Although nothing was originally more simple than the theology of Egypt,

yet nothing could well be more confused and perplexing than it became as

the commentaries of the schools and the mythological superfetations of

each temple developed in the course of time. From its earliest to its

latest days Egypt believed in one God, personal, uncreated, almighty,

the author and watchful preserver of the universe. How, then, it may be

asked, can its exuberant polytheism be reconciled with this doctrine? In

traversing the galleries filled with long ranks of the Egyptian

deities—Thoth with the head of an ibis and the hawk-headed Horus being

conspicuous among them—we pass along the stony piles of these antique

and impenetrable monstrosities as if under the influence of a nightmare,

while the words of liberated Israel echo from distant ages in our ears:

“Os habent et non loquentur; oculos habent et non videbunt; manus habent

et non palpabunt; pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in

gutture suo.” And we ask what there can be of just and true behind the

strange forms of these old-world phantoms.

The answer is contained in the fact that the Egyptians attributed to God

different names and forms, according to the aspects and attributes to

which they wished to give prominence, while, under each of these names

and forms, God, in his inalienable infinity, remained always the same;

and, as if they had anticipated our perplexities at the sight of these

battalions of divinities, they have taken exceeding pains to instruct us

on this point. As the Eternal, God had one name; as Creator, he had

another; as Providence or Preserver, another; and as Judge and Redeemer

of souls, the name of Osiris. In each sanctuary the one God of the whole

country, living in a Triad which, without division of substance,

expressed the phases of his threefold existence, was worshipped under a

particular form and name. He had a special worship, rites, chants, and

ceremonial, unknown in the neighboring temples; but the hymns and

inscriptions constantly dwell on the fact that each temple and each

ritual was in honor of the only God, to whom belong all temples, and to

whom all prayers are addressed.[142]

Footnote 142:

An historical fact which exercised considerable influence on the

religion of Egypt, and which helps to explain the multiplicity of the

names given to the Deity, was that the whole of Egypt which Menes

united under his sceptre was divided into _nomes_, each having its

capital city; and each of these regions had its principal god,

designated by a special name, but under these different names the same

doctrine always remains of a divine unity. Thus by the side of the

political there was also a kind of divine feudality. Tum reigned at

Heliopolis, Osiris at Theni and later at Abydos, Ammon was over

Thebes, and over Memphis Phtah. Each of these gods, identical in

substance with the gods of the other nomes, easily allowed this

fundamental identity. Ammon of Thebes gave hospitality in his temple

to Min or Khem of Coptos, to Tum of Heliopolis, and to Phtah of

Memphis, who on their part received Ammon with equal readiness into

their own sanctuaries.

[Illustration: _The One who alone is: there is of him no second._]

The Egyptians knew that the Deity is an unfathomable mystery and can

have no name. “His name,” say the texts, “is mysterious as his being.”

Considered from this point of view, he is called _The Hidden One_—Ammon,

whose image is enveloped in an impenetrable veil. In his uncreated

essence God is invisible, but he has revealed himself in his acts,

expressive of his wisdom, power, and goodness, and each of these

attributes presents an accessible side, by which the mind can take hold

of the incomprehensible, see the invisible, and name the nameless One.

Having in himself all powers and every form of greatness, his names and

forms are without number, and the texts, as in the Hymn to Ammon,

expressly designate him as _The Many-Named_—the _Multitude by the

Names_.[143]

Footnote 143:

“The habit of reuniting in one worship the different forms of the

Divinity continually led to their fusion into one personality. Sevek,

of Fayom, associated with Ra, became Sevek-Ra; Phtah was fused with

Sokari under the name of Phtah-Sokari, and Osiris, being afterwards

joined to these, made Phtah-Sokar-Osiris. All the divine types were

reciprocally interpenetrated and absorbed into the supreme deity. The

names and forms of God were indefinitely multiplied, but God,

never.”—G. Maspero, _Hist. Anc._, ch. i. p. 29.

The true name of God appears to have been, with the Egyptians as with

the Hebrews, the greatest of mysteries. Probably it was not allowed to

be written; in any case, as in the papyrus Harris, its utterance was

forbidden. “I am He who makes trial of the warriors, he whose name is

known to none. His name must be kept in silence on the borders of the

river: whoso shall utter it, he shall be consumed. His name must be

silent upon earth.”

We find this in the hymn to Ammon,[144] and the remainder of this text

leads us further into the doctrine of a Trinity which Egyptian theology

had preserved amidst other primeval traditions.

Footnote 144:

See papyri in the museum of Boulag.

“Creator of the pastures whereon the cattle feed, and of the plants

which nourish man; he who provides for the fishes of the sea and the

birds of heaven, who gives the breath of life to the germ yet hidden

in the egg, who feeds the flying insect and the creeping thing, who

provides the stores of the mouse in his retreat and of the birds in

the forest[145]—homage to thee, the author of all, who alone art,

... who watchest over men when they repose, and seekest the good of

thy creatures; God, Ammon, the preserver of all; Tum and Armachis

worship thee in their words, and say, Homage to thee, because of thy

immanence in us; prostration before thy face, because thou producest

us; ... the gods bow before thy majesty, and exalt the soul of him

by whom they were produced, happy in the immanence of their

generator,” etc.

Footnote 145:

Conf. Job xxxviii. 39-41.

It will be perceived that Tum and Armachis appear to form, with Ammon, a

triad, of which the persons are distinct without being separate, each

person being represented as reposing in one divine substance, of which

each is an aspect, of which each expresses an attribute, and of whose

indivisible essence each forms a part.[146]

Footnote 146:

At Heliopolis the divinity appears under three forms: Atoum, the

Inaccessible God; Choper, the Creator (the scarabæus God); and Ra, the

Manifestation of God—the visible sun. It was not until later that we

find a feminine divinity.

It is not to be supposed, however, that this lofty and abstract

conception was appreciated by the multitude, with whom, on the contrary,

the numerous names and forms of their deity degenerated into a monstrous

polytheism, and who, in spite of the reiterated affirmations of the

hymns and inscriptions, crowded their altars with fantastic idols.

But for the depositaries of the sacred doctrine there was but one God,

living in the midst of the divine triads, uncreated, and the principle

of life. He was also the principle of truth: “Hold nothing as truth but

the Eternal and the Just.... Man is only the appearance; and the

appearance is the supreme lie.... What is the First Truth? He who is one

and alone, the Lord of Truth and Father of the gods.”

The explanation to this formula is to be found in the other text which

supposes the Word to be the principle of the divine persons:

[Illustration: _Giving utterance to the Word, exist the gods._]

Hermes Trismegistes, commenting upon the above, says: “He who made the

world made it not with his hands, but with his word.” And again:

“The luminous Word (_Verbum_), which emanates from the Intelligence,

is the Son of God.... The Intelligence of life and light engendered,

by the Word, another creative Intelligence, the god of fire and

fluids, who in turn formed seven ministers, enveloping in their

circles the sensible world, and governing it by what is called

destiny. This spirit is necessary to all; he gives life to all,

sustains all. He flows from the holy source, and unceasingly comes

to the aid of the spirits and of all things living.”[147]

Footnote 147:

We seem to have here a vague idea of the Holy Spirit, with his Seven

Gifts, which are resplendent in the world of nature as well as in the

world of grace.

This spirit, Tum, or Tum Cheper (creator), is described in the texts as

“Master of understanding, ... giving to all things their motion: when he

wrought in the abyss of the waters,[148] then was produced the

gladsomeness of the light. The gods rejoiced at its beauty.”

Footnote 148:

“And the spirit of God moved over the waters” (Gen. i. 2). “And God

saw the light that it was good” (Gen. i. 4).

The Author of the universe is also worshipped as the principle of

Goodness under the name of Oun Nofrè—the Good Being; and the

inscriptions reiterate the appellation:

[Illustration: _The good God; greatly beloved ... greatness of loves._]

“His love is in the south: his graces in the north: all hearts are

transported with his beauty.... When he traverses the heavens in his

bark, and travels in peace through celestial space, his rowers are in

gladness.”[149]

Footnote 149:

Hymn to Ammon-Ra.

Again, in the wisdom of his secret counsels, God is described as holding

in reserve all that may happen in the future. “He is that which is, and

that which is not,” says the _Todtenbuch_; “for that which is, is in my

hand, and that which is not is in my heart.”

It has been necessary to dwell at some length on the Egyptian doctrines

respecting the nature of God and his relation to the world before

approaching another feature of exceeding interest in their

theology—namely, _the history and office of the Redeemer_.

This mighty Liberator, the first hope of whom was given by God to our

first parents, appears under various forms in the traditions of all the

peoples of a distant antiquity, and among these traditions the most

ancient and the most pure is certainly that of Osiris, whose noble and

beneficent attributes raise him above all the divinities of other

nations, represented as coming to bring succor to man. The Doctors of

the church were themselves struck with admiration before this august

figure, and did not hesitate to identify the name of Osiris with that of

our Lord Jesus Christ,[150] being convinced that the belief respecting

him was but an echo of the primitive revelation. It would indeed be

difficult to explain otherwise its correspondence to the Messianic

prophecies given later to the chosen people, or the analogies of the

Osirian teaching with the accomplishment, in the life of our Lord, of

the hopes which, during long centuries, it kept alive in the countless

generations of Egypt.

Footnote 150:

This fact, which appeared inexplicable temerity on the part of

Tertullian, is justified by what has of late years been

discovered from original documents, which correct the classical

misrepresentations of Egyptian theology.

The special attribute of Osiris is _goodness_; it is he who is

_Oun-Nofre_ the Good Being _par excellence_; it is he who, with Tum (or

Phtah) and Thoth, partakes of the divine essence, and is called, like

Ammon, _Neb-oua—the Lord alone_.

In the papyrus 3292 in the Hall of Tombs in the Louvre is the following

passage: “Hail to thee, Osiris, ... the great eldest Son of Ra, Father

of fathers,... King of immeasurable time and lord of eternity.... None

knows his name; innumerable are his names in the cities and the

nomes.[151]... Hail to thee, ... the one who didst rise from the dead.

