With her eyes still flashing from argument, the grandmother took me up
stairs. She gave me a big bath-towel, and showed me the bath-room, and
also my sleeping place. I asked her about the holy pictures hanging
near my bed. She explained in a voice that endeavored not to censure:
“My daughter-in-law is of German-Catholic descent, and she is _still_
Catholic.”
“What is _your_ denomination?” I asked.
“My husband and son and I are Congregationalists.”
She did not ask it of me, but I said: “I am what is sometimes
disrespectfully called a ‘Campbellite.’”
But the old lady was gone.
After a boiling bath I lay musing under those holy pictures. My brother
of the road, when they put you in the best room, as they sometimes
do, and you look at the white counterpane and the white sheets and the
cosey appointments, do you take these brutally, or do you think long
upon the intrinsic generosity of God and man?
I have laid hold of hospitality coldly and greedily in my time, but
this night at least, I was thankful. And as I turned my head in a new
direction I was thankful most of all for the unexpected presence of the
Mother of God. There was her silvery statue near the foot of my bed,
the moonlight pouring straight in upon it through the wide window. It
spoke to me of peace and virginity.
And I thought how many times in Babylon I had gone into the one ever
open church to look on the crowned image of the Star of the Sea. Though
I am no servitor of Rome I have only adoration for virginity, be it
carved in motionless stone, or in marble that breathes and sings.
A long long time I lay awake while the image glimmered and glowed. The
clock downstairs would strike its shrill bell, and in my heart a censer
swung.