“It is only too true, and, in giving you an account of that period of

my life, I feel too sensibly I shall fall in your estimation; but I do

not wish to appear better than I am, and perhaps you will pity while

condemning me. The idea of voluntarily leaving this world had already

occurred to me in several fits of melancholy, but the fear of God had

hitherto made me repel the thought. The simplest circumstance, and

apparently the least calculated to trouble me, came near causing my

eternal loss. I had just experienced a new affliction. A little dog

had been given us some years previous. My sister was fond of him, and

after her death the poor animal was, I acknowledge, a real comfort to

me. We were, I suppose, indebted to his ugliness for his making our

house his refuge. He had been rejected by everybody else, but was a

treasure in the asylum of a leper. In gratitude to God for the favor

of such a friend, my sister called him _Miracle_, and his name--such

a contrast to his ugliness--and his constant friskiness often

dispelled our sorrows. In spite of my care, he sometimes got out, and

it never occurred to me it might injure any one. But some of the

inhabitants of the town became alarmed, thinking he might bring among

them the germ of my disease. They sent a complaint to the commander,

who ordered the dog to be killed immediately. Some soldiers followed

by several civilians came here at once to execute this cruel order.

They put a cord around his neck in my presence, and dragged him away. 774

I could not help looking at him once more as he was going out of the

gate; his eyes were turned towards me, as if to beg the assistance

which it was not in my power to give. They wished to drown him in the

Doire, but the crowd waiting on the outside stoned him to death. I

heard his cries, and took refuge in my tower more dead than alive; my

trembling knees refused to support me; I threw myself on my bed in a

state impossible to describe. My grief made me regard the just though

severe order only as a cruelty as atrocious as it was needless, and,

though I am now ashamed of the feeling that then excited me, I cannot

yet think of it with coolness. I passed the whole day in the greatest

agitation. I had been deprived of the only living thing I had, and

this new blow reopened all the wounds of my heart.

“Such was my condition when, that same day, towards sunset, I came

here, and seated myself on the very rock where you are now sitting. I

had been meditating awhile on my sad lot, when I saw a newly-married

couple appear yonder, near the two birches at the end of the hedge.

They came along the foot-path through the meadow, and passed by me.

The sweet peace that an assured happiness confers was imprinted on

their handsome faces. They were walking slowly arm-in-arm. All at once

they stopped; the young woman leaned her head upon her husband’s

breast, who clasped her in his arms with joy. Shall I confess it? Envy

for the first time penetrated my heart. Such a picture of happiness

had never struck me before. I followed them with my eyes to the end of

the meadow. They were nearly hidden by the trees when I heard a joyful

cry. It came from the united families who were coming to meet them.

Old men, women, and children surrounded them. I heard a confused

murmur of joy. I saw among the trees the bright colors of their

dresses, and the whole group seemed enveloped in a cloud of happiness.

I could not endure the sight: the torments of hell seized hold of my

heart. I turned away my eyes, and fled to my cell. O God! how

frightfully lonely and gloomy it seemed. ‘It is here, then,’ I said to

myself--‘I am to live for ever here. After dragging out a wretched

existence, I must await the long-delayed end of my life! The Almighty

has diffused happiness, and in torrents, among all living creatures,

and I--I alone!--am without support, without friends, without a

companion.--What a terrible destiny!’

“Full of these sad thoughts, I forgot there is one Being who is the

Comforter. I was beside myself. ‘Why,’ I said to myself, ‘was I

permitted to behold the light? Why has Nature been so cruel a

step-mother to me?’ Like a disinherited child, I saw before me the

rich patrimony of the human race, of my share of which heaven had

defrauded me. ‘No, no,’ I cried in my fury, ‘there is no happiness for

thee on earth. Cease, then, to live, poor wretch! Thou hast disgraced

the earth long enough with thy presence: would it might swallow thee

up and leave no trace of thy miserable existence!’ My fury continuing

to increase, a mad desire to destroy myself took possession of my

mind. I resolved at last to set fire to my dwelling, and allow myself

to be burned up in it with everything else that might recall my

memory. Excited and enraged, I went forth into the fields. I wandered

for some time in the darkness around my dwelling. I gave vent to my

overburdened heart in involuntary shrieks, and frightened myself in the 775

silence of the night. I reentered full of rage, crying: ‘Woe to thee,

Leper! Woe to thee!’ And, as if everything conspired for my

destruction, I heard the echo from the ruins of the Château de

Bramafan repeating distinctly: ‘Woe to thee!’ I stopped, seized with

horror, at the door of the tower, and a faint echo from the mountains

repeated a long time after, ‘Woe to thee!’