He is the lord of life, and we live by his creations; none can live

without his will.” The second aspect of the life of Osiris is his

sojourn upon earth in human form, his death, and passage into the land

of the departed. Plutarch tells us that Osiris, lord of time, made

himself man and reigned on earth, giving his people wise and holy laws;

that he taught them agriculture and reverence to the gods, going through

all the country to instruct his subjects, whose attention he won and

whose manners he softened by the penetrating charm of his words and by

music.[152]

Footnote 151:

It is of these innumerable names that the Egyptians formed their long

litanies, which are, as it were, the type of those of the Catholic

Church. M. Ancessi mentions having heard at Cairo some wandering

musicians chanting under his window an old legend in the simple rhythm

in which the melodic phrase, incessantly repeated, has a close

resemblance to the Catholic litanies.

The following is a comparatively small portion of the papyrus of

Neb-Qed, where the departed, arrived in the hall of Supreme Justice,

enumerates the faults which he has avoided, proclaiming, at the same

time, some of the titles of Osiris:

“O thou who marchest, [_who art_] _come forth from An_! I am without

fault.

“O consumer of shadows! _come forth from the double retreat_; I have

not slain any man.

“O purity of the face! _come forth from Rastou_; I have committed no

fraud on the measures of corn.

“O Two Lions! _come forth from heaven_; I have committed no fraud in

the dwelling of justice.

“O Flame! _come forth in turning backwards_; I have told no lie.

“O Rampart! _come forth from the mysterious abode_; I have done

nothing worthy of condemnation.

“O thou that vivifiest the flame! _come forth from Hat-Phtah_; my

heart has had no evil intentions.

“O thou that turnest back the head (etc)!... I have been no detractor.

“O mystery of the leg! _come forth from the night_; I have not given

way to anger.

“O light of the senses! _come forth from the mysterious region_; I

have had no intercourse with a married woman.

“O blood! _come forth from the chamber of the lotus_; I have not been

depraved.

“O thou who perpetually renewest that which is! _issued from Khem_; I

have not been violent....

“O thou who hidest words!... I have not been prodigal of words.

“O Nofre-Toum in Ha-Phtah-Ka. I have not committed abomination.

“O thou who art unchanging! _issued from Dadou_; I have done no

outrage against the gods.

“O thou who sendest forth the heavenly river! come forth out of Saïs;

I have not made the slave to be maltreated by his master.

“O thou who vivifiest intelligent beings! I have not defrauded the

loaves in the temple.

“O beautiful Neb-Ka! I have not profaned the meat of the gods.... I

have not taken off the wrappings of the mummies.... I have not taken

away milk from the mouth of the infant.

“O thou whose eyes are like a sword! I have committed no fraud in the

abode of justice.”

Each title given to Osiris alludes to some mystery or teaching in the

Egyptian theology.

Footnote 152:

Music amongst the ancients was, far more than it is with us, an

agreeable pastime. Socrates declares that philosophy is nothing but a

sublime music: ὡς φιλοσοφίας μεν οὔσης μεγίστης μουσικῆς. In the third

book of his _Republic_ Plato goes much further, and affirms that the

musician alone is truly a philosopher: ὄτι μόνος μουσικός ὁ φιλόσοφος.

The chanted poems and traditions were for ages the depositaries of the

laws, ritual and history of a nation.

Even according to the myths, however, righteousness does not long

prosper upon earth. The Principle of Evil, enraged against him,

compassed his painful death when his life upon earth had attained

twenty-eight years[153]—often represented by twenty-eight lotus-flowers

in the inscriptions, and fixed by the traditional age of the Apis.

Footnote 153:

It has hitherto been difficult to discover the circumstances of the

death of Osiris, or the primitive tradition of his sufferings, about

which several legends have successively prevailed. The one given by

Plutarch cannot be of great antiquity. In the Isle of Philæ, which, if

we may so express it, had a special _devotion_ to Osiris, the history

of his life is given in a series of bas-reliefs in a small sanctuary

on the west of the great temple, his death and resurrection forming

the principal subjects.

There is a splendid passage relating to this god in Plutarch, ch.

lxxix., _Treatise on Osiris and Isis_.

But for Osiris, as for the true Saviour, the hour of death is the hour

of victory. He rises again, and reigns henceforth, king of an eternal

kingdom.

The priests and faithful of Osiris could not endure the attempts made by

travellers and philosophers to find a resemblance between this pure and

lofty divinity to any of their own disreputable gods, or to fix in the

depths of the earth and the abode of the dead the dwelling-place of him

who had “no kind of communication with substances subject to corruption

and death.” No other god had in Egypt so many temples and worshippers as

this the favorite deity of the country, since, besides its own local

divinity, each of the nomes worshipped Osiris and Isis, and thus the

“Protector of souls” was, from the Mediterranean to the cataracts, the

god of all the Egyptians.

The anniversary of the death of Osiris[154] was every year observed with

lamentations throughout the land, until the hour of his resurrection,

which was hailed with joy, festivities, and triumph; this people, always

so anxious and interested about the future beyond the tomb, having for

the “Lord of the life to come” the most deep and tender devotion. For,

of all the phases of his worship, that which occupied the largest place

and exercised the profoundest influence on the religious life of this

great nation is connected with the office of Osiris in regard to each

separate soul. All the funereal inscriptions dwell upon this. Osiris was

not only their saviour but their judge. In the paintings and sculptures,

and the vignettes of the ritual, he is usually represented enthroned in

the Hall of the divine Justice, where, enveloped, all but the face and

hands, in the shroud which had enfolded him in the tomb, and holding in

his right hand the hyk, or pastoral staff (not unlike an episcopal

crosier), and in the left a double-thonged scourge, he awaits the soul

of the departed. At his feet are the divine balances, wherein will be

weighed the heart of the dead. At the threshold of the hall Maat, the

symbol of justice and truth, receives the soul and presents it to the

Judge.

Footnote 154:

Most nations of antiquity have known the traditional mystery of a god

suffering, dying, and rising again. The worship of Adonis, long

prevalent among the Syrian races, penetrated, under the name of

Thammuz, even into the sanctuary of Israel (Ezek. viii. 14). Macrobius

speaks of it also among the Assyrians, and of the lamentations of

Proserpine; and the same belief is to be found in the long poems of

India. It is also probable that the Moabite worship of Beelphegor was

analogous to that of Osiris, Adonis, and Thammuz (see Numb. xxv. 2).

Women are here, as in Egypt, at Byblos, and Athens, especially charged

with his worship.

The soul’s first words on being brought into the presence of its God

were: “I am the Osiris [such a one],” giving his earthly name.[155]

Footnote 155:

In the papyrus Neb-Qed we find as follows: “Words, on entering the

Hall of Double Justice to see the face of the gods, spoken by the

Osiris Neb-Qed. He said: Hail to thee, great God, Lord of justice! I

come into thy presence to behold thy beauties ... _on the day of the

giving account of words_ before the Good Being. I place myself in your

presence, my lords; I bring you the truth.”

This assimilation of the faithful worshipper with his divine type is one

of the most elevated and touching characteristics of the Egyptian

doctrine; nor does anything analogous to it exist in any other religion

of antiquity—it is only in Christianity that we find it again. In the

same way that the Christian is a living member of Christ, sharing in his

life, rights, and merits, bearing his name, taking refuge behind the

person of his Saviour, so does the worshipper of Osiris become a living

member of his liberator, and another Osiris; and at the hour of death

the soul calls for aid from him who had also passed its dark portal and

come forth again victoriously.

Nothing is more touching than the prayers addressed by these suppliant

souls to their protector; thus we read, in a papyrus of the Louvre:

“Amensaouef the departed says to Osiris: Receive in peace this Osiris,

Amensaouef justified.... Open to him thy gates, that I may enter there

when my heart shall desire: may the guardians of thy pylones not fight

against me, and may I not be thrust back by thy guards, that I may see

God in his beauty; that I may serve him in the place where he dwells.”

To obtain a right to these favors, the soul, as in the litany already

quoted from the Book of the Dead, recalled its innocent life; in the

_Book of the Breathings_ the dead continues his justification by

enumerating his good works: “O gods who dwell in the lower hemisphere!

listen to the voice of the Osiris [such a one]; he is come before you.

There is in him no fault; no testimony arises against him.... He gave

bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty; he gave clothes to the

naked;[156] he offered peace-offerings to the gods and oblations to the

_manes_.”

Footnote 156:

Cf. Job xxix. 12-17, and xxxi. 16-22.

According to the result declared by the unerring balances, judgment was

given, and the name of the righteous written down by Thoth in the Book

of Life. The just had right to enter into the “Mysterious Retreat,” the

place of eternal bliss, to eat the fruit of the tree of life, _Astu_,

and rest in its shadow; to drink the waters of the river of life, to sit

down at the heavenly feast with Osiris, and to find the fulness of

happiness in the contemplation of the face of God. The impious were

driven to endless punishment in the fiery gulfs of _Amma_, while

“intermediate souls” were purified, by an expiation proportioned to

their faults, in the Lake of Fire.

The most curious document, after the _Todtenbuch_, which Egypt has

bequeathed to us on the subject is the long MS. entitled _The Book of

that which takes place in the Lower Hemisphere_.[157] The author there

describes, as if he himself had visited them, all the various localities

of these regions of darkness. In it we advance, with Osiris and his

dead, along the gloomy paths which frequently remind us of the

wanderings of Dante. The way is divided into twelve “Hours” with their

corresponding stations, and is peopled with mysterious phantoms and

mythological forms, who sometimes stop the travellers and at others

favor their progress. It is said at the seventh hour: “Who knows this,

the panther devours him not.”[158] The name of this hour is, “He who

repulses the reptile, who wounds the serpent Ha-her.”[159]

Footnote 157:

M. Deveria has given a summary of this book, in his _Notice des

Manuscrits du Musée du Louvre_.

