forbid," piously ejaculated the Baronne, "that she should be sent to an establishment where young ladies are taught to hit at one another's shins with iron clubs on a muddy field. I was thinking of a convent school, needless to say, where she would at least be taught the manners of a gentlewoman by gentlewomen."
"Would there be no objection to her not being a Catholic?
"None whatever. Non-Catholic children are often received as pupils by the nuns."
"Zella would no doubt want to become a Catholic if she lived in that atmosphere."
"That is as it may be," observed the Baronne dryly. "At all events, I can assure you that no pressure of any sort would be put upon her. Ca ne se fait pas."
"I am sure of it, said Louis, smiling a little. "Nor, as you know, should I object to it. if later on Zella wished to become a Catholic, although I should require proof that it was a veritable, and not an emotional, conviction."
"She would not be received by the Church otherwise," said the Baronne staunchly.
Stéphanie de Kervoyou entered the room noiselessly, but prepared to withdraw on seeing her mother and Louis in consultation.
He sprang up.
"Do not go, Stéphanie. We are discussing the possibility of my sending Zella to a convent school. It would have to be in England," he added, turning to the Baronne; " I could not leave her abroad, and business will necessitate my returning home before Easter."
Stéphanie's pale eyes gleamed. Was this the answer to her many prayers for the conversion of her niece?
"Are you indeed thinking of it, Louis?" she asked eagerly.
"If Zella does not object too strongly to the idea," he replied, "I am inclined to agree with my mother that it would be the best thing for her."
Zella, far from objecting to the idea, received it gladly. She found her life monotonous, and viewed the idea of school as a rosy vista of triumphant friendships and universal popularity.
"Only I would like to go back to Villetswood first," she told her father rather timidly.
"You shall, mignonne. We will all go to Paris together at the end of the month, and then you and I will go home for a week or two, and you can start when the Easter holidays are over."
Zella was excited and pleased, and only wished that her father could have told her then and there which convent was to be the scene of her future successes.
An added cause for satisfaction, though Zella would not have admitted it to herself, was the sense that she was about to enter an atmosphere which her Aunt Marianne, at a safe distance where remonstrance could be of little avail, would certainly consider pernicious, alike to her niece's temporal and spiritual welfare.
X
WHILE Zella's Tante Stéphanie was devoutly burning candles before every shrine in Rome, in humble and ardent thanksgiving for the immense grace of a convent education which was to be bestowed on Zella—in direct reply, no doubt, to her many prayers—Zella's Aunt Marianne was indignantly demanding of the Almighty an instant reversal of the horrible decision that should introduce her niece into the artful snare laid for her by the devil, well known as the instigator of all Roman Catholic plots.
But it was not Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's way to leave Providence unsupported by efforts of her own.
"Henry," she said, "I can see only one thing to be done. This is a case for personal influence."
"However much you may influence Zella, my dear, I do not believe it would make Louis alter his mind."
"Zella! she is a child—I am not thinking of her. Or, rather, it is of her that I am thinking, only you are positively making me contradict myself, Henry, by arguing like this."
Henry wisely became silent.
"The fact is, I am unstrung by such a piece of news," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, laying her hand for a moment upon her husband's in order to indicate that her momentary irritation had no deeper underlying cause. "My poor Esmée's only child sent to a convent! It is very wrong of Louis, when he has not even the excuse of being a Roman Catholic himself."
"His relations are Roman Catholics, though."
"That is exactly it, and he is very weak and easily influenced, as I have always said. That is why I see quite plainly that the only thing to do is to get at that old Baronne. It is she who is pulling all these strings, you may depend upon it, with a whole cabal of artful priests and people behind her, as likely as not, hoping to get Louis and his money into their Church through Zella. I can see through the whole thing," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans warmly.
Such penetration alarmed her husband.
"Hadn't you better keep clear of it ?" he demanded rather anxiously.
"My own sister's only child, Henry!"
Henry, who had heard that argument before, had never yet found a suitable rejoinder to it, and again took refuge in silence.
"No. The only hope is to show the artful old lady quite plainly that one sees through the whole plot, and that may frighten her out of it."'
"Do you mean to write to her?"
"A letter in French would not be very satisfactory, Henry," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with great truth, "and I don't suppose she would understand much English. Foreigners are always so badly educated. No; I think there is nothing for it but to see her."
"She is in Rome, though."
"She went back to Paris when Louis took Zella to Villetswood last week. We shall have to go there," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with great determination.
Henry, who had not perceived whither her remarks were tending, looked protesting,
"It is a journey, I know, and the crossing will be very tiresome, for I am always ill, as you know," said his wife, rapidly disposing of all Henry's arguments before he had time to formulate them; "but this is not a matter in which one can think of expense or one's own health or comfort, and I am convinced it is the only thing to do."
"Why not try what you can do with Louis himself first?"
"What would be the use of that, Henry? What I did with one hand, the Baronne would undo with the other. Louis is like a reed between two winds," said the agitated Mrs. Lloyd-Evans.
"And do you think," asked Henry rather doubtfully, "that you will be able to make the old woman see reason ?"
"One may be enabled to show her how very dreadful it would be to tamper with the faith of an innocent child," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans piously; "and at all events she will see that Zella's English relations—her only real relations, since those De Kervoyous can only be called connections, whatever they and Louis may choose to pretend—are not going to let the child be inveigled into Romanism simply because she no longer has a mother's hand to guide her."
If Henry remembered
