“Then could you not take up nursing? Or go into some sisterhood? Nothing extreme, you know, but just a working sisterhood.”
Erica smiled, and shook her head.
“Why should I try to make another vocation when God has already given me one?”
“But, my dear, consider the benefit to your own soul.”
“A very secondary consideration!” exclaimed Erica, impetuously.
“I should have thought,” continued Mr. Fane-Smith, “that under such strange circumstances you would have seen how necessary it was to forsake all. Think of St. Matthew, for instance; he rose up at once, forsook all, and followed Him.”
“Yes,” said Erica. “And what was the very first thing he was impelled to do by way of 'following?' Why, to make a great feast and have in all his old friends, all the despised publicans.”
“My dear Erica,” said Mr. Fane-Smith, feeling his theological arguments worsted, “we must discuss this matter on practical grounds. In plain words, your father is a very bad man, and you ought to have nothing more to do with him.”
Erica's lips turned white with anger; but she answered, calmly:
“That is a very great accusation. How do you know it is true?”