sful
and, to my grief and astonishment, I found that she too had embraced
papacy."

The door opened and Florence entered. She started on seeing her lover,
but advanced to them much as usual. He raised his head, and cold and
stern was the glance he bent on her beautiful face. She stood beside
him, and rising, he placed a chair for her in perfect silence. Mary's
heart ached, as she noted the marble paleness which overspread her
cousin's cheek. Mr. Stewart folded his arms across his chest, and said
in a low, stern, yet mournful tone:

"Florence, I could not have believed that you would have deceived me,
as you have silently done."

Mournfully Florence looked for a moment on Mary's face, yet there was
no reproach in her glance; it seemed but to say--"You have wakened me
from my dream of happiness."

She lifted proudly her head, and fixed her dark eye full on her lover.

"Explain yourself, Mr. Stewart; I have a right to know with what I am
charged, though I almost scorn to refute that of deceit."

"Not a week since, Florence, you heard me avow my dislike of the
tenets and practises of the Romish Church. I said then, as now, that
no strong-minded, intelligent woman of the present age could consult
the page of history and then say that she conscientiously believed its
doctrines to be pure and scriptural, or its practises in accordance
with the teachings of our Saviour. You tacitly concurred in my
opinions. Florence, did you tell me you had once held those doctrines
in reverence? Nay, that even now you lean to papacy?" Stern was his
tone, and cold and slightly contemptuous his glance.

A bitter, scornful smile wreathed the lips of his betrothed. "I
acknowledge neither the authority of questioning, nor allow the
privilege of any on earth to impugn my motives or my actions. Had I
felt it incumbent on me to acquaint you with every circumstance of my
past life, I should undoubtedly have done so, when you offered me your
hand. I felt no obligation to that effect, and consequently consulted
my own inclinations. If, for a moment, you had doubted me, or asked an
explanation of the past, I should have scorned to dissemble with you;
and now that the subject is broached you shall have the particulars,
which, I assure you, have kept well, though, as you suppose, sometime
withheld. I have been a member of the Church of Rome: I have prayed
to saints and the Virgin, counted beads and used holy water, and
have knelt in confession to a