some of your stiff-necked Presbyterian
notions. I shall really begin to suspect you are a Methodist and yet you
are not at all like one."

"Pray, tell me," said Mary, with a smile, "what are your ideas of
a Methodist?"

"Oh! thank heaven, I know little about them!--almost as little as Dr.
Redgill, who, I verily believe, could scarcely tell the difference
betwixt a Catholic and a Methodist, except that the one dances and
t'other prays. But I am rather inclined to believe it is a sort of a
scowling, black-browed, hard-favoured creature, with its greasy hair
combed straight upon its flat forehead, and that twirls its thumbs, and
turns up its eyes, and speaks through its nose and, in short, is
everything that you are not, except in this matter--of going to church.
So, to avert all these evil signs from falling upon you, I shall make a
point of your keeping company with me for the rest of the day."

Again Mary became serious, as she renewed her entreaties to her
cousin to intercede with Lady Juliana that she might be allowed to
attend _any_ church.

"Not for kingdoms!" exclaimed she. "Her Ladyship is in one of her most
detestable humours to-day; not that I should mind that, if it was
anything of real consequence that I had to compass for you. A ball, for
instance--I should certainly stand by you there but I am really not so
fond of mischief as to enrage her for nothing!"

"Then I fear I must go to church without it," said Mary in a melancholy
tone.

"If you are to go at all, it must certainly be without it. And here is
the carriage--get your bonnet, and come along with me. You shall at
least have a sight of the church."

Mary went to put on her pelisse; and, descending to join her cousin in
the drawing-room, she found her engaged in an argument with Dr. Redgill.
How it had commenced did not appear; but the Doctor's voice was raised
as if to bring it to a decided termination.

"The French, madam, in spite of your prejudices, are a very superior
nation to us. Their skill and knowledge are both infinitely higher.
Every man in France is a first-rate cook--in fact, they are a nation of
cooks; and one of our late travellers assures us that they have
discovered three hundred methods of dressing eggs, for one thing."

"That is just two hundred and ninety-nine ways more than enough," said
Lady Emily "give me a plain boiled egg, and I desire no other variety of
the produce of a hen till it takes the form of a chicken."