le capital exclusively on her dress.
When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his
old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had allowed
no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all
had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently preserved, which
Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain's last wishes, to burn
with his own hands.

About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge
of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into
the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,--the
result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined to have
great influence on Ursula's future by rousing against her the antagonism
of the doctor's heirs.

During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe's secret
hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not fail
to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a
child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both
flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is
more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to resist
the charms of certain sights. The doctor's eyes were wet, he knew not
how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for the church,
wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound
with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white ribbon, and
rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star of a first
hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and loving her
godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When the doctor
perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing that spirit
(until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun gives life t