“I never can remember that you are still a Protestant, poor child. You don’t mind being called so, I hope?”
Frances was much too embarrassed to reply, but fortunately Lady Argent did not wait for a disclaimer.
“To think that I once held those shocking notions myself, dear. I really can hardly believe it now.”
“How long is it since you became a Catholic?”
“Six years, dear child. It all seems like a dream—the time before one had the Faith, you know. It all happened in such a wonderful way. I was staying at the seaside with a poor old Catholic aunt of mine who was dying, and she had a great friend who was a nun in a convent there. So she used to ask me to go and give this old nun news of her from time to time, and I went. Mother Serafina her name was, and I always think it’s such a beautiful name, though I dare say that’s just association, since, of course, one couldn’t exactly call one’s daughter Serafina, and in any case I don’t think nuns are allowed to be godmothers even if one asked her to—— Where was I, dear?”
“You were telling me how you went to the convent to give the nun news of your aunt.”
“Oh yes, and the little parlour was so dreadfully bare and cold, as it seemed to me then,” mysteriously interpolated Lady Argent as though some concealed source of heat in the little fireless room had since been revealed to her; “but there she sat, always smiling away, and that great brown rosary at her side. So sympathetic always, and the whole community praying every day for my poor aunt; and I remember one day she told me that she would pray every day for me, too, because of the anxiety and everything, you know, dear. So charitable and broad-minded, I always think, because I hadn’t any idea of being a Catholic at all then. But the Church always prays for those outside the Fold in the most touching way.”
“I always like when we say the prayer for Jews and Roman Catholics, once a year,” said Frances thoughtfully.
Lady Argent flushed in a most agitated way.
“Pray don’t talk of it, my dear. It makes me very angry indeed. The idea of their praying for us as heretics! and calling us Roman Catholics, too! Such impertinence, I always think.”