"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and so have set all their hopes on God."
"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than to one little individual man?"
"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!"
"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing about Sister Agatha."
"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it about Sister Agatha."
"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, "without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the ordinary hospitals."
"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther.
"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing.
"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. "That would break father's heart, if you like."
A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last.