of
Christ," bound quaintly and fastened with silver clasps, and as he was
about to lay his fragrant trophy on the first page that opened naturally
of itself, he glanced at the words that there presented themselves to
his eyes.

"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing
wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or in
earth!" And with a smile and a warmer flush of color than usual on his
handsome face, he touched the rose lightly yet tenderly with his lips
and shut it reverently within its sacred resting-place.

CHAPTER IX.

"Our manners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully incline to
the worse; of our customs there are many barbarous and
monstrous."
MONTAIGNE.

The next day was very warm and bright, and that pious Lutheran divine,
the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, was seriously encumbered by his own
surplus flesh material as he wearily rowed himself across the Fjord
towards Olaf Gueldmar's private pier. As the perspiration bedewed his
brow, he felt that Heaven had dealt with him somewhat too liberally in
the way of fat--he was provided too amply with it ever to excel as an
oarsman. The sun was burning hot, the water was smooth as oil, and very
weighty--it seemed to resist every stroke of his clumsily wielded
blades. Altogether it was hard, uncongenial work,--and, being rendered
somewhat flabby and nerveless by his previous evening's carouse with
Macfarlane's whisky, Mr. Dyceworthy was in a plaintive and injured frame
of mind, he was bound on a mission--a holy and edifying errand, which
would have elevated any minister of his particular sect. He had found a
crucifix with the name of Thelma engraved thereon,--he was now about to
return it to the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he
purposed denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth
on the Seven Hills," and threatening all those who dared to hold it
sacred, as doomed to eternal torture, "where the worm dieth not." He had
thought over all he meant to say; he had planned several eloquent and
rounded sentences, some of which he murmured placidly to himself as he
propelled his slow boat along.

"Yea!" he observed in a mild sotto-voce--"ye shall be cut off root and
branch! Ye shall be scorched even as stubble,--and utterly destroyed."
Here he paused and mopped his streaming forehead with his clean perfumed
hand