Footnote 158:

It is also a panther that Dante encounters at the entrance of the

forest which is the commencement of the mysterious realm of Death. The

Egyptian texts mention also the lion, of which the Catholic liturgy

retains the remembrance in the Offertory for the Mass for the Dead:

_Domine Jesu Christe, libera animas defunctorum ... de ore leonis, ne

absorbeat eas Tartarus._

Footnote 159:

Each hour of this night has a name, according to the mystery

accomplished in it. The eighth hour is characterized by the defeat of

the great serpent, cast into the abyss. One of his names is _Apep_—_he

who lifts the head_, the _proud one_, represented by a serpent pierced

with arrows.

The most detailed description of the Egyptian hell is given in the third

register of the eleventh hour. There we are shown seven goddesses

standing, each armed with a sword;[160] the flames which spring from

their mouths fall into seven gulfs, wherein condemned souls,

hieroglyphic symbols of spirits, heads cut off, etc., are confusedly

mingled amidst the fire. Each gulf is designated in retrograde

characters by the word _Had_, reminding one of the Greek Hades; and each

goddess has a name which indicates her powers and functions. It was this

hell that was called also _the second death_—an expression preserved by

tradition to the days of Christianity, and repeated by St. John in the

Apocalypse, in which we find almost all the ancient formulæ of the

religious beliefs of primitive times.

Footnote 160:

“In that day, fear ye before the sword; the vengeance of the sword is

burning; that ye may know that there is a judgment” (Job xix. 29).

We have now briefly to consider Osiris under the aspect of _the Risen

One_. When, like the sun overcoming the shades of night, he rises from

the dead, he is called Horus; and although the texts insist upon the

absolute identity of the divine personality who manifests himself under

these two aspects, Horus nevertheless, in the mythological form of the

doctrine, is called his son—the Avenger of his father Osiris.

This formula, “I am Horus, the Avenger of his father,” occurs repeatedly

throughout the _Todtenbuch_; the Avenger being the God himself awakening

from the tomb under a new form, and taking possession of the second life

that knows death no more; that which happened to Osiris being repeated

in each departed soul, of whom he was the type and the Saviour.

Later on Egyptian mythology furnished Osiris with assistants for this

combat with death. The _Book of the Lower Hemisphere_ represents, at the

tenth hour of the journey through the lands beyond the tomb, and at the

moment when the trial is about to end, four gods, each bearing a bow and

arrows, with the legend: “These with their bows and arrows, going before

the great God, open to him the eastern horizon of heaven. This great God

says: Choose out your arrows, draw your bows; wound for me mine enemies

who are in darkness at the gate of the horizon.”[161] This combat is

renewed for each soul, and the avenging God invariably intervenes with

his attendant spirits. M. Ancessi considers that we have here an

unexpected and natural commentary upon the words of Job, “_I know that

my Avenger liveth_,” and proceeds to examine the sense of the word

_goel_, or avenger, of the Hebrew text.

Footnote 161:

Cat. of Egypt. MSS., _Book of the Lower Hemisphere_, p. 15.

In the social order of the wandering tribes a traditional law regulated

that, in case of murder, it rested with the family of the victim to take

vengeance on the murderer. It was for the son to avenge his father, or,

in default of a son, the nearest relative, who thus became the _goel_ of

the slain. It is easy to imagine the terrible effects of this fatal law,

which still prolongs itself through centuries, and sometimes does not

end before a whole tribe has been cut off.

But besides the earthly avenger, there was another—God himself, who

intervened at the hour of death to adjudge the punishment of the wicked

and take in hand the cause of the departed. Such is, in fact, the

character of the mysterious protector whose aid is claimed by Job when

he exclaims, “I know that my _Goel_ is living”; he can count upon him,

as in his tribe he counts upon the never-failing avenger of the cause of

the oppressed.[162]

Footnote 162:

Osiris surrounded his children with so much solicitude that he is

represented as even sending his attendants to visit their sepulchres.

We find, for instance, the following in papyrus 3283 of the Louvre:

“Said by Osiris to the gods of his suite: Go, then, and see this

dwelling of the departed, that it may be thus constructed; hasten it

for the moment of his heavenly birth with you; respect him; salute

him, for he is honorable.” It is curious to find so early the _dies

natalis_ of our martyrologies.

We need only allude to the frequency with which, in all poetical and

imaginative nations, a metaphor becomes a myth, to perceive the facility

with which the idea of the resurrection of Osiris became the birth of

Horus in the cradle of his father’s tomb. Thus there was a violent

death; there was a son; the next step naturally transforms Horus into

the avenger.

How often is it the case that a word of apparent unimportance, having

found its way into a dogmatic explanation, ends by entirely disfiguring

its sense, like a graft left by an unknown hand in the bark of a tree,

and which produces a complete change in its fruit![163] Thus, as time

goes on, we find grouped around Osiris, Horus the Avenger, who is called

his son, Isis and Nephtys, who are his sisters, forty terrible assessors

who surround his tribunal and aid him as judge, besides a multitude of

details which compromise and disfigure the ancient doctrine; while the

text of Job preserves the mysterious germ of the Osirian doctrine in its

simplicity and grandeur, and then applies it in prophetic allusion to

the death and resurrection of Messias the Redeemer.

Footnote 163:

“How often would the Catholic faith have hopelessly foundered amidst

the innovations which the heretics and sectaries of all times have

attempted to foist upon her, had not an infallible authority watched

over her and secured her integrity! I know nothing more convincing as

to the necessity of this doctrinal magistracy than the incessant

variation of the religions of antiquity. From a distance, and at first

sight, they seem to have changed the least; whereas, on the contrary,

their history has been nothing but a gradual and perpetual change, the

laws of which it may not be impossible some time to discover.”—_Le

Rédempteur et la Vie Future._

An additional probability that the words of Job contain an allusion to

this doctrine is to be found in the remarkable identity of the remaining

portion of this text with the formula of the Egyptian papyri. After his

affirmation of faith in a living Redeemer Job immediately adds, with the

theologians of Egypt: “In my flesh I shall see God, whom I, I shall see

for myself; mine eyes shall see him, and not [those of] another.”

The passages in the _Todtenbuch_ and funereal inscriptions are

numberless in which we find it said of the departed:

[Illustration: _This glorious spirit, in his flesh, he himself, he sees

(God)._]

Again: “I come to thee, Lord of gods and men; I come to contemplate thy

beauties.” “I behold the great God in the interior of his tabernacle; in

this day of the judgment of souls.”

The resemblance is so striking between the Hebrew and Egyptian texts

that comment is needless; nevertheless, we would guard against the

supposition that the ideas uttered by the patriarch were borrowed from

Egyptian theology; for, besides that in the words of Job there is the

absence of any myth or secondary personage whatever, it appears certain

that these doctrines, preserved in greater purity in their primitive

form among the Semitic races, may be traced back to the time of the

separation of the families of Sem and Cham, whom they respectively

accompanied into their distant wanderings as their most precious

heritage; but whilst the scribes and doctors of Egypt gradually

enveloped them in an exuberant mythology, the pastoral tribes of Sem

preserved them in the simplicity of the first ages.

And yet all these doctrines, which are proved to be the heritage of

humanity, would have been lost and buried with the Egyptian dead had it

not been for the intervention of Christ. In vain for three centuries did

the loftiest intelligences of Greece weary themselves in studies whose

result was to prove that man was incapable of forming true notions of

God, the soul, and our destinies from the chaos of systems which

enveloped the original revelation when our Lord brought to the human

race the realization of its venerable traditions and the faith of its

earliest days.

Let it not be objected that the doctrines of the Redeemer were more

ancient than his advent and known to man before he taught them upon

earth; for man having always had the same duties to fulfil in regard to

his future destiny, of necessity God did not leave him in ignorance of

them from the time of his origin; and when, later on, they were

forgotten, and the whole world lay in darkness, then arose the Light of

which a faint reflection in the firmament had long heralded the

approach, though clouded most before the dawn.

MILLICENT.

I.

About two years ago we were sitting in our sunny _salon_ in the Avenue

Gabrielle, my mother and I, she reading, I at my harp, when Tomlins, our

English maid, opened the door, her face all alight with suppressed

laughter.

“Well, Tomlins?” said my mother.

“Please, ma’am, it were _such_ a joke!” said Tomlins. “I was a-comin’

past the porter’s lodge when I 'eard a gentleman trying that 'ard to

explain himself, and he 'adn’t 'alf a dozen words o’ French, he 'adn’t;

and the _concierge_ he could make neither 'ead nor tail of what he was

wanting to say; and it _was_ that funny I couldn’t for the life of me

but burst out a-laughin’!”

“That was a shame! You should have gone to the gentleman’s assistance,

instead of laughing at him,” said my mother reprovingly; “he would have

done so had he seen you in a difficulty.”

“I think he was Hamerican, ma’am,” said Tomlins, in a tone which clearly

indicated that she thought this fact an extenuating circumstance of her

misbehavior.

“That makes no difference,” said my mother; “you know enough of French,

such as it is, to have been useful to him, and you should have come

forward. But how do you know he was an American?”

“He wore a white 'at, ma’am, and that’s what Henglish gentlemen don’t

use to, leastways not this time of year. He be the family that has took

the flat down-stairs for the winter.”

“Oh! he is a neighbor, then!” remarked my mother; and, turning to me,

she added: “Perhaps I ought to go down and see if we can be of any use

to them?”

“Indeed, mamma,” I replied hastily, “you will do nothing of the sort! We

have had enough of American acquaintances. These are most likely

enormously rich people, whose neighborhood, if we knew them, would be

nothing but a bore.”

“We have known some very rich ones who were exceedingly pleasant,” urged

my mother.

“Yes, and that is why I have registered a vow never to know another—not

if I can help it, at least,” I replied. “Just as you have grown to care

for them they sail away across the Atlantic, and you never see them

again! No, please, let us have nothing to do with these people

down-stairs! They may be perfectly charming, and, if they are, all the

more reason for keeping clear of them.”

“This is all very selfish and not at all like you,” persisted my mother.

“These people are at our door, strangers, and at the mercy of the

_concierge_, who will fleece them and worry them till they are driven

wild; it is a real act of charity to come to their rescue. I will send

Tomlins down with my card.”