“I took a lamp, and, resolved to set fire to my dwelling, went into

the lowest room, carrying with me some twigs and dry branches. It was

the room my sister occupied, and I had not entered it since her death.

Her arm-chair was in the same spot where I moved it for the last time.

I shivered with fear at the sight of her veil and some of her clothing

scattered around. The last words she uttered before her departure came

back to my mind: ‘I shall not forsake you when I die: remember, I

shall always be with you in your sufferings.’ Placing the lamp on the

table, I perceived the cord which held the cross she wore on her neck.

She had placed it herself within her Bible. I drew back, filled with

awe at the sight. The depths of the abyss into which I was about to

plunge were at once revealed to my unsealed eyes. Trembling, I

approached the sacred volume. ‘Here, here,’ I cried, ‘is the aid she

promised me!’ Drawing the cross from the book, I found a sealed note

which my dear sister had left for me. My tears, which grief had not

hitherto allowed me to shed, now escaped in torrents: all my

detestable projects vanished at once. I pressed the precious letter to

my heart a long time before I could read it: then, falling on my knees

to implore the divine mercy, I sobbingly read the words that will be

for ever graven on my heart: ‘Brother, I shall soon leave you, but

not forsake you. From heaven, which I hope to enter, I will watch over

you, praying God to give you the courage to endure life with

resignation till it pleases him to reunite us in another world. Then I

shall be able to show you how much I loved you. Nothing will prevent

me any longer from approaching you: nothing can separate us. I leave

you the little cross I have worn all my life. It has often consoled me

in my sorrows and been the only witness of my tears. Remember, when

you look upon it, that my last prayer was that you might live and die

a good Christian.’

“Cherished letter! it shall never leave me. I will carry it with me to

the grave. It will open to me the gates of heaven which my crime would

have closed for ever. When I had finished reading it, I felt faint,

exhausted by all I had undergone. My sight grew dim, and, for some

time, I lost both the remembrance of my misfortunes and the

consciousness of existence. When I came to myself, the night was far

advanced. In proportion to the clearness of my mind, I experienced a

feeling of profound peace. All that had taken place the evening before

seemed like a dream. My first impulse was to raise my eyes heavenward

in thanksgiving for having been preserved from the greatest of

misfortunes. The heavens had never appeared so serene and glorious:

one star before my window outshone the rest. I gazed at it a long time

with inexpressible delight, thanking God for granting me the pleasure

of beholding it, and felt interiorly consoled at the thought that some

of its rays were permitted to cheer the gloomy home of the Leper.

“I went up to my cell in a calmer frame. I spent the remainder of the

night in reading the Book of Job, and the sublimity of his thoughts at 776

length entirely dispelled the gloomy ideas that had beset me. I never

experienced such fearful moments during my sister’s life. To feel her

near me made me at once calmer, and the very thought of the affection

she had for me afforded me consolation, and inspired me with courage.

“Compassionate stranger! may God preserve you from ever being obliged

to live alone! My sister and my companion is no more. But heaven will

grant me the strength to endure life courageously; it will grant it, I

trust, for I pray for it with all the earnestness of my heart.”

“How old was your sister when she died?”

“She was barely twenty-five, but her sufferings made her look much

older. In spite of her fatal disease, which changed her features, she

would have been handsome, had it not been for her frightful pallor,

the result of a living death which made me groan whenever I looked at

her.”

“She died quite young?”

“Her delicate and feeble constitution could not resist so many

sufferings combined: for some time I had perceived her loss

inevitable. Her lot was so sad that I could not desire her to live.

Seeing her daily languishing and wasting away, I felt, with a fearful

kind of joy, that the end of her sufferings was approaching. For a

month she had been growing weaker; frequent swoons were constantly

threatening her life. One evening (it was about the first of August) I

saw her so weak that I was unwilling to leave her. She was in her

arm-chair, not having been able to lie down for several days. I seated

myself near her, and in the profound darkness we held our last

conversation. I could not restrain my tears. A sad presentiment

agitated me. ‘Why do you weep?’ she said. ‘Why distress yourself? I

shall not forsake you when I die. I shall always be with you in your

sufferings.’

