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“My dear Johns, — I shall again greet you, God
willing, in your own home, some forty days hence, and
I shall come as a repentant Benedick; for I now wear
the dignities of a married man. Your kind letter
counted for a great deal toward my determination; but
I will not affect to conceal from you, that my tender
interest in the future of Adèle counted for a great deal
more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie
(which I effected through her brother) that her child
was still living, and living motherless, woke all the tenderness
of her nature. I cannot say that the sudden
change in her inclinations was any way flattering to
me; but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was
prepared for this. I shall not undertake to describe
to you our first interview, which I can never forget. It
belongs to those heart-secrets which cannot be spoken
of; but this much I may tell you, — that, if there was
no kindling of the old and wayward love, there grew
out of it a respect for her present severity and elevation

of character that I had never anticipated. At our
age, indeed, (though, when I think of it, I must be
many years your junior,) a respect for womanly character
most legitimately takes the place of that disorderly
sentiment which twenty years ago blazed out in
passion.

“We have been married according to the rites of
the Romish Church. If I had proposed other ceremony,
more agreeable to your views, I am confident
that she would not have listened to me. She is
wrapped as steadfastly in her creed as ever you in
yours. To do otherwise in so sacred a matter — and
with her it wore solely that aspect — than as her
Church commands, would have been to do foully and
vainly. I had prepared you, I think, for her perversity
in this matter; nor do I think that all your zeal and
powers of persuasion could make her recreant to the
faith for which she has immolated all the womanly vanities
which certainly once belonged to her. Indeed, the
only trace of worldliness which I see in her is her intense
yearning toward our dear Adèle, and her passionate
longing to clasp her child once more to her heart.
Nor will I conceal from you that she hopes, with all the
fervor of a mother's hope, to wean her from what she
counts the heretical opinions under which she has been
reared, and to bring her into the fold of the faithful.

“You will naturally ask, my dear Johns, why I do

not combat this; but I am too old and too far spent for
a fight about creeds. I should have made a lame fight
on that score at any day; but now my main concern, it
would seem, should be to look out personally for the
creed which has most of mercy in it. If I seem to
speak triflingly, my dear Johns, I pray you excuse me;
it is only my business way of stating the actual facts in
the case. As for Madame Maverick, I am sure you
will find no trifling in her (if you ever meet her); she
is terribly in earnest. I tell her she would have made
a magnificent lady prioress; whereat she thumbs her
beads and whispers a Latin distich, as if she were exorcising
a demon. Yet I should do wrong if I were to
represent her as always severe, even upon such a
theme; there certainly belongs to her a tender, appealing
manner (reminding of Adèle in a way that brings
tears to my eyes); but it is always bounded by allegiance
to her sworn faith. You will think it an exaggeration,
but she reminds me at times of those women of
the New Testament (which I have not altogether forgotten)
who gave up all for the following of the Master.
If I were in your study, my dear Johns, you
might ask me who those women were? And for my
soul I could not tell you. Yet I have a vague recollection
that there were those who showed a beautiful devotion
to the Christian faith, that somehow sublimated
their lives and memories. Again, I feel constrained to
put before you another feature in her character, which
I am confident will make you feel kindly toward her;
my home near to Marseilles, which has been but a
gypsy home for so many years, she has taken under her
hand, and by its new appointments and order has convicted
me of the losses I have felt so long. True, you
might object to the oratoire; but in all else I am confident
you would approve, and in all else felicitate Adèle
upon the home which was preparing for her.

“Madame Maverick will not sail with me for
America; although the marriage, under French law,
may have admitted Adèle to all rights and even social
immunities, yet I have represented that another law
and custom rules with you. Whatever opprobrium
might attach to the mother, Julie, with her exalted
religious sentiment, would not weigh for a moment;
but as regards Adèle, she manifests a strange tenderness.
To spare her any pang, or possibly pangs, she
is content to wait. I have feared, too, I must confess,
that any undue expression of condemnation or distrust
might work revulsion of her own feeling. But while
she assents — with some reluctance, I must admit —
to this plan of deferring her meeting with Adèle, on
whom all her affections seem to center, she insists, in
a way that I find it difficult to combat, upon her child's
speedy return. That her passionate love will insure
entire devotion on the part of Adèle, I cannot doubt.

