of Adele.
He lived like an ascetic; he sought, by reading of all manner of
exultant religious experience, to keep alive the ferment of the autumn.
"If only death were near," he said to himself, "with what a blaze of
hope one might go out!" But death was not near,--or, at least, life and
its perplexing duties were nearer. The intensity of his convictions
somehow faded, and they lost their gorgeous hue, under the calm
doctrinal sermons of the parson. If the glory of the promises and the
tenderness of Divine entreaty were to be always dropping mellifluously
on his ear, as upon that solemn Sunday of the summer, it might be well.
But it is not thus; and even were the severe quiet of the Ashfield
Sundays lighted up by the swift and burning words of such fiery
evangelism, yet six solid working-days roll over upon the heel of every
Sunday,--in which he sees good Deacon Tourtelot in shirt-sleeves driving
some sharp bargain for his two-year-old steers, or the stout Dame
hectoring some stray peddler by the hour for the fall of a penny upon
his wares, and wonders where their Christian largeness of soul is gone.
Is the matter real to him? And if real, where is the peace? Shall he
consult the good Doctor? He is met straightway with an array of the old
catechismal formulas, clearly stated, well argued, but brushing athwart
his mind like a dusty wind. The traditional dislikes of his boyhood have
armed him against all such, _cap-a-pie_. In this strait, he wanders over
the hills in search of loneliness, and a volume of Tillotson he carries
with him is all unread. Nature speaks more winningly, but scarce more
helpfully.

Adele, with a quick eye, sees the growing unrest, and, with a great
weight of gratitude upon her heart, says, timidly,--

"Can I help you, Reuben?"

"No, thank you, Adele. I understand you; I'm in a boggle,--that's all."

The father, too, at a hint from Adele, (whose perceptions are so much
quicker,) sees at last how the matter stands.

"Reuben," he says, "these struggles of yours are struggles with the
Great Adversary of Souls. I trust, my son, you will not allow him to
have the mastery."

It was kindly said and earnestly said, but touched the core of the son's
moral disquietude no more than if it were the hooting of an owl. Yet,
for all this, Reuben makes a brave struggle to wear with an outward calm
the burden of the professions he has made,--a terrible burden, when he
finds what awful chasms in his faith have b