d was pretending to make court to her at
first, and she believed in him, and loved him. At that time, she says,
she would not have brooked a word against him; and as to believing him
to be the wretch he has turned out, she would as soon have thought the
sun created darkness. There was no show of Popery at all in the family.
They went to church like other people, and talked just like others.
From a word dropped by Miss Theresa Newton, Hatty began to think that
Mr Crossland's heart was not so undividedly her own as she had hoped;
and she presently discovered that he was not to be trusted on that
point. They had a quarrel, and he professed penitence, and promised to
give up Miss Marianne; and for a while Hatty thought all was right
again. Then, little by little, Mrs Crossland (whose right name seems
to be Mother Mary Benedicta of the Annunciation--what queer names they
do use, to be sure!)--well, Mrs Crossland began to tell Hatty all kinds
of strange stories about the saints, and miracles, and so forth, which
she said she had heard from the Irish peasantry. At first she told them
as things to laugh at; then she began to wonder if there might be some
truth in one or two of them; there were strange things in this world!
And so she went on from little to little, always drawing back and
keeping silence for a while if she found that she was going too fast for
Hatty to follow.

"I can see it all now, looking back," said Hatty. "It was all one great
whole; but at the time I did not see it at all. They seemed mere
passing remarks, bits of conversation that came in anyhow."

Hatty felt sure that Mrs Crossland was a concealed Papist long before
she suspected the young man. And when, at last, both threw the mask
off, they had her fast in their toils. She was strictly warned never to
talk with me except on mere trifling subjects; and she had to give an
account of every word that had been said when she returned. If she hid
the least thing from them, she was assured it would be a terrible sin.

"But you don't mean to say you believed all that rubbish?" cried I.

"It was not a question of belief," she answered. "I loved him. I would
have done anything in all the world to win a smile from him; and he knew
it. As to belief--I do not know what I believed: my brain felt like a
chaos, and my heart in a whirl."

"And now, Hatty?" said I. I meant to ask what she believed now: but she
answered me differently.

"Now," she said