Archie gave a low whistle of surprise, and stared at Seymour, as though expecting him to say more, but if such was his expectation, he was doomed to disappointment, for Seymour having delivered in these few words the full extent of his information on the topic under discussion, closed his lips and turned his attention to his book again.
Minnie looked distressed, but Archie did not notice it in his astonishment and eagerness to know more about this mysterious proceeding.
"Is it true, Minnie?" he demanded. "Seymour, who told you that?—I declare I don't believe a word of it."
"Edward Laurence told me," replied Seymour, without looking up. "His mother was down there at Hollowmell yesterday, and came home full of it. I did not know before to-day that I had a saint for a sister; and as for not believing it, if you don't, just look at her and you soon will."
And sure enough her face was dyed with a hot flush that mounted even as he spoke to the roots of her hair, though he could only have been instinctively aware of her confusion, for his head was still bent over his book.
Archie looked from the one to the other in open-mouthed astonishment for a minute or two, and then it dawned upon him that Minnie looked, to say the least of it, uncomfortable, and stifling his curiosity, which was by this time greater than ever, as best he could, suddenly relapsed into silence.
Soon afterwards Seymour left the room, and Minnie resolved to seize this opportunity of telling Archie the real facts of the case.
"It was so kind of you," she commenced rather confusedly, "to help me as you did just now. I could not tell you about it while Seymour was here, for you know very well how he laughs at religion, and says it is all done for show, and that there is no heart in it at all. I don't mean that I should have told you if Seymour had not been here, for I wouldn't have mentioned it if he had not—"
"Never mind about that," interrupted Archie, impatiently, "proceed with the story—or," he hastily interrupted himself, "not if it bothers you to talk about it. I don't mind much, you know."
Minnie smiled, knowing well how much he did mind, and assured him that it would not bother her at all to tell him, as she knew he would listen patiently, and not ridicule anything she might say.