We will teach him better here--eh, Dolly, my dear ?" It was only my man James who was in the room when he spoke; yet as soon as he was gone out to fetch another dish I thought I had best say a word.
"Cousin," I said, "with your leave; I think it best not to speak of monasteries--" He interrupted me.
"Why, you need fear nothing," he cried.

"We Catholics are all in the fashion these days.

Why, there is Mr.Huddleston that goes about in his priest's habit: and the Capuchins at St.James', and the very Jesuits too--" "I think it would be better not--" I began.
"Oho!" cried Cousin Tom.

"That is in the wind, is it?
Why, I'll be as mum as a mouse!" I did not know what he meant; and I supposed that he did not know himself, unless indeed by sheer blundering he had pitched upon the truth that I was come on a mission.

But so soon as James was in the room again, he began upon the other tack, and talked of Prince this and the Duke of that, with whom I might be supposed to be on terms of intimacy, winking on me all the while, so that my man saw it.