“If I had not, you would,” retorted Sybil; “you are perfectly crazed on religious discussion. I see how it is going to end!”
I burst out laughing. Millicent, however, looked amazed.
“I will tell you what I see,” I said: “that you had much better have stayed at home and discussed life with Mr. Halsted than come out here to bully us. It would be serving you right if I made a papist of you on the spot.”
Sybil saw that Millicent was vexed, and, adroitly dropping the subject, burst out into vehement denunciation of French conventionalities. If it had been any other country in the universe, Mr. Halsted might have come out for a walk with us, and we should have had an excellent time of it; for he was the very best company she knew. We continued, nevertheless, despite his absence, to enjoy a very pleasant walk, and to steer clear of burning subjects the rest of the way. The incident, however, left its mark on us all three, and from that day forth there was an imperceptible but a very decided change in Millicent’s “views.” As to Sybil’s, I never got a glimpse of them, so it may not be rash judgment to express a doubt whether she had any.
I kept to my promise of avoiding controversy with Millicent, and she, seeing my reluctance to gratify her curiosity on this point, gave up trying to overcome it. We talked very freely on religious customs and institutions, but whenever she demanded my reasons for believing this or that I evaded controversy by that inexorable Catholic answer so aggravating to a Protestant—“The church teaches it.”
The winter passed, and the spring, and my mother and I were preparing to leave Paris to spend the month of June in London. One of my greatest difficulties in going away was how poor Mme. Martin was to get on in my absence. Millicent had come with me once a week to visit her. She would continue to do this when I was gone, I had no doubt; but the poor soul was in a state that required a visit every day, and I hardly dare ask or expect that Millicent would break from her mother and her own occupations regularly every day for this purpose, or that Mrs. Gray would allow it. I told her of my trouble, and the next morning she ran in looking quite radiant.
“Mamma says she will allow me to go every morning from eleven to twelve and sit with Mme. Martin and do all she wants; is it not good of her!” she exclaimed, embracing me.
“It is!” I cried, “and very good of you, dear Milly. You can’t think what a relief it is to my mind! I was miserable at the thought of leaving her without some one to take my place of a morning; and she is so fond of you, poor soul! She is so touched by your charity—above all in a heretic!” I added, laughing.
“Charity covereth a multitude of sins,” said Millicent. “I suppose the sin of heresy is included?”
It was quite true: Mme. Martin was wonderfully taken with her. She admired her grace, the quiet distinction of her manner, the subdued elegance of her dress—a Frenchwoman has an eye for la toilette so long as the breath of life is in her—and most of all the gentle kindness with which Millicent performed the little services of the sick-room. It was quite beyond her comprehension that so much sweetness and goodness should exist in anybody who was not a Catholic; it was most amusing to see her naïf wonder at this phenomenon, and her surprise that I did not abolish it.