"Judge for yourself, child," he answered, kindly.
"I think I ought to go," said Celia, faintly.
"I am a Catholic, Mr. Passmore, it is true," remarked Lady Ingram, quietly; "yet you need not fear me. Sir Edward, my husband, was Protestant, and so is his son Edward: and I do not interfere. We are all surely going to heaven, and what matter for the different roads?"
"I think I ought to go," repeated Celia, but Madam Passmore thought, still more faintly than before.
"On Thursday, then," answered Lady Ingram, touching Celia's cheek with her lips. "Ah! ma chère, how I will improve you when I have you to myself!—how I will form you! That bon ton, that aisance, that maintien!—you have them not. You shall soon! Adieu!"
"Well, sure, 'tis sore to lose you, Mrs. Celia, my dear!" observed Cicely Aggett, as she sat sewing; "but more particular to a stranger—among them dreadful Papists—and such a way off, too! Why, 'tis nigh a hundred mile from here to Paris, ben't it?"
"I don't know how far it is," said Celia, honestly; "but I am sure 'tis a very long way."
"Well, anyhow, you'll not forget us, dear heart?"
"I shall never do that, Cicely. But don't talk as if I were going away altogether. 'Tis only a visit. I shall soon come back—in a year, at the longest."
"Maybe, my dear," answered Cicely, quietly; "and maybe not, Mrs. Celia. A year is a long time, and we none of us know what the Lord may have for us afore then. Not one of us a-going along with you! Well, you'll have Him with you, and He'll see to you a deal better than we could. But to think of you going among them wicked, cruel Papists! Don't have no more to do with none of them than you can help—don't, my dear! Depend upon it, Mrs. Celia, they ben't a bit better now than they was a hundred and fifty years ago, when they burned and tormented poor folks all over the country, as my grandmother used to tell me."