Do I guess and quote rightly, mademoiselle?”
She only smiled in reply. But well she knew that she had been reading from a deeper book than Crashaw.
A few nights after, the Catholic school-house was blown up with gunpowder, and left a perfect wreck. “Of course!” said Mr. Yorke.
“The teacher has taken the children into the galleries of the church,” Patrick said.
“The church will be destroyed, then,” replied his master.
It was not destroyed altogether at once, however, but every window in it was broken. This was done in broad daylight, just after a summer sunset.
Mr. Yorke put himself before the mob, entreating them to forbear, even trying to push back the foremost ones, but without avail. “Don’t listen to him! His niece is a Catholic,” they cried. “To the church!”
Two or three gentlemen drove up in their buggies, and sat at a safe distance while the work of destruction went on, and several women lingered on the outskirts of the crowd. In a neighboring street, out of sight, Edith Yorke stood with Clara, and listened to the sound of breaking glass. For a moment, natural indignation overcame piety in her heart. “Oh! if I were a thousand men on horseback,” she exclaimed. “I’d like to ride them down, and trample them under foot!” Then the next moment, “Oh! how wicked I am!”
“You are not wicked!” Clara said angrily. “I won’t have you talk such nonsense.”
Clara was in that state of mind when she must scold somebody.