rush any one in his neighbourhood, and I
looked on all heretics with holy horror. Pusey had indoctrinated me
with his stern hatred of all heresy, and I was content to rest with
him on that faith, "which must be old because it is eternal, and must
be unchangeable because it is true." I would not even read the works
of my mothers favourite Stanley, because he was "unsound," and because
Pusey had condemned his "variegated use of words which destroys all
definiteness of meaning"--a clever and pointed description, be it said
in passing, of the Dean's exquisite phrases, capable of so many
readings. It can then be imagined with what a stab of pain this first
doubt struck me, and with what haste I smothered it up, buried it, and
smoothed the turf over its grave. _But it had been there_, and it left
its mark.

CHAPTER IV.

MARRIAGE.

The last year of my girlish freedom was drawing to its close; how shall
I hope to make commonsense readers understand how I became betrothed
maiden ere yet nineteen, girl-wife when twenty years had struck?
Looking back over twenty-five years, I feel a profound pity for the
girl standing at that critical point of life, so utterly, hopelessly
ignorant of all that marriage meant, so filled with impossible dreams,
so unfitted for the _role_ of wife. As I have said, my day-dreams held
little place for love, partly from the absence of love novels from my
reading, partly from the mystic fancies that twined themselves round
the figure of the Christ. Catholic books of devotion--English or Roman,
it matters not, for to a large extent they are translations of the same
hymns and prayers--are exceedingly glowing in their language, and the
dawning feelings of womanhood unconsciously lend to them a passionate
fervour. I longed to spend my time in worshipping Jesus, and was, as
far as my inner life was concerned, absorbed in that passionate love of
"the Saviour" which, among emotional Catholics, really is the human
passion of love transferred to an ideal--for women to Jesus, for men to
the Virgin Mary. In order to show that I am not here exaggerating, I
subjoin a few of the prayers in which I found daily delight, and I do
this in order to show how an emotional girl may be attracted by these
so-called devotional exercises:--

"O crucified Love, raise in me fresh ardours of love and consolation,
that it may henceforth be the greatest torment I can endure ever to
offend Thee; that it may be my greatest de