“A few moments after, she expressed a desire to be carried out of the

tower, that she might offer her prayers in the grove of nut-trees

where she passed the greater part of the pleasant season. ‘I wish,’

she said, ‘to die looking at the heavens.’ But I did not imagine her

end so near. I was about to take her in my arms, when she said, ‘Only

support me. I am, perhaps, strong enough to walk.’ I led her slowly to

the nut-trees. I made a cushion of the dry leaves she herself had

gathered together, and, covering her head with a veil to screen her

from the dampness of the night, I seated myself near her. But she

desired to be left alone during her last meditation, and I went to a

distance, but without losing sight of her. From time to time, I could

see the flutter of her veil and her white hands raised to heaven. When

I drew near the grove, she asked for some water. I carried her some in

a cup. She wet her lips, but could not swallow. ‘I feel the end has

come,’ said she, turning her head. ‘My thirst will soon be assuaged

for ever. Support me, brother: aid me in crossing this gulf--so long

desired, but so terrible. Support me, and say the prayers for the

dying.’ These were her last words. I drew her head against my breast,

and said the prayer for the departing soul: ‘Go forth from this world,

my beloved sister, and leave thy mortal remains in my arms!’ I held

her in this way for three hours, during the last throes of nature. At

length, she quietly passed away, and her soul left the earth without a

struggle.”

At the end of this account, the Leper covered his face with his hands. 777

Sympathy deprived the traveller of the power of speaking. After a

moment’s silence, the Leper rose. “Stranger,” said he, “when grief or

dejection comes over you, think of the Leper of the city of Aosta, and

your visit will not have been a useless one.”

They walked towards the garden-gate. As the officer was about to go

out, he put his glove on his right hand. “You have never pressed any

one’s hand,” said he. “Do me the favor to press mine. It is the hand

of a friend who is deeply interested in your lot.”

The Leper drew back some steps with a kind of terror, and, raising his

eyes and hands towards heaven, he cried: “O God of goodness! pour down

thy blessings on this compassionate man!”

“Grant me another favor, then,” resumed the traveller. “I am going

away. We may not see each other again for a long time. Can we not

write one another sometimes, with the necessary precautions? Such a

correspondence might divert you, and it would afford me great

pleasure.”

The Leper reflected for some time. At length he said, “Why should I

cherish any delusion? I ought to have no other society but myself, no

friend but God. We shall meet in his presence. Farewell, kind

stranger, may you be happy! Farewell for ever!” The traveller went

out--the Leper closed the door and drew the bolts.

----------

ON THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE HOLY FATHER.

FROM LA CIVILTA CATTOLICA.

Some fourteen months ago, a breach was made in the _Porta Pia_, and

an entry effected into Rome in the name of Italy.

The machinations of those who effected that entry in order to subvert

the authority of the Pope are still at work, and most assiduously, in

endeavoring to convey the impression that this act of theirs now

stands before the world simply as _an accomplished fact_, and as

such is, if not approved, at least tolerated by those most interested

in contesting it. Thus they endeavor to delude the world and lull to

sleep the misgivings of Catholics; for in order to confirm and

strengthen this impression there is scarcely a stratagem or subterfuge

to which the government (itself the author of the fact) does not

resort, through the journalism notoriously in its pay, not only

throughout the Peninsula, but elsewhere.

This government, which sprang from _accomplished facts_ and _falsehoods_,

hopes by means of these same _accomplished facts_ and _falsehoods_ to

place on a firm foundation its sway in the _Campidoglio_, which now

rests on a very insecure footing; therefore it endeavors to persuade

the world, and especially Catholics, that the Supreme Pontiff, while

in its hands and under the law of its Guarantees, is actually more at 778

liberty, more independent in action, and more useful to the church,

than he was when he reigned as a sovereign prince and was

_bona-fide_ ruler in his own state.

The absurdity of this claim is manifest; but what absurdity is there

of which the government of the Subalpinists in Italy does not avail

itself, in order to attach credit to itself, by means of the arts

learned in the school of its great father and master, Bonaparte?

It is important, therefore, or rather we should say it is absolutely

necessary, that an honest and Christian journalism should

perseveringly oppose manifest truths to this interminable repetition

of falsehoods, paid for by the Subalpine rulers, respecting the

present condition of the Holy Father; and thus, by ventilating fraud,

undeceive simple and credulous minds.

With this intention, we shall in few but veracious strokes of the pen

describe the undisguised reality of the state in which the head of the

church, the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX., finds himself at the present

moment in Rome, six months after the solemn publication of the laws of

the _Guarantees_.

II.

We assert, then, that the Pope endures imprisonment in Rome at the

hands of the Subalpinists, and that his captivity, instead of being

mitigated, is every day aggravated. This is proved by the following

facts:

1. He is in the hands of an _inimical power_, or, as he himself has

defined it, he is _sub hostili dominatione constitutus_. Now, he who

is in the hands of an enemy, however much that enemy may affect

humanity and regard towards him, is beyond all contradiction his

prisoner.