I gave up the contest. I knew that, when there was an act of kindness to

be done, it was no use trying to oppose my mother, especially on such

selfish grounds as my present ones. The card was sent accordingly with a

message, and about ten minutes later up came the whole tribe—Dr.

Segrave, Mrs. Segrave, and Miss Sybil Segrave. They were simply beside

themselves with gratitude. Their delight on discovering that there was a

deliverer at hand, under the same roof with them, was quite affecting.

How they ever found the courage to come and face the situation at all,

with such a lively horror of its consequences, was a matter of great

surprise to us. Miss Segrave spoke French fluently, but this

accomplishment apparently was reserved solely for ornamental purposes;

her disconsolate parents had evidently not thought of pressing it into

such vulgar service as parleying with the _concierge_ and the cook—two

domestic enemies before whom they had already learned to shake in their

shoes.

There was something about the three that smote my heart at once. There

was a freshness, a frankness, a spontaneous trustfulness that it was

difficult to resist. I made a stand for it, nevertheless, and was as

coldly unresponsive to their exuberant warmth of manner as was

consistent with politeness. The doctor, however, took me by storm, and

in one minute and a half I had capitulated.

He was only doctor by courtesy; he had taken every degree that could be

taken, but he had only practised as an amateur, being, as my prophetic

soul had warned me, “enormously rich.” He was about fifty-five years of

age, tall, slim, dark, but he had a quizzical expression of face, a

twinkle in his eye, and a spring in his manner that made you forget he

was not a boy.

Mrs. Segrave was a complete contrast to him. Middle-sized, stout, and

unfashionable in appearance, she had the gentleness and the kindliness

of half a dozen mothers rolled up into one; her voice was low, her

manner simple almost to homeliness, but full of that easy

self-possession that stamped her at once as a lady—a most winning woman.

Sybil—O Sybil! How shall I describe her? She was not a beauty, and yet

she made the effect of being one. There was a brilliancy about her that

is indescribable; it lighted up the room the moment she entered. Pull

her to pieces, and she was nothing; take her as a whole, and she dazzled

you. Her features were irregular, her complexion was nothing particular,

but there was a sparkle, a glow, a grace about her altogether that were

more striking than the loveliest coloring or the most perfect symmetry.

I can see her now as she appeared to me that first day, standing on her

high heels, a little behind the doctor and Mrs. Segrave, her black eyes

glancing right and left like flashes of lightning, her scarlet feather,

set like a flame in her black velvet hat, illuminating her olive skin,

and her gold-brown silk dress glistening like a separate patch of

sunshine in the sunlit room. A most picturesque creature she looked. I

longed to hear her speak. No one was kept long waiting for this in

Sybil’s presence.

“This is the very kindest thing I ever heard of!” said Mrs. Segrave,

holding out her fat little hand to my mother.

“You have saved a family man from suicide, my dear madam!” said the

doctor in the heartiest tone.

“Father!” protested Sybil, “there you are making _such_ a character for

us! Mrs. Wallace will set us down as a family of mad Americans. I assure

you, Mrs. Wallace, we are all perfectly in our right minds, and _very_

grateful to you.”

This sortie broke the ice into splinters. We all laughed, shook hands,

and sat down, and the doctor began forthwith to pour out his troubles.

Their name was legion. He had not been twenty-four hours in the house,

and the _concierge_ had already driven him to the verge of insanity.

“If I could speak to the rascal, I’d be a match for him, and soon make

him know I would stand no nonsense,” he went on to explain. “But that’s

where he has me on the hip, as Shakspere says; he keeps jabbering on,

and I can’t answer the fellow. I know what he’s driving at, I know he’s

robbing me; but what aggravates me most is that he thinks he’s fooling

me.”

My mother poured all the oil she could on these angry waters, and in ten

minutes I could see that she and the doctor were sworn friends.

Sybil listened so far to the conversation with an air of amused

interest, just as I was doing; then abruptly turning from it, as if she

had had enough of the subject, “You are a musician, I see,” she said—my

harp and piano stood open ready for action. “I am perfectly devoted to

music! I will come up and play duets with you, if you let me?” I said I

should be delighted.

“But I like talking ten thousand times better than music,” she went on.

“Music is a way of expressing one’s self with another instrument than

one’s tongue; but one tires of it after a while. One never tires of

talking; _I_ never do.”

I could readily believe this, but assented as to a general proposition.

“Do you read a great deal?” she continued. “I don’t. I find life is too

absorbing, too full; one has no time left for reading. Have you? Human

beings are the books I enjoy most. I am so _intensely_ interested in my

fellow-creatures! I like to study them, to turn them inside out, to

analyze their characters, to exchange views with them. I do so enjoy

discussing life. Don’t you?”

This time she did “pause for a reply,” and I was able to make one. It

was not very satisfactory.

“No, really! You don’t care for discussing life! Well, I _am_ surprised

at that. Dangerous! What a funny idea! But if it were, that would only

make it ten times more interesting to me; there is such an excitement in

danger! If I had been a man I should have been passionately devoted to

tiger-hunting. Now, life is a kind of tiger-hunt, when one comes to

think of it; one can always get some excitement out of it—watching other

people at the hunt, I mean. Don’t you think so? People take such

different views of life. Good gracious! one would never get to the end

of one’s friends’ views, if one began, even on one particular subject.

Take love and marriage, for instance; what _can_ be more intensely

interesting than to discuss marriage with a person who holds views

_diametrically_ opposite to one’s own?”

She rattled on in this way for half an hour: it was very amusing. I felt

very tame beside her, and I fancied she must have found me insufferably

dull and unsympathetic. I found out afterwards that I was mistaken in

this; her estimate had been very flattering. On reflection it need not

have surprised me; there is nothing a great talker likes so much as a

good listener.

We all parted most cordially, with mutual congratulations on the chance

that had brought us together.

“I feel as bold as a lion,” said the doctor as he shook hands with my

mother. “I am ready to brave an army of _concierges_.”

“Oh! keep the peace; keep friends with him at any cost. If you make him

your enemy, he will worry your life out,” was her parting injunction.

“Well,” she said, when the door had closed on our new acquaintances,

“what do you think of them?”

“I think them perfectly odious!” I replied.

“My dear Lilly!”

“Yes. They are just the kind of people we are sure to get fond of, to

make a friendship with, and then away they will fly, and we shall never

hear or see them for the rest of our lives.”

“You are determined to make a tragedy out of it, so I will not

contradict you,” said my mother. “Meantime, I shall enjoy the pleasant

neighborhood, and trust to its not ending so badly. They are here for

six months certain, and if they like it, and the countess likes to renew

their lease, they may remain for six months more. They intend to make

themselves very comfortable, meantime, and to receive a good deal.”

“Humph! They will be sending us invitations to their entertainments, I

suppose,” I said.

“That is very likely.”

“They will have their share in their thanks, as far as I am concerned,”

I said; and I sat down to my harp again. “I have no fancy to go and

figure as a housemaid amongst their magnificent American toilettes.”

“I am vain enough to flatter myself that my child would look like a

gentlewoman, whatever her surroundings might be,” observed my mother

quietly, “and that she does not depend on dress for her individuality.”

What else could I do but jump up and kiss her for this speech, and

declare myself ready to go and sport my white muslin and pink ribbons in

the midst of all the latest wonders of Worth & Company?

It was not many days before I had an opportunity of putting this heroic

resolve into execution.

You may laugh; but it was heroic. I realized this distinctly, even

before the supreme crisis of the eventful evening came. Sybil herself

came up with the card of invitation.

“Mamma was putting it into an envelope to send it by Pierre,” she said;

“but I said that was the veriest nonsense, and that I would take it

myself. Of course you are disengaged? You _must_ be disengaged!”

“Unfortunately, we are,” I replied.

“Why, Lilly Wallace, what _do_ you mean!” screamed Sybil.

“Just this: that I am a trifle proud, and just vain enough not to care

to look a guy wherever I go, and that I am pretty sure to look that at

your house on the 22d. You will all be dressed to kill, as you

say—rigged out in the very newest fashions by the most expensive

dressmakers in Paris—and I shall have to appear like a school-girl in

plain white muslin. I never wear anything else; mamma can’t afford it. I

shall have a new one, and she will give me a handsome sash and fresh

flowers; but that is all. She will appear herself in plain black velvet,

without either old point or diamonds. If you think we will make too

hideous a blot on your splendor, say so honestly, and we will spare you

the disgrace.”

“Lilly, you are the very oddest girl I ever came across in the whole

course of my life!” protested Sybil. “Why, how _can_ you talk so? You

will look perfectly lovely in your sheer white muslin. I only wish we

Americans were not such fools as to spend all our money on our backs as

we do; I can tell you most of us hate it and think it awfully hard to

have to do it. But we can’t help it; we should get so laughed at if we

went to a ball in white muslin that we should _die_ of shame.”

“Well, that’s a pleasant lookout for me!” I remarked.

“Oh! it’s quite a different thing with you,” Sybil declared, and with a

warmth I felt was sincere; indeed, I felt she was sincere all through.

“You are English, and we know perfectly well you have a different

standard in those things.”

“And my mother?” I said. “What sort of effect is she likely to produce

in her plain black velvet?”

“She will look like a queen—that’s all; you know she will, Lilly.”

I did know it; I had known it as long as I could remember. I had been

brought up by my mother in a black velvet dress, and believed, nay,

knew, that she looked as beautiful and queenlike in it as if its soft

and sombre simplicity had been embroidered in gems and beflowered by all

the Worths in Christendom.

