cheating even the grave parson to a smile that seems scarcely
sinful.

"Oh, that sermon was so long,--so long to-day, New Papa! I am sure Dame
Tourtelot pinched the Deacon, or he would never, never have been awake
through it all."

Or, maybe, she steals a foot out of doors on a Sunday to the patch of
violets, gathering a little bunch, and appeals to the Doctor, who comes
with a great frown on his face,--

"New Papa, is it most wicked to carry flowers or fennel to church?
Godmother always gave me a flower on holydays."

And the Doctor is cheated of his rebuke; nay, he sometimes wonders, in
his self-accusing moments, if the Arch-Enemy himself has not lodged
under cover of that smiling face of hers, and is thus winning him to a
sinful gayety. There are times, too, when, after some playful badinage
of hers which has touched too nearly upon a grave theme, she interrupts
his solemn admonition with a sudden rush toward him, and a tap of those
little fingers upon his furrowed cheek:--

"Don't look so solemn, New Papa. Nobody will love you, if you look in
that way."

What if this, too, be some temptation of the Evil One, withdrawing him
from the grave thought of eternal things, diverting him from the solemn
aims of his mission?

There were snatches, too, of Latin hymns, taught her by the godmother,
and only half remembered,--hymns of glorious rhythm, which, as they
tripped from her halting tongue, brought a great burden of sacred
meanings, and were full of the tenderest associations of her childhood.
To these, too, the Doctor was half pained to find himself listening,
sometimes at nightfall of a Sunday, with an indulgent ear, and stoutly
querying with himself if Satan could fairly lurk in such holy words as

"Dulcis memoria Iesu."

Adele, as we have said, had accepted the duties of attendance upon the
somewhat long sermons of the Doctor and of weekly instructions in the
Catechism, with a willing spirit, and had gone through them
cheerfully,--not, perhaps, with the grave air of devotion which by
education and inheritance belonged to the sweet face of her companion,
Rose. Nay, she had sometimes rallied Rose upon the exaggerated
seriousness which fastened upon her face whenever the Bible tasks came
up. But Adele, with that strong leaning which exists in every womanly
nature toward religious faith of some kind, had grown into a respect for
even the weightiest of the Christian gravities around her; not that they
becam