allusion to
the superior church-attending qualities of 'our people,' that Mrs Yeld
drew herself up and changed the conversation by observing that there
had been a great deal of rain lately.

When the ladies were gone the bishop at once put himself in the way of
conversation with the priest, and asked questions as to the morality
of Beccles. It was evidently Mr Barham's opinion that 'his people'
were more moral than other people, though very much poorer. 'But the
Irish always drink,' said Mr Hepworth.

'Not so much as the English, I think,' said the priest. 'And you are
not to suppose that we are all Irish. Of my flock the greater
proportion are English.'

'It is astonishing how little we know of our neighbours,' said the
bishop. 'Of course I am aware that there are a certain number of
persons of your persuasion round about us. Indeed, I could give the
exact number in this diocese. But in my own immediate neighbourhood I
could not put my hand upon any families which I know to be Roman
Catholic.'

'It is not, my lord, because there are none.'

'Of course not. It is because, as I say, I do not know my neighbours.'

'I think, here in Suffolk, they must be chiefly the poor,' said Mr
Hepworth.

'They were chiefly the poor who at first put their faith in our
Saviour,' said the priest.

'I think the analogy is hardly correctly drawn,' said the bishop, with
a curious smile. 'We were speaking of those who are still attached to
an old creed. Our Saviour was the teacher of a new religion. That the
poor in the simplicity of their hearts should be the first to
acknowledge the truth of a new religion is in accordance with our idea
of human nature. But that an old faith should remain with the poor
after it has been abandoned by the rich is not so easily
intelligible.'

'The Roman population still believed,' said Carbury, 'when the
patricians had learned to regard their gods as simply useful
bugbears.'

'The patricians had not ostensibly abandoned their religion. The
people clung to it thinking that their masters and rulers clung to it
also.'

'The poor have ever been the salt of the earth, my lord,' said the
priest.

'That begs the whole question,' said the bishop, turning to his host,
and, beginning to talk about a breed of pigs which had lately been
imported into the palace sties. Father Barham turned to Mr Hepworth
and went on with his argument, or rather began another. It was a
mistake to suppose that the Catholi