There are fifty-two of them; none younger than fourteen, and none above seventeen years old." "Why did you select boys ?" "Because all the others were born in an atmosphere of superstition and reared in it.

It is in their blood and bones.

We imagined we had educated it out of them; they thought so, too; the Interdict woke them up like a thunderclap! It revealed them to themselves, and it revealed them to me, too.

With boys it was different.

Such as have been under our training from seven to ten years have had no acquaintance with the Church's terrors, and it was among these that I found my fifty-two.