The old lady’s eyes filled with compassionate tears, and she laid her sewing down to fetch out a little lace-fringed pocket-handkerchief.

Maggie leaned back with one easy movement in her low chair, clasping her hands behind her head; but she still said nothing.  Mrs. Baxter finished the little ceremony of wiping her eyes, and, still winking a little, bending over her needlework, continued the commentary.

“Do try to help him, my dear.  That was why I asked you to come back yesterday.  I wanted you to be in the house for the funeral.  You see, Laurie’s becoming a Catholic at Oxford has brought you two together.  It’s no good my talking to him about the religious side of it all; he thinks I know nothing at all about the next world, though I’m sure—­”

“Tell me,” said the girl suddenly, still in the same attitude, “has he been practicing his religion?  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’m sure I should have made no objection; and then in the spring he seemed to be getting rather tired of it all.  I don’t think he gets on with Father Mahon very well.  I don’t think Father Mahon understands him quite.  It was he, you know, who told him not to be a priest, and I think that discouraged 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 amiable cat trying to go to sleep on a rifle range; 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 Rome was the only home worthy to shelter his aspiring 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 summoned Anglican 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 tempered by the reflection that in that case Maggie would inherit this house and carry on its traditions in a suitable manner.  Maggie had come to her, upon leaving her convent school three years before, with a pleasant little income of her own—­had