repared to do their duty by their country,
whereas Aunt Letty would consider herself bound both by party feeling
and religious duty, to prove that the Roman Catholics were bad in
everything.

"Oh, Herbert, to hear you say so!" she exclaimed at one time, "it
makes me tremble in my shoes. It is dreadful to think that those
people should have got such a hold over you."

"I really think that the Roman Catholic priests are liberal in their
ideas and moral in their conduct." This was the speech which had made
Aunt Letty tremble in her shoes, and it may, therefore, be conceived
that Mr. Prendergast did not find himself able to form any firm
opinion from the statements then made to him. Instead of doing so, he
set them both down as "Wild Irish," whom it would be insane to trust,
and of whom it was absurd to make inquiries. It may, however, be
possibly the case that Mr. Prendergast himself had his own prejudices
as well as Aunt Letty and Herbert Fitzgerald.

On the following morning they were still more mute at breakfast. The
time was coming in which Mr. Prendergast was to go to work, and even
he, gifted though he was with iron nerves, began to feel somewhat
unpleasantly the nature of the task which he had undertaken. Lady
Fitzgerald did not appear at all. Indeed, during the whole of
breakfast-time and up to the moment at which Mr. Prendergast was
summoned, she was sitting with her husband, holding his hand in hers,
and looking tenderly but painfully into his face. She so sat with him
for above an hour, but he spoke to her no word of this revelation he
was about to make. Herbert and the girls, and even Aunt Letty, sat
solemn and silent, as though it was known by them all that something
dreadful was to be said and done. At last Herbert, who had left the
room, returned to it. "My father will see you now, Mr. Prendergast,
if you will step up to him," said he; and then he ran to his mother
and told her that he should leave the house till dinner-time.

"But if he sends for you, Herbert, should you not be in the way?"

"It is more likely that he should send for you; and, were I to remain
here, I should be going into his room when he did not want me." And
then he mounted his horse and rode off.

Mr. Prendergast, with serious air and slow steps, and solemn resolve
to do what he had to do at any rate with justice, walked away from
the dining-room to the baronet's study. The task of an old friend
is not always a pleasant one, and M