As he unfolded this gorgeous prospect I was ravished with delight. Foreign Lands! Normandy! Châteaux! Paris! But Grandmother—why was she looking doubtful, unmoved?
"Papists?" she asked him, keenly.
"They are Roman Catholics." This as though somehow a palliative.
My heart stopped. I scented battle. Lord Tawborough counter-attacked before the forces of objection could muster.
"Yes, Mrs. Lee: Papists, of course, like nearly all French people. But what an opportunity for Mary! If she could help them to a better way, it would be achieving more than to convert a hundred heathen!"
His tongue was in his cheek. Conscience called: Denounce his lies! Ambition urged furiously: Keep silence! My heart was throbbing, as the battle of selves raged within. I saw that Grandmother took his false words in good faith: Ambition was the winning-side and stifled Conscience utterly.
"True," said my Grandmother, and accepted with sober gratitude. Aunt Jael grunted warmer approval. I thanked him with tears of pleasure.
Details were arranged. I was to go in April, a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday. There was never any direct correspondence; Lord Tawborough made all arrangements. Towards my expenses he gave five pounds, which Grandmother most furiously spent in "a new shuit of clothes." In all I had three new dresses, the finest I had ever possessed; I had no suspicion of how dowdy they might look in my new surroundings. Lord Tawborough, however, to whom Aunt Jael proudly displayed them, must have had the gravest suspicions, for in spite of resistance he sent me to the best dressmaker in the town for a white silk "evening" dress, and to the ladies' tailor in Boutport Street for a smart new riding-habit. For parting-present Aunt Jael gave me a set of bone-backed hair-brushes; Glory and Salvation a pair of kid gloves and a silk scarf; Pentecost Dodderidge a New Testament with an original hymn inscribed in the title page; Mrs. Cheese a plain gold brooch and green parasol, the Meeting a magnificent French Bible in limp red morocco, which was presented to me publicly at my last Breaking of Bread; Brother Browning a Scotch travelling rug; my Grandmother a photograph of my mother I had often begged for and cried over and kissed.
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