put it----"

"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice.

"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on.
"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes
saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father
didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he
didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it
doesn't, really."

"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point.

But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain.

"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just
the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much
stricter, of course."

"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice.

"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody
does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to
go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----"

Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in
the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a
drink. But Alan was not going to do that?

Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon