much as a sneaking quarter-belief in it."

"I envy you your strength of mind," said he. "But surely,
though superstition is a luxury forbidden to Catholics, there
are plenty of good Catholics who indulge in it, all the same?"

"There are never plenty of good Catholics," said sire. "You
employ a much-abused expression. To profess the Catholic
faith, to go to Mass on Sunday and abstain from meat on Friday,
that is by no means sufficient to constitute a good Catholic.
To be a good Catholic one would have to be a saint, nothing
less--and not a mere formal saint, either, but a very real
saint, a saint in thought and feeling, as well as in speech and
action. Just in so far as one is superstitious, one is a bad
Catholic. Oh, if the world were populated by good Catholics,
it would be the Millennium come to pass."

"It would be that, if it were populated by good Christians
--wouldn't it?" asked Peter.

"The terms are interchangeable," she answered sweetly, with a
half-comical look of defiance.

"Mercy!" cried he. "Can't a Protestant be a good Christian
too?"

"Yes," she said, "because a Protestant can be a Catholic
without knowing it."

"Oh--?" he puzzled, frowning.