save that 'wrong was more wrong for the Catholic,' who had more light and
guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled them with contempt.

'It is a bad idea for a man to change,' said one.

It may have been accidental, but you see how this phrase pursued me; and
for myself, I believe it is the current philosophy in these parts. I
have some difficulty in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight
of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for
heaven's sake; but the odds are--nay, and the hope is--that, with all
this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a
hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the
wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of strength or
weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, in those who can take a
sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or who
can quit a friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think I
should not leave my old creed for another, changing only words for other
words; but by some brave reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and
find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other communions.

The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and instead of wine we drank at
dinner a more economical juice of the grape--La Parisienne, they call it.
It is made by putting the fruit whole into a cask with water; one by one
the berries ferment and burst; what is drunk during the day is supplied
at night in water: so, with ever another pitcher from the well, and ever
another grape exploding and giving out its strength, one cask of
Parisienne may last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will
anticipate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste.

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three before I left St.