ed the Doctor; "but the more special religious
training which I fear the poor girl needs must be given at home, Eliza."

"Of course, Benjamin."

It was further agreed between the two that a French attendant would make
a very undesirable addition to the household, as well as sadly
compromise their efforts to build up the little stranger in full
knowledge of the faith.

The Doctor was earnest in his convictions of the duty that lay before
him, and his sister's consent to share the charge left him free to act.
He felt all the best impulses of his nature challenged by the proposal.
Here, at least, was one chance to snatch a brand from the burning,--to
lead this poor little misguided wayfarer into those paths which are
"paths of pleasantness." No image of French grace or of French modes was
prefigured to the mind of the parson; his imagination had different
range. He saw a young innocent (so far as any child in his view could be
innocent) who prattled in the terrible language of Rousseau and
Voltaire, who by the providence of God had been born in a realm where
all iniquities flourished, and to whom, by the further and richer
providence of God, a means of escape was now offered. He would no more
have thought of declining the proposed service, even though the poor
girl were dressed in homespun and clattered in sabots, than he would
have closed his ear to the cry of a drowning child.

Within that very week the Doctor wrote his reply to Maverick. He assured
him that he would most gladly undertake the trust he had
proposed,--"hoping, by God's grace, to lead the little one away from the
delusions of sense and the abominations of Antichrist, to the fold of
the faithful."

"I could wish," he continued, "that you had given me more definite
information in regard to the character of her early religious
instruction, and told me how far the child may still remain under the
mother's influence in this respect; for, next to special interposition
of Divine Grace, I know no influence so strong in determining religious
tendencies as the early instruction or example of a mother.

"My sister has promised to give home care to the little stranger, and
will, I am sure, welcome her with zeal It will be our purpose to place
your daughter at the day-school of a worthy person, Miss Betsey Onthank,
who has had large experience, and under whose tuition my boy Reuben has
been for some time established. My sister and myself are both of opinion
that