“Oh! thank heaven, I know little about them!—­almost as little as Dr. Redgill, who, I verily believe, could scarcely tell the difference betwixt a Catholic and a Methodist, except that the one dances and t’other prays.  But I am rather inclined to believe it is a sort of a scowling, black-browed, hard-favoured creature, with its greasy hair combed straight upon its flat forehead, and that twirls its thumbs, and turns up its eyes, and speaks through its nose and, in short, is everything that you are not, except in this matter—­of going to church.  So, to avert all these evil signs from falling upon you, I shall make a point of your keeping company with me for the rest of the day.”

Again Mary became serious, as she renewed her entreaties to her cousin to intercede with Lady Juliana that she might be allowed to attend any church.

“Not for kingdoms!” exclaimed she.  “Her Ladyship is in one of her most detestable humours to-day; not that I should mind that, if it was anything of real consequence that I had to compass for you.  A ball, for instance—­I should certainly stand by you there but I am really not so fond of mischief as to enrage her for nothing!”

“Then I fear I must go to church without it,” said Mary in a melancholy tone.

“If you are to go at all, it must certainly be without it.  And here is the carriage—­get your bonnet, and come along with me.  You shall at least have a sight of the church.”

Mary went to put on her pelisse; and, descending to join her cousin in the drawing-room, she found her engaged in an argument with Dr. Redgill.  How it had commenced did not appear; but the Doctor’s voice was raised as if to bring it to a decided termination.

“The French, madam, in spite of your prejudices, are a very superior nation to us.  Their skill and knowledge are both infinitely higher.  Every man in France is a first-rate cook—­in fact, they are a nation of cooks; and one of our late travellers assures us that they have discovered three hundred methods of dressing eggs, for one thing.”

“That is just two hundred and ninety-nine ways more than enough,” said Lady Emily “give me a plain boiled egg, and I desire no other variety of the produce of a hen till it takes the form of a chicken.”

Dr. Redgill lowered his eyebrows and drew up his chin, but disdained to waste more arguments upon so tasteless a being.  “To talk sense to a woman is like feeding chickens upon turtle soup,” thought he to himself.

As for Lady Juliana, she exulted in the wise and judicious manner in which she had exercised her authority, and felt her consequence greatly increased by a public display of it—­power being an attributes he was very seldom invested with now.  Indeed, to do her Ladyship justice, she was most feelingly alive to the duty due to parents, though that such a commandment existed seemed quite unknown to her till she became a mother.  But she made ample