g, sir.'

After meditation, Mr. Adister said: 'You don't dance?' He said it
speculating on the' kind of gentleman produced in Paris by the disciples
of Loyola.

'Pardon me, sir, you hit on another of my accomplishments.'

'These Jesuits encourage dancing?'

'The square dance--short of the embracing: the valse is under
interdict.'

Mr. Adister peered into his brows profoundly for a glimpse of the
devilry in that exclusion of the valse.

What object had those people in encouraging the young fellow to be a
perfect fencer and dancer, so that he should be of the school of the
polite world, and yet subservient to them?

'Thanks to the Jesuits, then, you are almost a Parisian,' he remarked;
provoking the retort:

'Thanks to them, I've stored a little, and Paris is to me as pure a
place as four whitewashed walls:' Patrick added: 'without a shadow of a
monk on them.' Perhaps it was thrown in for the comfort of mundane ears
afflicted sorely, and no point of principle pertained to the slur on a
monk.

Mr. Adister could have exclaimed, That shadow of the monk! had he been
in an exclamatory mood. He said: 'They have not made a monk of you,
then.'

Patrick was minded to explain how that the Jesuits are a religious order
exercising worldly weapons. The lack of precise words admonished him of
the virtue of silence, and he retreated--with a quiet negative: 'They
have not.'

'Then, you are no Jesuit?' he was asked.

Thinking it scarcely required a response, he shrugged.

'You would not change your religion, sir?' said Mr. Adister in seeming
anger.

Patrick thought he would have to rise: he half fancied himself summoned
to change his religion or depart from the house.

'Not I,' said he.

'Not for the title of Prince?' he was further pressed, and he replied:

'I don't happen to have an ambition for the title of Prince.'

'Or any title!' interjected Mr. Adister, 'or whatever the devil can
offer!--or,' he spoke more pointedly, 'for what fools call a brilliant
marriage?'

'My religion?' Patrick now treated the question seriously and raised his
head: 'I'd not suffer myself to be asked twice.'

The sceptical northern-blue eyes of his host dwelt on him with their
full repellent stare.

The young Catholic gentleman expected he might hear a frenetic zealot
roar out: Be off!

He was not immediately reassured by the words 'Dead or alive, then, you
have a father!'

The spectacle of a state of excitement without a show