And how the anti-Romish faith which must have been
instilled in the dear girl by your teachings, as well as
by her associations, may withstand the earnest attack
of Madame Maverick, I cannot tell. I have a fear it
may lead to some dismal complications. You know
what the earnestness of your own faith is; but I don't
think you yet know the earnestness of an opposing
faith, with a Frenchwoman to back it. Even as I
write, she comes to cast a glance at my work, and says,
`Monsieur Maverick,' (she called me Frank once,)
`what are you saying there to the heretical Doctor?'

“Whereupon I translate for her ear a sentence or
two. `Tell him,' says she, `that I thank him for his
kindness; tell him besides, that I can in no way better
atone for the guiltiness of the past, than by bringing
back this wandering lamb into the true fold. Only
when we kneel before the same altar, her hand in
mine, can I feel that she is truly my child.'

“I fear greatly this zeal may prove infectious.

“And now, my dear Johns, in regard to the revelation
to Adèle of what is written here, — of the whole
truth, in short, for it must come out, — I have n't the
heart or the courage to make it myself. I must now
throw myself on your charity. For Heaven's sake,
tell the story as kindly as you can. Don't let her think
too harshly of me. See to it, I pray, that my name
don't become a bugbear in the village. I have pretty

broad shoulders, and could bear it, if I only were to
be sufferer; but I am sure 't would react fearfully
on the sensibilities of poor Adèle. That sin is past
cure and past preachment; no good can come from
trumpeting wrath against it. Do me this favor, Johns,
and you will find me a more willing listener in what is
to come. I can't promise, indeed, to accept all your
dogmas; there is a thick crust of the world on me,
and I doubt if you could force them through it; but,
for Adèle's sake, I think I could become a very orderly
and presentable person, even for a New England meeting-house.
I will make a beginning now by turning
over the little property which you hold for Adèle, in
trust, for disbursement in your parish charities. The
dear child won't need it, and the parish may.”

The Doctor was happy to be relieved of the worst
part of the revelation; but he had yet to communicate
the fact that the mother was still alive, and (what was
to him worst of all) that she was imbruted with the
delusions of the Romish Church. He chose his hour,
and, meeting her upon the village street, asked her into
his study.

“Adaly, your father is coming. He will be here
within a month.”

“At last! at last!” said she, with a cry of joy.

“But, Adaly,” continued he, with great gravity, “I
have perhaps led you into error. Your mother, Adaly,
— your mother is still living.”

“Living!” and an expression almost of radiance
shot over the fair face. But in an instant it was gone.
Was not the poor lady she had so religiously mourned
over her mother? That death embrace and the tomb
were, then, only solemn mockeries! With a frightful
alertness her thought ran to them, — weighed them.
“New Papa,” said she, approaching him with a gravity
that matched his own, “is this some new delusion?
Is it true? Has he written me?”

“He has not written you, my child; but I have a
letter, informing me of his marriage, and begging me
to make the revelation to you as kindly as I might.”

“Marriage! Marriage to whom?” says Adèle, her
eyes flashing fire, and her lips showing a tempest of
scarce controllable feeling.

“Marriage to your mother, Adaly. He would be
just at last.”

“O my God!” exclaimed Adèle, with a burst of
tears. “It 's false! I shall never see my mother
again in this world. I know it! I know it!”

“But, Adaly, my child, consider!” said the old
gentleman.

Adèle did not heed him. She was lost in her own
griefs. She could only exclaim, “O my father! my
father!”

The old Doctor was greatly moved; he laid down
his spectacles, and paced up and down the room. The

earnestness of her doubt made him almost believe that
he was himself deceived.

“Can it be? can it be?” he muttered, half under
breath, while Adèle sat drooping in her chair. “May
be the instinct of the poor girl is right, after all,”
thought he, — “sin is so full of disguises.”

At this moment there is a sharp tap at the door, and
Miss Eliza steps in, the bearer of a letter from Reuben.