already?' said Mrs. Dallas, with a change of
tone. 'That shows he must like you very much, Betty; my son is not
given to letting himself out on those subjects. Even to me he very
seldom speaks of them.'

'What subjects do you mean, dear Mrs. Dallas?' inquired the young lady
softly.

'I mean,' said Mrs. Dallas uneasily and hesitating, 'some sort of
religious questions. I told you he had had to do at one time with
dissenting people, and I think their influence has been bad for him. I
hoped in England he would forget all that, and become a true Churchman.
What did he say?'

'Nothing about the Church, or about religion. I do not believe it would
be easy for any one to influence him, Mrs. Dallas.'

'You can do it, Betty, if any one. I am hoping in you.'

The young lady, as I have intimated, was not averse to the task, all
the rather that it promised some difficulty. All the rather, too, that
she was stimulated by the idea of counter influence. She recalled more
than once what Pitt had said of that 'young girl,' and tried to make
out what had been in his tone at the time. No passion certainly; he had
spoken easily and frankly; too easily to favour the supposition of any
very deep feeling; and yet, not without a certain cadence of
tenderness, and undoubtedly with the confidence of intimate knowledge.
Undoubtedly, also, the influence of that young person, whatever its
nature, had not died out. Miss Betty had little question in her own
mind that she must have been one of the persons referred to and dreaded
by Mrs. Dallas as dissenters; and the young lady determined to do what
she could in the case. She had a definite point of resistance now, and
felt stronger for the fray.

The fray, however, could not be immediately entered upon. Pitt departed
to New York, avowedly to look up the Gainsboroughs. And there, as two
years before, he spent unwearied pains in pursuit of his object; also,
as then, in vain. He returned after more than a week of absence, a
baffled man. His arrival was just in time to allow him to sit down to
dinner with the family; so that Betty heard his report.

'Have you found the Gainsboroughs?' his father asked.

'No, sir.'

'Where did you look?'

'Everywhere.'

'What have you done?' his mother asked.

'Everything.'

'I told you, I thought they were gone back to England.'

'If they are, there is no sign of it, and I do not believe it. I have
spent hours and hours at the shipping offices, looking