legend, _AEdificabo meam Ecclesiam!_--and the figure of the Magdalen
yonder has just now murmured, in tones that must surely have reached a
gracious ear,--

"Tibi Christe, redemptori,
Nostro vero salvatori!"

Is the truth between? Is it in both? Is it real? And if real, why may
not the same lips declare it under the cathedral or the meeting-house
roof? Why not--in God's name--charity?

LXIV.

The Meteor is a snug ship, well found, well manned, and, as the times
go, well officered. The captain, indeed, is not over-alert or fitted for
high emergencies; but what emergencies can belong to so placid a voyage?
For a week after the headlands of Tarifa and Spartel have sunk under the
eastern horizon, the vessel is kept every day upon her course,--her
top-gallant and studding sails all distent with the wind blowing freely
from over Biscay. After this come light, baffling, westerly breezes,
with sometimes a clear sky, and then all is overclouded by the drifting
trade-mists. Zigzagging on, quietly as ever, save the bustle and whiz
and flapping canvas of the ship "in stays," the good Meteor pushes
gradually westward.

Meantime a singular and almost tender intimacy grew up between Reuben
and the lady voyager. It is always agreeable to a young man to find a
listening ear in a lady whose age puts her out of the range of any
flurry of sentiment, and whose sympathy gives kindly welcome to his
confidence. All that early life of his he detailed to her with a
particularity and a warmth (himself unconscious of the warmth) which
brought the childish associations of her daughter fresh to the mind of
poor Madam Maverick. No wonder that she gave a willing ear! no wonder
that the glow of his language kindled her sympathy! Nor with such a
listener does he stop with the boyish life of Ashfield. He unfolds his
city career, and the bright promises that are before him,--promises of
business success, which (he would make it appear) are all that fill his
heart now. In the pride of his twenty-five years he loves to represent
himself as _blase_ in sentiment.

Madam Maverick has been taught, in these latter years, a large amount of
self-control; so she can listen with a grave, nay, even a kindly face,
to Reuben's sweeping declarations. And if, at a hint from her,--which he
shrewdly counts Jesuitical,--his thought is turned in the direction of
his religious experiences, he has his axioms, his common-sense formulas,
his irreproachable cool