om you the vile trinket, I have,--Heaven
knows how reluctantly! . . . returned to your keeping,--to trample upon
it, and renounce it as a device of Satan. . ." He stopped, surprised and
indignant, as she raised the much-abused emblem to her lips and kissed
it reverently.

"It is the sign of peace and salvation," she said steadily, "to me, at
least. You waste your words, Mr. Dyceworthy; I am a Catholic."

"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed the minister, now thoroughly roused to a
pitch of unctuous enthusiasm. "Say not so. Poor child! who knowest not
the meaning of the word used. Catholic signifies universal. God forbid a
universal Papacy! You are not a Catholic--no! You are a Roman--by which
name we understand all that is most loathsome and unpleasing unto God!
But I will wrestle for your soul,--yea, night and day will I bend my
spiritual sinews to the task,--I will obtain the victory,--I will
exorcise the fiend! Alas, alas! you are on the brink of hell--think of
it!" and Mr. Dyceworthy stretched out his hand with his favorite pulpit
gesture. "Think of the roasting and burning,--the scorching and
withering of souls! Imagine, if you can, the hopeless, bitter, eternal
damnation," and here he smacked his lips as though he were tasting
something excellent,--"from which there is no escape! . . . for which
there shall be no remedy!"

"It is a gloomy picture," said Thelma, with a quiet sparkle in her eye.
"I am sorry,--for _you_. But I am happier,--my faith teaches of
purgatory--there is always a little hope!"

"There is none! there is none!" exclaimed the minister rising in
excitement from his seat, and swaying ponderously to and fro as he
gesticulated with hands and head. "You are doomed,--doomed! There is no
middle course between hell and heaven. It must be one thing or the
other; God deals not in half-measures! Pause, oh pause, ere you decide
to fall! Even at the latest hour the Lord desires to save your
soul,--the Lord yearns for your redemption, and maketh me to yearn also.
Froeken Thelma!" and Mr. Dyceworthy's voice deepened in solemnity, "there
is a way which the Lord hath whispered in mine ears,--a way that
pointeth to the white robe and the crown of glory,--a way by which you
shall possess the inner peace of the heart with bliss on earth as the
forerunner of bliss in heaven!"

She looked at him steadfastly. "And that way is--what?" she inquired.

Mr. Dyceworthy hesitated, and wished with all his heart that this girl
w