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But I have
been making question of our guests through Dom Basilio, their
guest-master and abbot _de facto_ (since their late abbot, an old man
whom he calls Dom Polifilo, died of exposure on the mountains some
three days before they embarked); and it appears that they belong to
a second colony, which has made its home for these ten years at
Casalabriva in Corsica, having arrived by invitation of the Queen
Emilia of that island, and there abiding until the Genoese burned the
roof over their heads."
The Vicar sipped his wine.
"You have considered," he asked, "the peril of introducing so many
papists into our quiet parish?"
"I have not considered it for a moment," answered my father,
cheerfully. "Nor have I introduced them. But if you fear they'll
convert--pervert--subvert--invert your parishioners and turn 'em into
papists, I can reassure you. For in the first place thirty men, or
thirty thousand, of whom only one can open his mouth, are, for
proselytizing, equal to one man and no more."
"They can teach by their example if not by their precept," urged the
Vicar.


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