hostile garrison in
a plundered country. And she was thinking unceasingly of the children
she wished to have. I don't know why they never had any children--not
that I really believe that children would have made any difference. The
dissimilarity of Edward and Leonora was too profound. It will give you
some idea of the extraordinary naivete of Edward Ashburnham that, at the
time of his marriage and for perhaps a couple of years after, he did not
really know how children are produced. Neither did Leonora. I don't mean
to say that this state of things continued, but there it was. I dare say
it had a good deal of influence on their mentalities. At any rate, they
never had a child. It was the Will of God.

It certainly presented itself to Leonora as being the Will of God--as
being a mysterious and awful chastisement of the Almighty. For she had
discovered shortly before this period that her parents had not exacted
from Edward's family the promise that any children she should bear
should be brought up as Catholics. She herself had never talked of the
matter with either her father, her mother, or her husband. When at last
her father had let drop some words leading her to believe that that was
the fact, she tried desperately to extort the promise from Edward. She
encountered an unexpected obstinacy. Edward was perfectly willing
that the girls should be Catholic; the boys must be Anglican. I don't
understand the bearing of these things in English society. Indeed,
Englishmen seem to me to be a little mad in matters of politics or of
religion. In Edward it was particularly queer because he himself was
perfectly ready to become a Romanist. He seemed, however, to contemplate
going over to Rome himself and yet letting his boys be educated in the
religion of their immediate ancestors. This may appear illogical, but
I dare say it is not so illogical as it looks. Edward, that is to say,
regarded himself as having his own body and soul at his own disposal.
But his loyalty to the traditions of his family would not permit him to
bind any future inheritors of his name or beneficiaries by the death
of his ancestors. About the girls it did not so much matter. They would
know other homes and other circumstances. Besides, it was the usual
thing. But the boys must be given the opportunity of choosing--and
they must have first of all the Anglican teaching. He was perfectly
unshakable about this.

Leonora was in an agony during all this time. Yo