I confess, nevertheless—and I do so with shame—that I felt mortified at

her having to present herself in this splendid gathering of

Transatlantic rank and fashion in the attire which had borne her

triumphantly through many a stately Parisian crowd. I was really dazzled

by the splendor of the dresses when we stood in the midst of them. There

was no distinguishing the young from the old, the maid from the matron;

silks, satins, laces, jewels glistened indiscriminately on all. There

was a great deal of beauty amongst the women—there is sure to be in an

American assembly; but the richness of their dresses surpassed anything

I ever beheld. In a French _salon_ you may expect to meet a great deal

of elegance—some dresses that stand out from the common level of taste

and becomingness by their more brilliant hues and elaborate trimmings;

but here all were brilliant, all were elaborate, all were magnificent. I

really did feel an anachronism as I stood there in my innocent,

fluttering muslin, while these superb, many-colored birds-of-paradise

floated and rustled all round me, sweeping the dark carpet with miles of

silk, and satin, and velvet, and lace of every hue in the rainbow. It

was like being shut up in a kaleidoscope; the pattern shifted, flashing

into new forms before my eyes at every turn, until I felt fairly

bewildered by the moving glory. What kind of conversation could go on

under external conditions like these? How were people, women at any

rate, to collect their thoughts to converse on any possible subject

except the one that was under their eyes, brought before them in such

victorious, fascinating guise? If they were not talking of dress, their

own dress, their friend’s dress, dress in general or in particular, they

were most assuredly thinking of it. And small blame to them. I know I,

for one, could think of nothing else.

Nothing could exceed the courtesy of our hosts. They led up guest after

guest to introduce to us; all the magnates were presented to my mother,

all the young ladies to me. They were very gracious, every one of them,

but we did not get on well after the first exchange of commonplaces. How

could we? What interest could a white-muslin creature like poor me have

in the eyes of these sumptuously-attired young ladies? I said simply

nothing to them, I suggested nothing; I was a blank. Sybil never sat

down for a moment. She was untiring in her efforts to make everybody

happy and pleasant and at home. She kept flitting about from room to

room, bringing young gentlemen up to young ladies, seeing that no one

was overlooked, that congenial elements were drawn together, that

antagonistic ones were kept asunder. There probably were some

antagonistic ones, though they were invisible beneath the gay,

harmonious surface—that pale, stately-looking girl, for instance, whom I

had noticed sitting apart beside a large console that separated her from

the gaudy group standing close by. I knew she was a great friend of

Sybil’s, because I had seen her photograph in a dainty gilt frame in the

place of honor on her writing-table. I saw Sybil making a dart to her

side every now and then, and interchanging a few hurried words in a tone

of close confidence; and yet she took no pains to bring her forward or

to introduce people to her. There was something peculiar about the

girl’s air and countenance that drew my attention and made me wish to

speak to her. I seized the first opportunity to whisper this wish to

Sybil.

“The pale girl in the corner? Whoever do you mean? Oh! Millicent Gray.

Yes, by and by. I don’t think you would care much to talk to her; I mean

I don’t think you and she would hit it off very well,” said Sybil in a

hesitating way; and somehow it was borne upon me that she thought

exactly the contrary; that we should hit it off too well, and that she

preferred, for reasons of her own, not to bring us together. I there and

then resolved that I would make Millicent Gray’s acquaintance before I

left the room—or die.

Did Sybil see this in my face, I wonder? She had a way of flashing a

look at you with her round black eyes that suggested a power of reading

you through and through which was sometimes uncomfortable. I felt it so

now, and, trying to assume an air of supreme indifference, I observed,

looking in another direction:

“Then never mind. I only fancied talking to her because no one else has

been doing so; she looked lonely.”

Sybil’s rose-colored skirts floated away in the direction of Millicent

Gray, and for a moment I half-expected she was going to bring her up to

me. I was mistaken; she bent over her friend, and began talking in

animated tones, gesticulating with her fan in an excited manner.

Millicent listened apparently with more surprise than approval; there

was a faint expression of sarcastic resentment on her pale, thoughtful

face, and an imperceptible movement of her shoulders seemed to shrug

away some remark of Sybil’s with smiling dissent; as she did so, her

eyes turned towards me and our glances met. There was a mute recognition

in them which we both felt. I blushed, feeling rather guilty for

watching her so closely; she smiled, and, in spite of myself, I obeyed a

law of nature and smiled too. The rooms were now so full that it was

difficult to move about; there was small chance of the crowd swaying me

across towards Millicent, and she sat on, surveying the scene from her

nook with a face that was more expressive of quiet observation than

enjoyment. She was dressed in white silk, with waves of tulle flowing

over it, but without further ornament—neither ribbons nor flowers; she

wore one large crimson rose in her hair, a long _trainée_ of leaves

dropping down from it and entangling a rich curl of her dark hair. The

relative simplicity of the dress singled her out as a very remote cousin

to my white muslin, and I felt more than ever convinced we should prove

sympathetic to each other. How was I to make good my vow to speak to her

or die? The chances were that I should die, for just at this moment

Sybil bore down on me from the rear, and took me in tow through the

billows of silks and lace into her own boudoir, which was two rooms off

from the central _salon_ where my pensive heroine abided.

“Are you having a good time of it, Lilly?” she inquired, darting her

bright black eyes through me, when we came to a little breathing space.

“What do you think of our American society? Are our women as handsome as

yours? Are our young men as agreeable?”

“Four questions in one breath!” I cried, pretending to gasp. “Let me

answer the first—the only one I can meet on such short notice: I am

having a capital time of it. You are the best hosts I ever saw, all

three of you. But, Sybil, do introduce me to that girl in white silk.”

“No, I won’t,” said Sybil. “You must want some refreshment. I don’t

believe you’ve taken so much as an ice; I’ve seen you let the trays pass

a dozen times untouched. Come into the supper-room and have something.

Stay,” and she bent close to me and went on in a whisper: “I will make

Mr. Halsted take you in. You see that young man with the fuchsia in his

buttonhole? He is perfectly charming. I have had such a delightful talk

with him just now!”

“About what?”

“Good gracious! About everything.”

“You have been discussing life with him?”

“Precisely.”

“And what has come of it? Has he proposed, or is he only hovering on the

brink, poor wretch?”

“How absurd you are, Lilly, with your English ideas!” cried Sybil, still

in a _sotto voce_, although the music drowned everybody’s voice. “You

won’t understand that one may discuss life with a young man without

meaning any harm!”

“Harm? To his heart, do you mean?”

“Or to one’s own.”

“Have you got one, Sybil?” I asked quite seriously.

“Yes, I have, and a _very_ sensitive one too, let me tell you,” she said

in her vehemently emphatic way. “Mr. Halsted, will you take my friend to

have some refreshment? Mr. Halsted—Miss Wallace.”

And off I went with this perfectly charming young man.

The first person I met in the supper-room was my mother, whom the doctor

had just taken in and was plying with some delicious nectar of an

American drink.

“My dear, I was beginning to wonder what had become of you,” she said.

“It is growing rather late, is it not?”

The doctor protested, but we made good the opportunity as soon as his

hospitable back was turned, and disappeared from the brilliant scene.

And Millicent Gray? I was of course in honor bound to die, as I had not

spoken to her; but I thought it better to live, and try and make good my

resolution in some other way. Chance favored me unexpectedly. A few days

after the magnificent reception on the first floor I went down to

discuss life quietly with Sybil for half an hour, when the servant said

she had been obliged to run out for a few minutes to her aunt’s, next

door, but that she would be back presently, and had begged I would go in

and wait for her.

I had not been many minutes in the _salon_ when the doctor came in. He

had been “down town” to Galignani’s, and had gleaned all the news that

was abroad, what steamers were signalled, which had come in, which had

sailed, and who had come in by the last arrival. The doctor was a

terrible flirt. He sat down on the sofa beside me, and began to repeat

verses from Tommy Moore about my “bright eyes that were his heart’s

undoing,” and I know not what besides. Mrs. Segrave heard us laughing,

and came in to see what it was all about.

“Ah! my dear,” she said, “he whispered those very same verses to me

five-and-twenty years ago. Don’t believe him; he’s a gay deceiver.

Charles dear, did you ask Mrs. Wallace what we were going to do about

this claim the _concierge_ is making of twenty francs a month extra for

bringing up our letters?”

“No, I did not,” said the doctor. “In fact, I had not time yet; but I

dare say Miss Lilly can tell us just as well!”

“Oh! if it’s anything about the _concierge_ you had much better appeal

to mamma,” I said to Mrs. Segrave. “She is at home now, and if you go up

you will find her alone.”

“I see how it is: you want to get me out of the way!” said Mrs. Segrave.

“You want to hear what more Charles has to say about your bright eyes.

Well, well, I’ll go; I’ll not be a spoil-sport.”

She was going to open the door when Pierre opened it, and in

walked—Millicent Gray. After the usual greetings Mrs. Segrave said,

turning to me:

“You know Sybil’s friend, Miss Gray, of course? No! I was sure you had

met. Then let me introduce you—”

As soon as we had got “well into conversation,” the doctor proposed that

he and Mrs. Segrave should leave us young ladies together, and go up to

consult my mother about this new imposition of the _concierge_.

When Millicent and I found ourselves alone there was an awkward pause

for a moment; we felt as conscious as a pair of lovers thrown together

for the first time. At last we looked at each other and began to laugh.

“I am so pleased to meet you,” I said.

“Not so much pleased as I am,” she replied. “I have been entreating

Sybil to make me acquainted with you, and she would not. We came near

quarrelling over you the other evening.”

“So did she and I! What could have been her motive?” I said.

“Did she not tell you?”

“No.”

“And you don’t guess?”

“No! Pray tell me, if it is not a secret,” I said.

“Oh! no, it’s no secret,” replied Millicent, laughing. “You are a

Catholic. She was afraid to let me know you.”

“Lest I should contaminate you!”

“Lest you should convert me.”

I was silent from sheer surprise.

“You see what a dangerous person she thinks you!” said Millicent,

laughing.

“I don’t see why she should,” I replied, rather nettled. “I never tried

to convert her.”

“Perhaps because you felt it was a hopeless case,” said Millicent, who

could not apparently see the thing in a serious light; for she was

laughing still, and looked altogether highly amused.

“I don’t know whether I felt about it one way or the other,” I said. “I

am utterly bewildered that Sybil should have laid hold of the idea of my

being so dangerous in that line; from the moment I discovered what her

notions on religion were I avoided even touching on the subject directly

or indirectly, and yet she looks upon me as a lion or a fox going about

and seeking whom I may devour!”

