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"Tell irl suddenly, still in the saion? You see, I haven't seen much of him this year, and--"

"I'm afraid not very well," said the old lady tolerantly "He thought he was going to be a priest at first, you remember, and I' he seeets on with Father Mahon very well I don't think Father Mahon understands him quite It was he, you knoho told hied poor Laurie"

"I see," said the girl shortly And Mrs Baxter applied herself again to her sewing

It was indeed a rather trying time for the old lady She was a tranquil and serene soul; and it seemed as if she were doomed to live over a perpetual volcano It was as pathetic as an ae; she was developing the jumps The first serious explosion had taken place two years before, when her son, then in his third year at Oxford, had come back with the announcement that Ro soul, and that he must be received into the Church in six weeks' time She had produced little books for his edification, as in duty bound, she had sulican divines to the rescue; but all had been useless, and Laurie had gone back to Oxford as an avowed proselyte

She had soon become accustomed to the idea, and indeed, when the first shock was over had not greatly disliked it, since her own adopted daughter, of half French parentage, Margaret Marie Deronnais, had been educated in the same faith, and was an eminently satisfactory person The next shock was Laurie's announcement of his intention to enter the priesthood, and perhaps the Religious Life as well; but this too had been teie would inherit this house and carry on its traditions in a suitableher convent school three years before, with a pleasant little incoement made previously to her mother's death--and her manner of life, her reasonableness, her adaptability, her presentableness had reassured the old lady considerably as to the tolerableness of the Roion Indeed, once she had hoped that Laurie and Maggiethat would prevent all possible difficulty as to the future of his house and estate; but the fourth volcanic stor in pieces about Mrs Baxter's delicate ears; and, during the last threeho, pink and white daughter of a Baptist grocer of the village