"I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways."
"Yet," interrupted Elinor, "they too are serving God in their own way."
Mary Brent shook her head. "I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood's Barn."
Elinor murmured something about "toleration."
"Toleration!" repeated her cousin scornfully. "I hate the word. He that tolerates any religion against his own is either a hypocrite or a backslider."
"Shall there be no liberty of conscience?"
"Ay, but liberty to think wrong is no liberty."
"These be deep matters, my daughters, and best left to the schoolmen," said Father White. "None doubt that Mistress Brent hath kept her fidelity unspotted to the Church. Let Elinor Calvert pattern after her kinswoman."
Thereafter Father White turned again to the subject of missions, and the two women listened till the hour-glass had been turned and the candles began to burn low in their sockets. At last Mary Brent grew somewhat impatient. If she had a vice it was excess of punctuality. She was willing to share her last crust with a stranger; but he must be on hand when it came out of the oven. The hours for meals and especially for bedtime were scrupulously observed in her household, and to-night it irked her to be kept up thus beyond her usual hour for retiring.
Elinor, perceiving this and feeling some sense of responsibility for the cause, said at last,—