t filial affection; and if her sentiment
slips beyond his control, or parries all his keenness of vision, what
else has a father, verging upon sixty, to expect in a daughter, tenderly
affectionate as she may be? Maverick's philosophy taught him to "take
the world as it is." Only one serious apprehension of disquietude
oppressed him; the doubts and vagaries of Adele would clear themselves
under the embrace of Julie; but in respect to the harmony of their
religious beliefs he had grave doubts. There had grown upon Adele, since
he had last seen her, a womanly dignity, which even a mother must
respect; and into that dignity--into the woof and warp of it--were
inwrought all her religious sympathies. Was his home yonder, across the
seas, to become the scene of struggles about creeds? It certainly was
not the sort of domestic picture he had foreshadowed to himself at
twenty-five. But at sixty a man blows bubbles no longer--except that of
his own conceit. The heart of Maverick was not dead in him; a kiss of
Adele wakened a thrilling, delicious sensation there, of which he had
forgotten his capability. He followed her graceful step and figure with
an eye that looked beyond and haunted the past--vainly, vainly! Her
"Papa!"--sweetly uttered--stirred sensibilities in him that amazed
himself, and seemed like the phantoms of dreams he dreamed long ago.

But in the midst of Maverick's preparations for departure a letter came
to hand from Mrs. Maverick, which complicated once more the situation.

LXI.

The mother has read the letter of her child,--the letter in which appeal
had been made to the father in behalf of the "unworthy" one whom the
daughter believed to be sleeping in her grave. The tenderness of the
appeal smote the poor woman to the heart. It bound her to the child she
scarce had seen by bonds into which her whole moral being was knitted
anew. But we must give the letter entire, as offering explanations which
can in no way be better set forth. The very language kindles the ardor
of Adele. Her own old speech again, with the French echo of her
childhood in every line.

"_Mon cher Monsieur_,"--in this way she begins; for her religious
severities, if not her years, have curbed any disposition to explosive
tenderness,--"I have received the letter of our child, which was
addressed to you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have read
it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals to you, for
me,--the dear child