er. Before it reaches its
destination, Maverick has taken ship for America; and, singularly
enough, it is fated that the letter of Adele should be first opened and
read--by her mother.

LVII.

Some time in mid-May of this year Maverick writes:--

"My dear Johns,--I shall again greet you, God willing, in your own home,
some forty days hence, and I shall come as a repentant Benedick; for I
now wear the dignities of a married man. Your kind letter counted for a
great deal toward my determination; but I will not affect to conceal
from you, that my tender interest in the future of Adele counted for a
great deal more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie (which I
effected through her brother) that her child was still living, and
living motherless, woke all the tenderness of her nature. I cannot say
that the sudden change in her inclinations was any way flattering to me;
but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was prepared for this. I
shall not undertake to describe to you our first interview, which I can
never forget. It belongs to those heart-secrets which cannot be spoken
of; but this much I may tell you,--that, if there was no kindling of the
old and wayward love, there grew out of it a respect for her present
severity and elevation of character that I had never anticipated. At our
age, indeed, (though, when I think of it, I must be many years your
junior,) a respect for womanly character most legitimately takes the
place of that disorderly sentiment which twenty years ago blazed out in
passion.

"We have been married according to the rites of the Romish Church. If I
had proposed other ceremony, more agreeable to your views, I am
confident that she would not have listened to me. She is wrapped as
steadfastly in her creed as ever you in yours. To do otherwise in so
sacred a matter--and with her it wore solely that aspect--than as her
Church commands, would have been to do foully and vainly. I had prepared
you, I think, for her perversity in this matter; nor do I think that all
your zeal and powers of persuasion could make her recreant to the faith
for which she has immolated all the womanly vanities which certainly
once belonged to her. Indeed, the only trace of worldliness which I see
in her is her intense yearning toward our dear Adele, and her passionate
longing to clasp her child once more to her heart. Nor will I conceal
from you that she hopes, with all the fervor of a mother's hope, to wean
he