r marriage, she
herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's memory was
a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, watching over her,
waking or sleeping, morning or night.

Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those grossly
material ideas of modern growth which associate the presence of
spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and monkey antics
performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's nobler superstition
formed an integral part of her religious convictions--convictions which
had long since found their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrines
of Emanuel Swedenborg. The only books which she read were the works
of the Swedish Seer. She mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and
departed spirits, on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with
wild fancies, and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary
religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's household,
but also on proselytizing expeditions to the households of her humble
neighbors, far and near.

Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a supreme
power; priding herself alike on her close attention to her domestic
duties, and on her privileged communications with angels and spirits.
She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband before
anybody who happened to be present--colloquys which struck the simple
spectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union between
Mary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by
the mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us
little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met
and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son to look
upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking unconsciously on
a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning was on earth, but whose
bright end was among the angels in a better state of being. Imagine my
appearing before such a woman as this, and telling her with tears of
despair that I was determined to die, rather than let my uncle part
me from little Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the
hospitality which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own
room.

When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed a
serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said to her
(with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you, Dame. My mother
shan