“No, no; you must not think that,” protested Millicent. “She looks upon

you as dangerous, but in quite another sense from proselytizing. She

suspects me—very unjustly, I assure you—of having what she calls Roman

Catholic proclivities; and when I expressed a wish to know you—she raves

about you in the most enthusiastic way—she said nothing would induce her

to make us acquainted; that you were just the kind of person to whisk me

into the Catholic Church before I knew where I was.”

There was something at once so absurd and so thoroughly characteristic

of Sybil in this remark that, in spite of myself, I burst out laughing.

“I promise solemnly,” I said, “that I will not whisk you in without

giving you due warning, and, moreover, having your full and free consent

to the operation beforehand.”

“Thank you. That is generous,” said Millicent; “and to prove my sense of

it I solemnly promise not to whisk you into my church without having

your full and free consent beforehand.”

“Yes, by the bye,” I said, “it never seems to have occurred to Sybil

that the danger might be mutual; that I ran a risk as well as you by our

becoming acquainted?”

Millicent was hesitating in her answer when we heard a loud ring at the

door, and in an instant Sybil burst into the room. She stood for an

instant looking at us, and then cried out in her ringing tones:

“Well, is it all over with you? Has she done it?”

“Done what?” I said. “Miss Gray has not attempted to do anything except

to make herself exceedingly agreeable.”

Sybil laughed merrily.

“I call that exceedingly smart—quite worthy of a Yankee!” she cried. “By

the way, it puts the thing in a new light. Milly, turn on the guns and

try and convert _her_.” And she pointed to me with her chinchilla muff.

“That _would_ be a feather in one’s cap! Good gracious!”

“Then why should you not try for it yourself?” I inquired. “Sybil, I am

inclined to be very angry with you for making me such a reputation. You

know perfectly well I have never had a word of controversy with you

since we have known each other; never done the least thing to try and

make a Catholic of you. You know I have not!”

“I know nothing of the sort,” protested Sybil. “I know this: that you

and your mother are the very most dangerous pair of Catholics I have

ever met—just the kind of Catholics to knock one’s prejudices on the

head with one blow.” And she banged the table with her pretty little

muff. “You never preach, either of you, or talk controversy, or do any

mortal thing to put one on one’s guard; but you do every conceivable

thing to make one fall in love with your religion: you are the very milk

of human kindness, you never speak ill of any one, you are always ready

to help people, you spend your time going after the poor, nursing the

sick, and heaven knows what besides; for you are up at cock-crow, and

out by candlelight saying your prayers, when we are fast asleep in our

beds. Milly Gray, now mark my words”—and she faced round and confronted

Millicent with uplifted muff, in a Sibylline attitude of warning—“mark

my words: this is none of my doing, and whatever comes of it is not to

be laid at my door.”

“Sybil, I promise that, whatever catastrophe the future of this day may

have in store, it shall not be visited on you,” said Millicent. “You

have warned me of my peril, and, you know, he who is forewarned is

forearmed. Tell me, now, what have you done with Mr. Halsted?”

“Done with him? What did you want me to do with him?”

“Either kill him or cure him.”

“I should kill him, if I could,” said Sybil. “I never knew so perverse a

man in the _whole course of my life_.”

She dragged out the last words with an emphasis that might have led one

to suppose the course of her life embraced a period of at least

ninety-nine years.

“What is he perverse about?” inquired her friend.

“He won’t change his politics, he won’t go back to the States, and he

won’t marry the girl he ought to marry.”

She enumerated these grievances with a gusto of indignation that made us

scream with laughter.

“I thought his politics were on the right side—that is, on your side,”

said Millicent when she had recovered her gravity.

“That’s the wrong side,” said Sybil; “_her_ politics are strongly

Democratic, and there is not the ghost of a chance for him, unless he

turns Democrat too.”

“But if he does not want a chance?” I ventured to put in.

“But he ought; I want him to want it. She’s the very sweetest girl in

the whole of the United States; and her father is the dearest old man,

and would give her a splendid fortune if Mr. Halsted would marry her.

And everybody believed he would; only old Nick put it into his head to

come out to Europe, and he has gone and fallen in love with another

girl!”

“Who won’t marry him?” suggested Milly.

“_Cer_tainly not!” declared Sybil.

At this juncture Dr. and Mrs. Segrave came in, bringing my mother with

them. She was dressed for me to go out with her, so I had to run off to

equip myself, having first cordially invited Millicent Gray to come and

see me as soon as possible.

She came the next day, and on a strange errand, considering the warnings

of Sybil.

“I am anxious to be of some use to the poor,” she said, after we had

talked some little time, “and I don’t know how to go about it here. I

suppose there are no Protestants to visit, or at least they must be very

few; would there be any objection to my visiting Catholics?”

“Not the slightest,” I replied, “unless you intend to whisk them into

the Protestant Church before they know where they are; in that case I

don’t think M. le Curé would care to enlist your services.”

“I have no sinister designs of that sort, I assure you,” said Millicent;

“and to prove it, I want you to let me go with you on your rounds. I

will make myself useful in any way you appoint, and I will do exactly as

you tell me—as far as I know how, that is.”

I said, of course, that I should be delighted to have her as a

companion, and that we should begin our partnership to-morrow; but my

mother came in as we were settling about the hour we were to meet, and

unexpectedly put a spoke in the wheel.

“Does Mrs. Gray approve of this arrangement, my dear?” she inquired.

“I have not mentioned it to her,” replied Millicent, her American ideas

of independence evidently a little shocked by the question; “but she is

sure to approve of it when I do. Is there any reason why she should

not?”

“There may be. You are a Protestant, and this scheme of visiting the

poor with my daughter must bring you in contact with Catholics of

various classes—the poor, the Sisters of Charity, perhaps incidentally

with M. le Curé and other priests. Before you embark on these perils I

should prefer that your mother’s consent was secured. We English mothers

have Old-World prejudices about parental authority, you perceive,” added

mamma, smiling; “you will not mind humoring mine in this case.”

Millicent declared her perfect readiness to do so. She looked like one

who would gladly humor everybody’s wishes. I was already in love with

her. The charm which attracted me that night amidst the gay crowd had

not fled “like the talisman’s glittering glory” on a nearer approach. I

was at a loss to see where the point of mutual attraction lay between

her and Sybil; but Sybil was one of those creatures who spirited away

your sympathies before you had time to challenge the thief or lay a

protecting hand upon your treasure. She was a siren, who drew you to her

cave and did not devour you. Millicent was a complete contrast to her in

appearance as well as in character; her eyes were deep blue, and her

hair, which was very dark, whitened her fair complexion to the

transparency of alabaster, and gave a stronger individuality to her

delicate features than blond hair, which seemed their natural

birthright, could have lent them. She was very tall, and her small,

beautifully-formed hands and feet put the seal on the character of

singular refinement which pervaded her whole exterior.

My mother was greatly taken with her. “You have committed yourself more

seriously in this case, it strikes me,” she remarked when Millicent had

taken leave.

“They are settled in Paris permanently,” I replied; “I asked her that at

once. I should not have embarked on an intimacy with her, if they had

been only birds of passage.”

Mrs. Gray made no difficulty about Millicent’s joining me in my visits

to the poor; she observed, indeed—very naturally, I thought—that “Mrs.

Wallace ran just the same risk in allowing her daughter to associate

with Millicent.” Millicent returned next morning quite jubilant with

this message, and we set out on our first walk together. We agreed that

we were not to improve this or any future opportunity to convert each

other. Was I quite sincere when I entered on this agreement? Looking

back on it, I think I can honestly say I was. I meant that I would not

discuss religion or say anything to prejudice Millicent against her own;

that I would rigidly avoid controversy; and in all this I kept my word.

But I did not disguise from myself that I had a great longing to see her

a Catholic, and that I should do my best in another way to bring about

this result. For this purpose I had her name put down at Notre Dame des

Victoires for prayers. I asked several of my friends to pray for the

same intention, and I made a point of praying every day for it myself. I

took her to see Sœur Lucie, a Sister of Charity I was very fond of, and

I interested her in the same object. I counted a good deal, too, on the

impression which the faith of the poor was likely to make on her.

I was just then much occupied with a poor woman named Mme. Martin, who

was dying, who had been dying these five years of a very painful malady.

I think she was the first person I took Millicent to see. She lived in a

room on the sixth floor—that is, in the attic—of a house where her

mother was _concierge_. She had been better educated than the generality

of her class, having been brought up as a teacher of singing. This

pursuit had subsequently thrown her into the society of persons much

above her in position, and the contact had contributed still more to

educate and refine her. She had consequently acquired something of the

varnish of a lady, and, without being really educated, she had gained

that increased capacity for suffering which even imperfect education

gives. Her illness had thrown her back into her original position and

surroundings, and these were perfect misery to her. She could not bear

the society of the servants—her constant one now, owing to that horrible

French system of stowing away the servants of every flat in the same

house into pigeon-holes under the roof, old and young, men and women,

innocent, honest girls and vicious old veterans in dishonesty, all

crammed higgledy-piggledy in a proximity full of dangers to both soul

and body. This population of the pigeon-holes was insupportable to Mme.

Martin; she had nothing in common with them nor they with her. They

pitied her—for the French are always kind-hearted—but they resented her

evident superiority, and often showed their pity in a way that hurt more

than it soothed. She writhed under the compassion of these coarse,

vulgar-minded men and women, whose conversation turned chiefly on the

domestic concerns of their masters, how they cheated them, the tricks

they practised on them.

