in, it was open to question whether England as a whole
would not return to the old religion, and Catholicism be the only
tolerated faith.

But to really religious minds such solutions would not do. It would have
been an intolerable thought to this sincere Puritan, with all his
tolerance, that his daughter should marry a Catholic; such an arrangement
would mean either that she was indifferent to vital religion, or that she
was married to a man whose creed she was bound to abhor and anathematise:
and however willing Mr. Norris might be to meet Papists on terms of
social friendliness, and however much he might respect their personal
characters, yet the thought that the life of any one dear to him should
be irretrievably bound up with all that the Catholic creed involved, was
simply an impossible one.

Besides all this he had no great opinion of Hubert. He thought he
detected in him a carelessness and want of principle that would make him
hesitate to trust his daughter to him, even if the insuperable barrier of
religion were surmounted. Mr. Norris liked a man to be consistent and
zealous for his creed, even if that creed were dark and
superstitious--and this zeal seemed to him lamentably lacking in Hubert.
More than once he had heard the boy speak of his father with an air of
easy indulgence, that his own opinion interpreted as contempt.

"I believe my father thinks," he had once said, "that every penny he pays
in fines goes to swell the accidental glory of God."

And Hubert had been considerably startled and distressed when the elder
man had told him to hold his tongue unless he could speak respectfully of
one to whom he owed nothing but love and honour. This had happened,
however, more than a year ago; and Hubert had forgotten it, no doubt,
even if Mr. Norris had not.

And as for Isabel.

It is exceedingly difficult to say quite what place Hubert occupied in
her mind. She certainly did not know herself much more than that she
liked the boy to be near her; to hear his footsteps coming along the path
from the Hall. This morning when her father had called up to her that
Hubert was come, it was not so hard to dry her tears for Anthony's
departure. The clouds had parted a little when she came and found this
tall lad smiling shyly at her in the hall. As she had sat in the window
seat, too, during Lady Maxwell's singing, she was far from unconscious
that Hubert's face was looking at her from the dark corner. And as they
w