ope he _will_ call and talk with you," said Mary, earnestly; "what
a blessing to the world, if such talents as his could become wholly
consecrated!"

"Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called," said the
Doctor; "yet if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality
and prayers, how much should I rejoice! I was struck," he added,
"to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was,
as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile
shall sit down lovingly together to the gospel feast. It is only by
passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called
and the gospel makes such slow progress, and looking unto that
glorious time, that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb
stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, I shall be content."

Thus they talked while the wagon jogged soberly homeward, and the
frogs and the turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy,
mingling concert in the summer-evening air.

Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms, and it was not
long before his quick eye espied Madame de Frontignac standing pensively
in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole softly up behind
her and whispered something in her ear.

In a moment she turned on him a face glowing--with anger, and drew back
haughtily; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even
by the angry flush of her eyes.

"In what have I had the misfortune to offend?" he said, crossing his
arms upon his breast. "I stand at the bar, and plead, Not guilty."

He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents,--

"It was not for her to dispute Monsieur's right to amuse himself."

Burr drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he
had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure in its
delicate _tutoiment_ gives such opportunity for gliding on through shade
after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire
of the eyes was quenched in tears, and, in the sudden revulsion of a
strong, impulsive nature, she said what she called words of friendship,
but which carried with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is
given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and
scars when kindled for any other shrine.

And yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate!

Colonel de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man