They came to see, after a while, that she did not care for their

society, and they ceased to inflict it on her, and Mme. Martin came

gradually to be as isolated as if she had been living in a desert. She

was glad of it in one way. We most of us prefer solitude to

unsympathetic company; we had rather be left alone than intruded on by

those loud voices and heavy steps that jar so painfully on the nervous

atmosphere of a sick-room; but there were times when her loneliness

weighed terribly on her, when she longed for any hand that would but

raise her paralyzed limbs from a posture that had grown agonizing from

prolonged immobility, that would give her the drink that was just beyond

the reach of her arm. Her mother could come to her but very seldom; she

dared not absent herself during the busy portion of the day from her

lodge downstairs. Sœur Lucie was very kind, and came as often as she

could; it was she who had taken me to her and begged me to look after

her. I was the better able to do so that Mme. Martin lived only five

minutes’ walk from our house. I don’t think I ever came in contact with

a sufferer who edified me more than this poor woman. It was not that she

was so wonderfully pious, or heroic, or resigned; she was all three by

turns, but none constantly. Perhaps it was this very fluctuation that

made one realize so vividly the supernaturalness of the struggle she was

carrying on. You saw the power of the sacraments, the action of grace

working on her soul, almost as visibly as that of medicine on the body.

She was a woman of very strong passions, acute sensibilities, and ardent

imagination; you can fancy what it was to such a nature to be immured in

a room about twelve feet long by eight, with a roof slanting to the

floor at one side, and a window in the slant, incapable of moving in her

bed without help, dependent on charity for even that bed and for the

bread she ate. For the first years of her illness this misery was so

unendurable, she told me, that she thought it would have driven her mad,

and the terror of this prospect was the most unbearable thing of all.

She had not the consolations of religion then. Her artist life, with its

alluring perils, its wild companions, its passionate aspirations, had

led her away from the realities of the faith and gathered a mist before

her eyes. But she fell ill, and then the mist began to clear away. The

Sisters of Charity found her out, and the old sacred memories of

childhood were awakened; her First Communion, with its sweet, pure joys,

its lovely, solemn pageant, the bright companionship of kindred hearts

starting with the fervent promise to the divine Guest whose first coming

was the grand event, the supreme crisis of their little lives, the goal

to which, thus far, their lives had tended—all this came back like a

well-remembered dream at the sight of the gray habit and the white

cornette. It was the old, old story: the prodigal had wandered into a

strange country, and had grown homesick and turned back, and the Father

had met him half way on the road. She had not fed upon the husks of

swine, poor Mme. Martin; only “forgotten to eat her bread,” and hunger

had driven her home. She spoke to me of her conversion in terms of such

deep humility and compunction that I might have fancied her the most

appalling sinner who had ever lived, if Sœur Lucie had not told me the

exact history of it.

But it was not all sunshine and smooth waters even after this blessed

welcome home. There were dreadful battles to be fought yet. She fought

bravely, but not always with a smiling face and a glad heart. Oh! no.

There were days, of such terrific anguish, such utter, black despair,

that it used to seem to me sometimes that her faith _must_ fail this

time, that nothing short of a miracle could save her now. And nothing

else did. What greater miracle is there than the triumph of God’s grace

over our corrupt and fallen nature, the victory of sacraments over the

devil that holds our soul? It was a greater wonder to me every time I

witnessed it in Mme. Martin. This presence of an evil spirit in her—a

real though invisible presence of tremendous, almost omnipotent

power—was so palpable that I used to feel something like the kind of

terror one would feel near a person possessed. I always felt perfectly

helpless while the crisis lasted, and would sit there and listen dumbly

while she uttered her bitter, fierce words, not raving in loud, wild

accents, but with a sort of hard, suppressed anger, a deep-down

rebellion against the cruel, all-powerful will that was torturing her.

There was no use arguing or preaching, or trying to make her see the

sinfulness and the stupidity of it all; one could do nothing but bear

with it, praying silently to God to come to her, and lay his finger on

the wounded soul, and speak with his voice, and bid the winds be still.

One thing struck me with peculiar significance: no matter how fiercely

rebellious she was towards God, she could always turn with a softened

glance towards his Blessed Mother. There was an old print of the _Mater

Dolorosa_ on the wall over her bed, and it was the strangest thing to

see the poor sufferer lift her dark, vindictive eyes to it with a

tender, compassionate, entreating glance, while words of almost savage

petulance against the Son were still hot on her lips. Once I remember

her bursting into tears as she turned towards it in one of these sudden

appeals. The fiend was exorcised for that day. I sat beside her till she

had cried herself to sleep like a tired, naughty child.

These terrible days were invariably followed by periods of compunction,

humble self-reproach, and love so fervent and consoling that it used to

seem to me they could never pass away, that the darkness could never

return, that this time the rescue was complete and irrevocable. The

humility with which she would beg my pardon for the scandal she had

given me, the way she would upbraid herself for her base ingratitude to

our Blessed Lord, were more touching than I can describe. She would look

up fondly towards the _Mater Dolorosa_ with such an expression of

tenderness on her haggard, sunken face, and say, as if apostrophizing

it: “Ah! I knew she would gain the victory. I knew she would not desert

me! _Pauvre mère! Elle a tant souffert!_”

The first day that I took Millicent Gray to see her she was in one of

these blessed, penitential moods. It had lasted through several

days—days of fearful suffering, and nights of sleepless weariness. She

uttered an exclamation of joyous welcome when I appeared.

“_Que le bon Dieu est bon!_ I knew he would not keep me waiting much

longer. My little stock of patience was just coming to an end!” And she

smiled good-humoredly.

“What is it you want?” I inquired.

“I was dying with thirst,” she said, “and I managed to draw this cup to

me by hooking my finger in the handle, but I was in such a hurry to

drink it that it slipped from me, and I am all wet and half-perished!”

And, indeed, she was trembling with cold; her hands were like ice and

her teeth chattered. I hastened to lift her up on her pillows and repair

the accident, Millicent helping very dexterously. I had prepared Mme.

Martin for her visit, so merely introduced her as a friend of mine, who

would be glad to come and see her sometimes, if she allowed it.

When we had settled her in some degree of comfort, Millicent and I sat

down and began to converse. Mme. Martin was in too great pain to join in

the conversation, except by throwing in a word now and then to show she

was following it, but one could see she was interested in what we were

saying. There was an unusual brightness and peace about her, in the

expression of her face and the tone of her voice; I rejoiced that

Millicent should see it, for I knew it could not fail to impress her.

“Was last night as bad as the preceding ones?” I said when we were going

away.

“Yes; it was very bad. I did not get a moment’s rest till it was

daylight,” she said; and she smiled quite serenely.

“My poor friend! How cruelly tried you are!” I could not help

exclaiming. “May God give you courage!”

“He does! he does!” she cried fervently. “It is a miracle how good he is

to me—a miracle.”

“We must ask him for another one, that your courage may be rewarded by a

cure,” said Millicent kindly.

“Oh! no. Don’t ask for that! I don’t want it!” said Mme. Martin quickly,

as if she were frightened the miracle was going to be wrought on the

spot. “I don’t want to be cured, only to be sustained, and to go on

suffering a long time—as long, that is, as He likes—that I may prove I

am not ungrateful; that I love him a little bit after all he has done

for me! All he has done for me!” There was a look almost of ecstasy on

her features as she said this, her face slightly upturned, but her eyes

closed as if she were looking within her, into that sanctuary of her

soul where God was present. I felt, rather than saw, Millicent turn a

sudden, startled glance towards me.

“That is the most precious and most beautiful of all miracles,” I said

presently, “that our hard hearts should be softened by the cross, and

that we should come to love it for His sake; is it not?”

“Yes,” she replied; “it is the one I have most prayed for. It is to her

I owe it.” And she turned to the _Mater Dolorosa_. “In my worst moments

I always felt for her; that my cross was nothing compared to

hers—nothing! _Pauvre mère!_”

When we were out of earshot, on the landing about half way down the

narrow stair, Millicent stopped, and, looking round at me, said: “Her

brain has begun to be affected; she is a little mad, poor creature, is

she not?”

“Yes,” I replied, “she is; she has got what we call the madness of the

cross. Many of our saints have died of it: _la folie de la croix_.”

Millicent stared at me for a moment with an expression that suggested

some vague alarm as to my own sanity, but she made no further remark

until we had got out into the street.

“What did she mean by saying it was the Virgin Mary that worked the

miracle for her?” she then asked.

“She meant that the Mother of Sorrows had prayed for her and obtained a

great grace for her.”

“But God would have given it to her, if she had asked him, without going

to any creature for it, would he not?” answered Millicent.

“Perhaps; but he would be more willing to grant it to a creature who was

sinless and his Mother, and who had stood by the side of his cross, than

to a poor weak, rebellious creature who had sinned a thousand times and

more. Does it not seem likely?”

“Oh! putting it in that way,” said Millicent dubiously. “But he is God,

our Saviour; he must love us more than she does. He died for us; the

Virgin Mary did not die for us?”

“Well, really, Millicent—almost,” I said, and, stopping, I looked her

straight in the face. “Fancy a mother that loved her son, her only son,

as Mary must have loved him, standing by while he was being executed—I

don’t say scourged, and beaten, and hammered with nails to a gibbet,

murdered piecemeal with the rage of devils let loose from hell, but

simply hanged, or even beheaded; would it not be worse to her than any

death that ever a mother died? And then fancy her blessing the men that

murdered him, praying for them, adopting them! And you can say the

Mother of God did not die for us?”

Millicent made no answer, but walked on in silence. We said no more

until we got to my door, and then I asked if she would not come up and

rest a while.

“No, I prefer to go home, thank you,” she said, putting out her hand.

She held mine for a moment, as if she were going to say something; but

she did not, and we parted silently.

She seemed strangely moved.

II.

I did not see Millicent until the following Sunday, when she came to ask

me if I would go for a walk in the afternoon.

Sybil happened to be there when she came in.

“What hour do you go to church, Milly—the morning or the afternoon?”

asked Sybil. I saw the drift of the question: she suspected Millicent

had been to church with us.

“I generally go in the morning; mamma likes it best,” replied Millicent.

“She was not well this morning, so we are going to late service. And

you?”

“Me? I don’t go to late or early. I stay at home and think it over,”

said Sybil.

“Think what over?” I asked. “The service?”

“Services in general, religion in its cause and effect—life altogether,

in fact,” summed up Sybil. “Will you two let me join you in your walk

this afternoon, or shall I be in the way?” We both protested we should

be delighted to have her; and at four o’clock we were assembled

down-stairs in her boudoir, ready to start, when a loud ring sounded at

the door.

