iled to take in you a rooted
interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her high
training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zeal
she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, your
practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."

This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
deprecation, and sat quietly enough.

"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.

"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
her son the jeweller's wealth."

"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
great things!"

I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
act of confession, or the saint-worship.

"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
Marie.

"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very
young, for he is not much beyond forty."

"Does he yet weep her?"

"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature
is--constancy."

This was said with marked emphasis.

And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out
its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,
was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made kindly
welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I liked
less the mystic phrase accompanying it.

"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle that made me
shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us
know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened
yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:
there was