.

"They are supposed to be the souls of persons who died impenitent," said
Thelma, "and they are doomed to wander, on the hills till the day of
judgment. It is a sort of purgatory."

Duprez shook his fingers emphatically in the air.

"Ah, bah!" he said; "what droll things remain still in the world! Yes,
in spite of liberty, equality, fraternity! You do not believe in foolish
legends, Mademoiselle? For example,--do you think you will suffer
purgatory?"

"Indeed yes!" she replied. "No one can be good enough to go straight to
heaven. There must be some little stop on the way in which to be sorry
for all the bad things one has done."

"'Tis the same idea as ours," said Gueldmar. "We have two places of
punishment in the Norse faith; one, _Nifleheim_, which is a temporary
thing like the Catholic purgatory; the other _Nastrond_, which is the
counterpart of the Christian hell. Know you not the description of
_Nifleheim_ in the _Edda_?--'tis terrible enough to satisfy all tastes.
'Hela, or Death rules over the Nine Worlds of Nifleheim. Her hall is
called Grief. Famine is her table, and her only servant is Delay. Her
gate is a precipice, her porch Faintness, her bed Leanness,--Cursing and
Howling are her tent. Her glance is dreadful and terrifying,--and her
lips are blue with the venom of Hatred.' These words," he added, "sound
finer in Norwegian, but I have given the meaning fairly."

"Ma certes!" said Macfarlane chuckling. "I'll tell my aunt in Glasgie
aboot it. This Nifleheim wad suit her pairfectly,--she wad send a' her
relations there wi' tourist tickets, not available for the return
journey!"

"It seems to me," observed Errington, "that the Nine Worlds of Nifleheim
have a resemblance to the different circles of Dante's Purgatory."

"Exactly so," said Lorimer. "All religions seem to me to be more or less
the same,--the question I can never settle is,--which is the right one?"

"Would you follow it if you knew?" asked Thelma, with a slight smile.
Lorimer laughed.

"Well, upon my life, I don't know!" he answered frankly, "I never was a
praying sort of fellow,--I don't seem to grasp the idea of it somehow.
But there's one thing I'm certain of,--I can't endure a bird without
song,--a flower without scent, or a _woman_ without religion--she seems
to me no woman at all."

"But _are_ there any such women?" inquired the girl surprised.

"Yes, there are undoubtedly! Free-thinking, stump-orator,
have-your-rights sort o