“Good gracious!” screamed Sybil; and she dropped into a chair, the

picture of astonishment and vexation. “I’ll bet any mortal thing you

like that that is Mr. Halsted! Was there ever anything so provoking! I

so wanted to have a walk with you!”

“Why need his coming prevent you?” I said. “The doctor and Mrs. Segrave

are at home, are they not?”

“Why, Lilly, how can you talk so!” she exclaimed. “What does that matter

to Mr. Halsted? He comes to see me!”

“Then you throw us overboard?” I said. “That’s complimentary. What do

you say, Millicent?”

Millicent laughed. She was not sorry at heart, I could see, that we were

to be left to a _tête-à-tête_. Perhaps Sybil saw it, too, for she said,

starting up suddenly:

“I won’t throw you overboard. Let him call again. Let him come with us,

if he likes. Have you two any objection?”

Millicent said she had none. I, however, demurred.

“You will think it absurdly priggish,” I said, “but you know I am

half-French—at least, I live amongst the French, so I can’t afford to

knock against their _hautes convenances_; and if I were seen walking

with a gentleman without my mother or some married chaperon, it would

make quite a _scandale_.”

“How inconceivably ridiculous!” cried Sybil, staring at me with round,

shining eyes. “What a grand privilege it is to be a free-born American

woman! I wouldn’t be a slave like you—no, not for the empire of France,

Lilly!”

Pierre came to the door to announce Mr. Halsted’s arrival, and we all

sallied into the drawing-room. Sybil burst out into regrets at having to

go out, and then, pointing a finger of scorn at me, “Only fancy!” she

cried—“you’ll hardly believe it, but it’s a fact—Miss Wallace says she

dare not come out for a walk with you without her mother, lest it should

make a scandal in the town! Did you ever hear anything so

pre_pos_terously absurd, Mr. Halsted?” I crimsoned to the roots of my

hair, and longed to choke Sybil on the spot. Happily, gentlemen being

the same in all countries, Mr. Halsted saw my embarrassment and turned

it off with easy good breeding.

“Miss Wallace has been brought up in France,” he said. “It is quite

natural she should have adopted the notions and manners of the country;

but it’s rather hard on us poor fellows. We are cut off from our most

cherished prerogatives here in this centre of civilization. May I call

this evening? You promised to teach me the Polish mazurka?”

Sybil hesitated. There was to be a dinner-party that evening, so the

dancing lesson could hardly take place, and I knew he wanted to figure

in the mazurka at a Polish house the next night.

“I can’t this evening,” she said musingly; then, as if moved by a sudden

inspiration, she flung down her muff. “I see I must victimize myself for

my country’s sake, and give up my walk to save you from making an

exhibition of yourself to-morrow before the assembled nations. You two

go and take your walk alone.”

Mr. Halsted entered a feeble protest, which Sybil did not even so much

as notice, but proceeded to take off her bonnet and prepare for the

dancing lesson.

We were not long on the road together when Millicent opened the subject

of religion; Sybil’s idea of “thinking it over” being the ostensible

pretext.

“I wonder you don’t talk to her about it,” she said; “you might do a

good work in that direction, if you tried.”

“By making a Catholic of Sybil?”

“By making a Christian of her.”

“Poor Sybil! Is she as bad as that?” I said, laughing. “She is more in

your line than mine, at any rate. She hates popery like fire; I would as

soon try to convert the Great Mogul.”

“You are a great puzzle to me, do you know,” said Millicent, looking at

me with a glance of searching curiosity. “Catholics as a rule are such

ardent proselytizers, and you seem to have no taste in that direction at

all.”

“Have you known a great many Catholics before me?” I asked.

“You are the first I may say I have ever known.”

“Then how can you answer for what we are as a rule?”

“I have always understood it,” she replied.

“You have understood, or rather misunderstood, many things about us,” I

remarked. “Is Mr. Halsted in love with Sybil, do you think?”

“Mr. Halsted is _nothing_ of the kind. Nice conversation for the Sunday

afternoon!” said a sharp, bright voice, and Millicent and I leaped half

a mile asunder as Sybil popped her scarlet feather in between us.

“I made sure you would be discussing theology,” she cried, “instead of

which I find you discussing me!”

“And why are not you discussing the mazurka with Mr. Halsted?” demanded

Millicent and I together.

“Because I thought better of it,” was Sybil’s terse explanation, nor

could we extract any other from her.

“What were you talking about before you began about Mr. Halsted and me?”

she inquired, flashing her lightning glances from one to another.

“We were talking about you and the Great Mogul,” I replied, “and I was

considering which of you I should first set about converting.”

“You had better begin with him,” said Sybil. “Have you done for Milly

already?”

“Not—quite—” I said.

“I should like to have it out with you once for all, Lilly,” she said,

“and just hear from beginning to end what your religious views are, and

how far exactly they differ from mine.”

“You have views on religion, then?” I said in a tone of surprise.

“Certainly I have, Lilly Wallace,” retorted Sybil with indignant

emphasis, “and I should like very much to compare them with yours.”

“That would be difficult,” I replied, “for I have no views.”

“What!”

“Not the ghost of one,” I repeated. “We Catholics never have; we listen

to the church and accept all she teaches. There is not such a thing

amongst us as a view; we would not know what to do with one.”

“Good gracious! That reasonable beings should let themselves be so

gul—so—that you should—in fact, it’s beyond belief!”

“No, that’s just what it is not beyond; it is our belief that binds our

reason and puts views out of the question,” I said. “We have our faith

propounded to us by the church, and the church is the infallible witness

of the truth; we have not to make out a creed for ourselves, as you

Protestants have.”

“Then why did God give us brains, if we are not to make use of them?”

demanded Sybil. “I would not hand over my conscience to any man or any

body of men living; I would rather take my Bible and make out the right

and the wrong of it myself.”

“Suppose you make it out all wrong—for you admit there is a right and a

wrong to it—what then?” I said.

“It does not much matter, so long as our intention is good. God Almighty

does not expect us to be infallible.”

“Certainly not!” I replied; “that is precisely why he made his church

infallible, to save us from our own fallibility and teach us what to

believe and what not to believe. If I believe black and you believe

white, we can’t both of us be right; one or other must be in error, and

God, who is Truth itself, can’t approve equally truth and error?”

“I tell you what it is, Milly,” said Sybil, turning round sharply on

Millicent, who was walking on the other side of her, “it is _very_ bad

for you to be discussing theology with Lilly Wallace in this way. Mind

what I tell you, no good will come of it!”

“Why, I’ve not opened my lips!” protested silent Milly. “It is you who

are discussing it; it was you began it!”

“If I had not, you would,” retorted Sybil; “you are perfectly _crazed_

on religious discussion. I see how it is going to end!”

I burst out laughing. Millicent, however, looked amazed.

“I will tell you what _I_ see,” I said: “that you had much better have

stayed at home and discussed life with Mr. Halsted than come out here to

bully us. It would be serving you right if I made a papist of you on the

spot.”

Sybil saw that Millicent was vexed, and, adroitly dropping the subject,

burst out into vehement denunciation of French conventionalities. If it

had been any other country in the universe, Mr. Halsted might have come

out for a walk with us, and we should have had an excellent time of it;

for he was the very best company she knew. We continued, nevertheless,

despite his absence, to enjoy a very pleasant walk, and to steer clear

of burning subjects the rest of the way. The incident, however, left its

mark on us all three, and from that day forth there was an imperceptible

but a very decided change in Millicent’s “views.” As to Sybil’s, I never

got a glimpse of them, so it may not be rash judgment to express a doubt

whether she had any.

I kept to my promise of avoiding controversy with Millicent, and she,

seeing my reluctance to gratify her curiosity on this point, gave up

trying to overcome it. We talked very freely on religious customs and

institutions, but whenever she demanded my reasons for believing this or

that I evaded controversy by that inexorable Catholic answer so

aggravating to a Protestant—“The church teaches it.”

The winter passed, and the spring, and my mother and I were preparing to

leave Paris to spend the month of June in London. One of my greatest

difficulties in going away was how poor Mme. Martin was to get on in my

absence. Millicent had come with me once a week to visit her. She would

continue to do this when I was gone, I had no doubt; but the poor soul

was in a state that required a visit every day, and I hardly dare ask or

expect that Millicent would break from her mother and her own

occupations regularly every day for this purpose, or that Mrs. Gray

would allow it. I told her of my trouble, and the next morning she ran

in looking quite radiant.

“Mamma says she will allow me to go every morning from eleven to twelve

and sit with Mme. Martin and do all she wants; is it not good of her!”

she exclaimed, embracing me.

“It is!” I cried, “and very good of you, dear Milly. You can’t think

what a relief it is to my mind! I was miserable at the thought of

leaving her without some one to take my place of a morning; and she is

so fond of you, poor soul! She is so touched by your charity—above all

in a heretic!” I added, laughing.

“Charity covereth a multitude of sins,” said Millicent. “I suppose the

sin of heresy is included?”

It was quite true: Mme. Martin was wonderfully taken with her. She

admired her grace, the quiet distinction of her manner, the subdued

elegance of her dress—a Frenchwoman has an eye for _la toilette_ so long

as the breath of life is in her—and most of all the gentle kindness with

which Millicent performed the little services of the sick-room. It was

quite beyond her comprehension that so much sweetness and goodness

should exist in anybody who was not a Catholic; it was most amusing to

see her _naïf_ wonder at this phenomenon, and her surprise that I did

not abolish it.

“But, mademoiselle, why do you not _explain_ to her how dreadful it is

not to be in the true church?” she would urge again and again; and to my

answer, “I have tried, but she cannot see it,” she would return the same

wondering exclamation, “_Est-il-possible_!”

She evinced as much pleasure as surprise when I told her that Millicent

was to come every day during my absence, and read to her and put things

tidy in the little room.

“Now,” I said, “you must pay back all this kindness by getting the grace

of the faith for her.”

“Oh! if I could but do it,” she exclaimed heartily.

“You may do a great deal,” I said; “your prayers ought to be very

powerful with our Blessed Lord, because you are on the cross.”