beatrice privately thought that she would prefer not to know all that
rubbish. Plenty of it was served up to her before she left the convent,
by the holy Sisters of Saint Clare.

It was nearly three weeks before Bruno came for her, and very weary of
her hosts she was. They were no less astonished and dismayed by her.
The ignorant heathen would not worship the holy images, would not use
holy water, would not kneel before the holy Sacrament, would not do
this, that, and the other: and, not content with this series of
negations, she actually presumed to reason about them!

"What dost thou believe?" despairingly demanded Sister Eularia at last.

"I believe in God," said Beatrice gravely. "And I believe that Jesus of
Nazareth was the Sent of God."

"And in the Holy Ghost?" asked Eularia.

"If I understand you, certainly. Is it not written, `The Spirit of God
hath made me'?"

"And in holy Church?"

"I do not know. What is it?"

"How shocking! And in the forgiveness of sins?"

"Assuredly."

"And in the resurrection and eternal life?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And in the invocation of the holy saints?"

"I believe that there have been holy men and women."

"And dost thou invoke them?"

"Do you mean, pray to them?"

"Dost thou beg of them to intercede for thee?"

"No, indeed, not I!"

"Did I ever see such ignorance! And thou wilt not learn."

"I will learn of my father, and no one else. I am sure he does not
believe half the rubbish you do."

"_Sancta Hilaria, or a pro nobis_!"

"What language is that?" innocently asked Beatrice.

"The holy tongue, of course."

"It is not our holy tongue."

"Have Jews a holy tongue?" responded Eularia, in surprise.

"Yes, indeed,--Hebrew."

"I did not know they believed any thing to be holy. Have they any
relics?"

"I do not know what those are."

Eularia led the way to the sacristy.

"Look here," she said, reverently opening a golden reliquary set with
rubies. "Here is a small piece of the holy veil of our foundress, Saint
Clare. This is the finger-bone of the blessed Evangelist Matthew. Here
is a piece of the hoof of the holy ass on which our Lord rode. Now thou
knowest what relics are."

"But what can make you keep such things as those?" asked Beatrice,
opening wide her lustr