cant."

"Well, Anne, I am determined to punish you for it," calmly replied the
mistress. "So you can't see the priest to-day. That settles it."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am; the priest I will see, please God, let what
will happen."

"You must leave this house, then."

"Small loss, madam. America is wide, thank God!" answered Anne.

"Don't you know Mr. Scullion is a brother of mine?"

"I don't care, ma'am, if he was your father. I know he is ignorant or
malicious, either one or the other, or maybe both, or he would not speak
of the Catholic Church as he does. Oh, dear," she cried, bursting into
tears of anger, "what a 'free country' it is! The Protestants in Ireland
were decent. They came, attended by the peelers, to their tenants,
telling them they must conform to the will of the landlord, or quit
their homes; but here ye say all religions are equal, and yet ye try to
compel us to go to listen to low, ignorant preachers, who know they are
lying about the Church of Christ. Ye want us to change the religion of
St. Patrick and of the martyrs for such ridiculous churches as ye have
here. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" said the poor girl, as she contrasted her
present situation with what it was when she was at home at her father's,
where she heard Mass daily, and knew not what it was to suffer
persecution for conscience' sake.

While scenes such as we have here described were taking place in the