“He and Blanche mean it, whate’er I may.”
“Good lack, how fortunate! Why, he will be a Marquis one day—and hath great store of goods and money. I never looked for such luck. Have you struck hands with him, Sir Thomas?”
Sir Thomas pressed his lips together, and glanced at his sister with an air of helpless vexation. Had it just occurred to him that the pretty doll whom he had chosen to be the partner of his life was a little wanting in the departments of head and heart?
“What, Orige—an enemy?” he said.
“Don John is not an enemy,” returned Lady Enville, with a musical little laugh. “We have all made a friend of him.”
“Ay—and have been fools, perchance, to do it. ’Tis ill toying with a snake. But yet once—a Papist?”
“Good lack! some Papists will get to Heaven, trow.”
“May God grant it!” replied Sir Thomas seriously. “But surely, Orige, surely thou wouldst never have our own child a Papist?”
“I trust Blanche has too much good sense for such foolery, Sir Thomas,” said the lady. “But if no—well, ’tis an old religion, at the least, and a splendrous. You would never let such a chance slip through your fingers, for the sake of Papistry?”
“No, Sister—for the sake of the Gospel,” said Rachel grimly.