more. Though I have forgotten to tell you this, Ghita, it is because you
are never absent from my thoughts--no star is necessary to recall Monte
Argentaro and the Towers."

If we should say Ghita was not pleased with this, it would be to raise
her above an amiable and a natural weakness. Raoul's protestations never
fell dead on her heart, and few things were sweeter to her ear than his
words as they declared his devotedness and passion. The frankness with
which he admitted his delinquencies, and most especially the want of
that very religious sentiment which was of so much value in the eyes of
his mistress, gave an additional weight to his language when he affirmed
his love. Notwithstanding Ghita blushed as she now listened, she did not
smile; she rather appeared sad. For near a minute she made no reply; and
when she did answer, it was in a low voice, like one who felt and
thought intensely.

"Those stars may well have a higher office," she said. "Look at them,
Raoul;--count them we cannot, for they seem to start out of the depths
of heaven, one after another, as the eye rests upon the space, until
they mock our efforts at calculation. We see they are there in
thousands, and may well believe they are in myriads. Now thou hast been
taught, else couldst thou never be a navigator, that those stars are
worlds like our own, or suns with worlds sailing around them; how is it
possible to see and know this without believing in a God and feeling the
insignificance of our being?"

"I do not deny that there is a power to govern all this, Ghita--but I
maintain that it is a principle; not a being, in our shape and form; and
that it is the reason of things, rather than a deity."

"Who has said that God is a being in our shape and form, Raoul? None
know that--- none _can_ know it; none _say_ it who reverence and worship
him as they ought!"

"Do not your priests say that man has been created in his image? and is
not this creating him in his form and likeness?"

"Nay, not so, dear Raoul, but in the image of his spirit--that man hath
a soul which partakes, though in a small degree, of the imperishable
essence of God; and thus far doth he exist in his image. More than this,
none have presumed to say. But what a being, to be the master of all
those bright worlds!"

"Ghita, thou know'st my way of thinking on these matters, and thou also
know'st that I would not wound thy gentle spirit by a single word that
could grieve thee."

"