. . .
At the time of this year's festival Mr. Eames was supremely happy.
Another pamphlet had come into his hands, an anonymous pamphlet making
fun of the Duchess whose reception into the Roman Church had been fixed
for the day of Saint Eulalia's festival. It bore the objectionable
title THE DIPPING OF THE DUCHESS and had presumably been indited by
some wag at the Alpha and Omega Club who disapproved of water in every
shape, even for baptismal purposes. The stuff was printed on the sly
and hastily circulated about the island--some people maintained that Mr.
Richards, the respectable Vice-President of that institution, was its
author. It was a scurrilous anti-Catholic leaflet, grossly personal and
savouring of atheism. The Duchess, on hearing of it--everything got
about on Nepenthe--was so distressed that she decided to cancel, or at
least postpone, the ceremony of her public conversion. At a meeting of
urgency convened by the priests, who were bitterly disappointed at her
attitude, it was agreed that this was no time for half-measures.
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