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VII.—A Protestor, but not a Protestant.

THE infant Ambrosius and his conductors could scarcely reach the convent in safety. The building showed few windows to the street, but they were all broken. What might have happened in a few days, but that Ginx's Baby took the matter into his own hands, none can say.

The treatment to which the little saint was subjected soured his temper. His kind nurses had choked him twice a day with incense, and now he had inhaled for seven hours the air of the Queen's Bench. On his return to the convent he was hastily fed, and carried to the chapel to give thanks for the victory of the day. Wrapped in a handsome chasuble, they laid him on the steps of the altar. In the most solemn part of the service he coughed, and grew sick. The chasuble was bespattered. When the officiating priest, to save that garment, took the child in his arms, he nefariously polluted the sacerdotal vestments and the altar steps. Then he kicked toward the altar itself, roared lustily, and finally went into convulsions in Sister Suspiciosa's arms. Like most women, the Lady Superior required her enthusiasm to be fed with success. She

began to think that she had been cozened: Ginx's Baby was too evidently a spiritual miscarriage. He must, like the rest of his family, be, indeed, "Protestant to the backbone.'' Father Certificatus agreed with her. His robes and best chasuble were befouled.

"Let us not risk a repetition of this conduct,'' said he; "let the child be given up. He is baptized, and cannot be severed from the Church. He will return after many days.''

Next morning the solicitors of the Protestant Detectoral Association received a letter from their opponents. In this they said that—presuming Messrs. Roundhead, Roundhead, and Lollard, intended to apply to the Master of the Rolls, the authorities of the convent had decided, after having vindicated themselves in the Queen's Bench, to give up the child, which would be, for

twenty-four hours, at the order and disposal of the Association, and afterwards of his parents. "We are instructed by our clients,'' they added, "to ask you to bear in mind that the child has been admitted, and is a member of the Catholic Church, owing allegiance to the Holy Father at Rome, a bond from which only the Papal excommunication can absolve him.''