" said Miss
Vernon.

"Also, and above all," continued Jobson,--"for I speak to your
warning--you, Diana Vernon, spinstress, not being a _femme couverte,_
and being a convict popish recusant, are bound to repair to your own
dwelling, and that by the nearest way, under penalty of being held felon
to the king--and diligently to seek for passage at common ferries, and
to tarry there but one ebb and flood; and unless you can have it in such
places, to walk every day into the water up to the knees, assaying to
pass over."

"A sort of Protestant penance for my Catholic errors, I suppose," said
Miss Vernon, laughing.--"Well, I thank you for the information, Mr.
Jobson, and will hie me home as fast as I can, and be a better
housekeeper in time coming. Good-night, my dear Mr. Jobson, thou mirror
of clerical courtesy."

"Good-night, ma'am, and remember the law is not to be trifled with."

And we rode on our separate ways.

"There he goes for a troublesome mischief-making tool," said Miss Vernon,
as she gave a glance after him; "it is hard that persons of birth and rank
and estate should be subjected to the official impertinence of such a
paltry pickthank as that, merely for believing as the whole world
believed not much above a hundred years ago--for certainly our Catholic
Faith has the advantage of antiquity at least."

"I was much tempted to have broken the rascal's head," I replied.

"You would have acted very like a hasty young man," said Miss Vernon;
"and yet, had my own hand been an ounce heavier than it is, I think I
should have laid its weight upon him. Well, it does not signify
complaining, but there are three things for which I am much to be pitied,
if any one thought it worth while to waste any compassion upon me."

"And what are these three things, Miss Vernon, may I ask?"

"Will you promise me your deepest sympathy, if I tell you?"

"Certainly;--can you doubt it?" I replied, closing my horse nearer to
hers as I spoke, with an expression of interest which I did not attempt
to disguise.

"Well, it is very seducing to be pitied, after all; so here are my three
grievances: In the first place, I am a girl, and not a young fellow, and
would be shut up in a mad-house if I did half the things that I have a
mind to;--and that, if I had your happy prerogative of acting as you
list, would make all the world mad with imitating and applauding me."

"I can't quite afford you the sympathy you expect upon this score," I