to study for the priesthood." And he gave a
thaumaturgic toss to his bearded chin.

"Oh!" cried Maria Dolores, and leaned back against her eucalyptus tree,
and laughed again.

John, however, dejectedly shook his head, and gloomed.

"Laugh if you will," he said, "though it seems to me as far as possible
from a laughing matter, and I think Annunziata chose the better part
when she cried."

"I beg your pardon," said Maria Dolores, perhaps a trifle stiffly. "I
was only laughing at the coincidence of my having supposed him to be a
priest, and then learning that, though he isn't, he is going to become
one. I was not laughing at the fact itself. Nor was it," she added, her
stiffness leaving her, and a little glimmer of amusement taking its
place, "that fact which made Annunziata cry."

"I dare say not," responded John, "seeing that she couldn't possibly
have known it. But it might well have done so. It's enough to bring
tears to the eyes of a brazen image." He angrily jerked his shoulders.

"What?" cried Maria Dolores, surprised, rebukeful. "That a man is to
become a holy priest?"

"Oh, no," said John. "That fact alone, detached from special
circumstances, might be a subject for rejoicing. But the fact that this
particular man, _in_ his special circumstances, is to become a
priest--well, I simply have no words to express my feeling." He threw
out his arms, in a gesture of despair. "I'm simply sick with rage and
pity. I could gnash my teeth and rend my garments."

"Mercy!" cried Maria Dolores, stirring. "What are the special
circumstances?"

"Oh, it's a grisly history," said John. "It's a tale of the wanton,
ruthless, needless, purposeless sacrifice of two lives. It's his old
black icy Puritan blood. Winthorpe--that's his name--had for years been
a freethinker, far too intellectual and enlightened, and that sort of
thing, you know, to believe any such old wives' tale as the Christian
Religion. He and I used to have arguments, tremendous ones, in which, of
course, neither in the least shook the other. Darwin and Spencer, with a
dash of his native Emerson, were religion enough for him. Then this
morning he arrived here, and said, 'Congratulate me. A month ago I was
received into the Church.'"

Maria Dolores looked up, animated, her dark eyes sparkling.

"How splendid!" she said.

"Yes," agreed John, "so I thought. 'Congratulate me,' he said. I should
think I did congratulate him,--with all my heart and soul. But t