“I quite agree with you, Mrs. Conyers, at any rate as far as my son is concerned.  Walter has never spoken to me on the subject.  I suppose fathers and sons are less given to confidences of this sort than mothers and daughters.  But that Walter is deeply and earnestly attached to your daughter is unquestionable, and, indeed, it would be singular were it otherwise.  I have stood passive in the matter, simply because I saw that you took no steps to keep them apart; and you could not but have seen, at an early period of their acquaintance, in what direction matters were tending.”

“Frankly,” Mrs. Conyers said, “I gave the matter no thought, during your first stay with us.  I had regarded Claire as a child, and it did not, at first, occur to me that there could be any danger of her falling seriously in love, for years to come.  When my eyes were opened to the true state of things, and I found my little girl had lost her heart, I could have wished it otherwise.

“I do not mean as to worldly matters,” she went on hastily, seeing that Captain Davenant was about to speak.  “That weighed absolutely nothing with me.  Indeed, they may be considered to be well matched in that respect.  If the war is decided in favour of King William, Claire will be a rich heiress.  If, on the other hand, your cause triumph, you will regain your confiscated estates, while we shall lose ours.  So that there is, I consider, no inequality whatever in their position.  The difficulty, of course, to which I allude is their religion.  This is naturally a grave obstacle, and I fear that my husband will regard it as such, even more strongly than I do.  He is, however, extremely attached to Claire, and will, I feel sure, when he sees that her happiness is at stake, come round to my views of the matter.

“There are,” she said with a smile, “Catholics and Catholics, just as there are Protestants and Protestants.  I would rather see Claire in her grave than married to many Catholics I know; but neither you nor Walter are bigots.”

“No, indeed,” Captain Davenant said.  “We came over to this country when Catholicism was the religion of all England, and we have maintained the religious belief of our fathers.  I own that what I may call political Protestantism is hateful to me; but between such Catholicism as mine, and such Protestantism as yours, I see no such broad distinctions as should cause us to hate each other.”

“That is just my view,” Mrs. Conyers agreed.  “The differences between the creeds are political rather than religious, and, in any case, I consider that when neither of the parties is bigoted, the chances of happiness are greater in the case where the man is a Catholic and the woman a Protestant, than in the opposite case.”

“I think so, too,” Captain Davenant said.  “At any rate, I do not think that Walter and Claire would be likely to quarrel over their respective opinions.”