kfast he would go to his father's room; and after
that, he would find his mother. There would then be no doubt that the
news would duly leak out among his sisters and Aunt Letty.

"Again only just barely in time, Herbert," said Mary, as they
clustered round the fire before dinner.

"You can't say I ever keep you waiting; and I really think that's
some praise for a man who has got a good many things on his hand."

"So it is, Herbert," said Emmeline. "But we have done something too.
We have been over to Berryhill; and the people have already begun
there: they were at work with their pickaxes among the rocks by the
river-side."

"So much the better. Was Mr. Somers there?"

"We did not see him; but he had been there," said Aunt Letty. "But
Mrs. Townsend found us. And who do you think came up to us in the
most courteous, affable, condescending way?"

"Who? I don't know. Brady, the builder, I suppose."

"No, indeed: Brady was not half so civil, for he kept himself to his
own work. It was the Rev. Mr. M'Carthy, if you please."

"I only hope you were civil to him," said Herbert, with some slight
suffusion of colour over his face; for he rather doubted the conduct
of his aunt to the priest, especially as her great Protestant ally,
Mrs. Townsend, was of the party.

"Civil! I don't know what you would have, unless you wanted me to
embrace him. He shook hands with us all round. I really thought Mrs.
Townsend would have looked him into the river when he came to her."

"She always was the quintessence of absurdity and prejudice," said
he.

"Oh, Herbert!" exclaimed Aunt Letty.

"Well; and what of 'Oh, Herbert?' I say she is so. If you and Mary
and Emmeline did not look him into the river when he shook hands with
you, why should she do so? He is an ordained priest even according to
her own tenets,--only she knows nothing of what her own tenets are."

"I'll tell you what they are. They are the substantial, true, and
holy doctrines of the Protestant religion, founded on the gospel.
Mrs. Townsend is a thoroughly Protestant woman; one who cannot abide
the sorceries of popery."

"Hates them as a mad dog hates water; and with the same amount of
judgment. We none of us wish to be drowned; but nevertheless there
are some good qualities in water."

"But there are no good qualities in popery," said Aunt Letty, with
her most extreme energy.

"Are there not?" said Herbert. "I should have thought that belief in
Christ, belief i