had caught up a spud that stood in the hall, and at that instant had
stopped to destroy a youthful plantain that had established himself
with infinite pains on the slope of the path. She attacked for a few
seconds, extricated what was possible of the root with her strong
fingers, tossed the corpse among the ivy, and then moved on.

"I don't know whether to say anything to Mrs. Stapleton or not,"
pursued the old lady.

"I think I shouldn't, auntie," said the girl slowly.

They spoke of it for a minute or two as they passed up and down, but
Maggie only attended with one superficies of her mind.

She had gone up as usual to Mass that morning, and had been astonished
to find Laurie already in church; they had walked back together, and,
to her surprise, he had told her that the Mass had been for his own
intention.

She had answered as well as she could; but a sentence or two of his as
they came near home had vaguely troubled her.

It was not that he had said anything he ought not, as a Catholic, to
have said; yet her instinct told her that something was wrong. It was
his manner, his air, that troubled her. What strange people these
converts were! There was so much ardor at one time, so much chilliness
at another; there was so little of that steady workaday acceptance of
religious facts that marked the born Catholic.

"Mrs. Stapleton is a New Thought kind of person," she said presently.