e the sources of a new trust, but, through a sympathy that a heart
like hers could not resist, they rallied an old childish one into fresh
action. The strange, serious worship of those about her was only a new
guise--so at least it seemed to her simplicity--in which to approach the
same good God whom the godmother with herself had praised with chants
that rang once under the dim arches of the old chapel, smoky with
incense and glowing with pictures of saints, at Marseilles. And if
sometimes, as the shrill treble of Miss Almira smote upon her ear, she
craved a better music, and remembered the fragrant cloud rising from the
silver censers as something more grateful than the smoke leaking from
the joints of the stove-pipe in Ashfield meeting-house, and would have
willingly given up Miss Eliza's stately praises of her recitation for
one good hug of the godmother,--she yet saw, or thought she saw, the
same serene trust that belonged to her in the eyes of good Mistress
Onthank, in the kind face of Mrs. Elderkin, and in the calm look of the
Doctor when he lifted his voice every night at the parsonage in prayer
for "all God's people."

Would it be strange, too, if in the heart of a girl taught as she had
been, who had never known a mother's tenderness, there should be some
hidden leaning toward those traditions of the Romish faith in which a
holy mother appeared as one whose favor was to be supplicated? The
worship of the Virgin was, indeed, too salient an object of attack among
the heresies which the New England teachers combated, not to inspire a
salutary caution in Adele and entire concealment of any respect she
might still feel for the Holy Mary. Nor was it so much a respect that
shaped itself tangibly among her religious beliefs as a secret craving
for that outpouring of maternal love denied her on earth,--a craving
which found a certain repose and tender alleviation in entertaining fond
regard for the sainted mother of Christ.

When, therefore, on one occasion, Miss Eliza had found among the toilet
treasures of Adele a little lithographic print of the Virgin, with the
Christ's head surrounded by a nimbus of glory, and in her chilling way
had sneered at it as a heathen vanity, the poor child had burst into
tears, and carried the treasure to her bosom to guard it from
sacrilegious touch.

The spinster, rendered watchful, perhaps, by this circumstance, had on
another day been still more shocked to find in a corner of the