“She’s a dear little kiddie,” were the words, striking Ludovic as singularly inappropriate, which prefaced the recital of Bertha’s perplexities, “but this religious phase is very tiresome. One knows that all young things go through it, like measles, but this seems to be a particularly violent attack.”
“Would there be any very vital objection to her joining the Roman Catholic Church?”
Bertha hesitated.
“No-o—only on general principles. I believe her mother was a Roman Catholic, as far as baptism went, but Dick was quite firm about having the children brought up in his own faith, and I don’t fancy poor Rose cared either way. The children knew precious little when they came to me, but of course they learnt their catechism and all the rest of it with my Hazel. I believe in giving children a thoroughly orthodox grounding, at all events. Frances was always more inclined to be ‘pi,’ as my schoolboy friends call it, than either of the other two.”
“Temperamentally religious?”
“Yes, I suppose so. That’s generally the sort that suffers from the worst reaction. Poor mite, she told me quite gravely that she needed an intellectual discipline.”
“I have seldom heard a better reason for joining the Church of Rome,” said Ludovic gravely.
“She’s picked up the phrase from some book, I suppose. Poor little thing! It makes one smile, and at the same time sigh, to hear anything so very, very young. One went through it all oneself so many years ago, and eventually came back to just the old way of thinking—as one’s parents before one. But I’m talking as though you were a contemporary,” said Bertha laughing, “and forgetting that you belong to the younger generation yourself.”
Ludovic became aware that this forgetfulness implied a compliment. He tried to appear gratified, but was no longer young enough to feel so in reality.
“I am at all events able to sympathize with Miss Frances in her outlook,” he said slowly. “I do not like what I know of the Catholic religion, but it would give her the discipline she craves.”