“An Atheist rather than a Catholic?” said Alice, raising her eyes to those of Mrs. Rolfe for the first time for several minutes.
“Most assuredly; a thousand times rather. Why, when I was a girl, several of my acquaintances married young men who were pleased to consider themselves sceptics,—it was rather the fashion in those days,—but, bless you, the last one of them was a vestryman before five years of married life had passed. But a Catholic! Heaven forbid! One of two things, Alice, invariably happens to a Protestant girl who marries a Catholic. Either, halting between opposing claims, she loses all interest in religion itself, or else she goes over to the enemy. Oh, Alice, Alice,” cried she, with sudden vehemence, “do not tell me that my poor Mary loves a Catholic! Lost to me in this world—and—”
I will tell you, my Ah Yung Whack, what Mrs. Rolfe was going to say when Alice interrupted her with a merry laugh. She was going to add, “lost in the next.”
It was, indeed, as I have hinted in earlier chapters of this work, the settled conviction of the Protestants of Virginia, at that day, that all Catholics were as surely destined to the bottomless pit as the very heathen who had never so much as heard a whisper of the Glad Tidings. (My Catholic friends often complained to me of this bigotry. For my part, I hardly knew whether to laugh or to weep when I remembered that they had made precisely the same arrangements for my Protestant acquaintance.)
“Why, who told you he was a Catholic?”
“Heaven be praised! Then what is he, pray?”
“I am afraid he is a little sceptical,—or—or—something.”
“And is that all? Sceptical or something! Capital, Alice!” cried she, with a bright laugh. “You have hit them off to a nicety. Sceptical or something,—that’s just it. You see, my dear, when the beard begins to sprout on a youth’s chin, he fancies that it is time he had opinions of his own. At this period he begins to sneer at the ‘fiery furnace’ story, and discovers that whales, though their mouths be large, have small throats, and could never have swallowed Jonah. His throat, at any rate, is too small to swallow such musty tales,—leave that to the old women! Sceptical or something! Excellent, excellent, Alice! Ah, that merry tongue of yours!”
“I am delighted that you take so philosophical a view of the case,” said Alice, much taken aback at this unexpected praise of her wit. She might have added that she was amazed. How often do those we know best utterly confound us in this way! Mrs. Rolfe was what some lukewarm people called fanatically pious; and Alice had been looking forward with dread to the scene that poor Mary must have with her when she learned that her daughter had given her heart to a sceptic (or something). Strange! it was the very energy of this fanaticism which wrought the result which so surprised Alice. It is possible for convictions to be so strong as to inspire a merry incredulity touching the honesty of opposing beliefs.
“Why, of course,” rejoined Mrs. Rolfe, smiling complacently. (It was the word philosophical that did the business.) “The fact is, my dear, there are no infidels. It is all the merest affectation. Most young men pass through an attack of scepticism, just as, earlier in life, teething must be gone through with. It is a cheap mode of earning a reputation for brains. With girls, this striving to be brilliant takes a different shape. Many young women cultivate sarcasm for a year or so after leaving school, not having seen enough of mankind to know that a satirical turn infallibly indicates the combination of a bad heart with an empty head. But people of experience learn to pardon these foibles of youth. The fact is, Alice,” added Mrs. Rolfe, smiling, “I know nothing in life more deliciously comic than a young graduate posing as a ‘thinker.’ Of course, if they are loud-mouthed—”