2. The Holy Father fell into the hands of this inimical power through

sheer force. This is rendered evident by the formal declaration made

by the Subalpine ministers before taking up arms against him, in which

they affirmed that to invade or take Rome with bomb-shells and cannons

would be an act contrary to the rights of nations, an act so

iniquitous that it would be unworthy even of a barbarian government:

yet in the very face of these declarations they did take Rome with the

argument of bomb-shells and cannons, and with the same argument they

continue to occupy it.

3. The Holy Father, being in the hands of an inimical power, which has

dispossessed him by violence of all sovereignty, and substituted its

own in lieu of his, is now by this same power subjected to every kind

of ridicule in his double majesty as pontiff and as king: burlesque

honors are proposed to him, which would by preference be offered to

him publicly, in order to induce the idea that the Holy Father, by

accepting them, is reconciled to the government, and has basely ceded

to it the inalienable rights of God, of the church, and of the

Catholic world. Moreover, the obligation resting on the Sovereign

Pontiff of preserving his own dignity keeps him shut up in the

Vatican: the outer doors of which are guarded _by a guard of honor_

formed of the self-same wretched soldiery who, led on by Subalpine

leaders, made the breach in the _Porta Pia_, and struck to the earth

his own sovereign banner in Rome.

4. Finally: The inimical power in whose hands the Holy Father now

finds himself is, either from weakness or malice, incapable of

protecting his august person from any kind of insult. So that,

supposing it to be _morally_ possible for him without compromising

his dignity to leave the cloisters of the Vatican, yet would a 779

_material_ obstacle present itself in the outrages and dangers,

threatening life itself, to which he would be exposed amid the crowds

of cut-throats, atheists, and the lowest rabble of every country,

which this power has congregated together and maintains in Rome, to

represent in that city the people of the plébiscite; that is, a people

hostile to the Papacy and rebellious to its throne.

These are the principal facts which most clearly demonstrate the state

of imprisonment into which the Sovereign Pontiff was thrown, by the

events of the 20th September, 1870, in his own city of Rome: and we

defy all the sophistry of all the journalists, politicians, and

diplomatists of the government, seated as it is in the metropolis of

the Catholic world, to deny it, without denying the light of the sun

at mid-day.

Besides this, that the captivity of the Holy Father has been

aggravated during these fourteen months is seen and felt by every one

who is not under the influence of the Subalpinists, those men who have

carried their effrontery to the length of placing the centre of their

government in the city of Rome itself, and with one of their laws of

_guaranty_ for the independence of the Pope have arrogated to

themselves the right of imposing the future conditions of his

existence in the Vatican, as if they were the rulers of the Holy See.

Whoever considers the forces of moral and material hostility that

these Subalpinists have accumulated in Rome against his prerogatives,

cannot fail to perceive that the rights which in this city are most

readily trodden under foot, are, after those of God, those of the

Pope: and the person who is the most insulted therein is, after that

of Christ, precisely the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX.,

_decreed sovereign and inviolable_, by the law, as the person of the

king himself.

From this it follows that the Holy Father is at the present moment the

legal prisoner, in Rome, of the Subalpine government, since by the

aforenamed laws, termed those of the Guarantees, not only has that

government confirmed the violent spoliation of himself, but, in spite

of the opinion of the world, has dared to justify the act by defining

in those laws the limits of the liberty it intends to concede to him.

This is neither more nor less than the usage commonly observed towards

a prisoner of state or of war.

By this means, the present condition of the Pontiff in his own Rome is

in truth that of the strictest imprisonment by the anti-Christian

sect, headed by the government of the Subalpinists now lording it over

Italy.

III.

Neither is the Holy Father, Pius IX., the prisoner of an inimical

power solely on account of his civil prerogatives: it is his

ecclesiastical jurisdiction that is aimed at more than anything else:

while usurping the regal crown, it seeks equally to abolish the Papal

tiara; and, if, after having barbarously dispossessed him of his

kingdom, it does not also make a barbarous assault on the majesty of

his Pontificate, this reserve arises only from the hindrance

occasioned by very strong and extrinsic causes, and not from good-will

or any other than a reprobate sentiment.

This profound enmity of the Subalpine rulers to the Pope as the

supreme pastor of the Catholic Church is so well-known as to need no

demonstration. Yet for superabundance of proof, we will say that it is 780

shown:

1. By all that has been previously done against Catholicity for

twenty-two years past in Piedmont, and for half that time throughout

the rest of Italy, by the faction to which these rulers belong--a

faction whose politics are expressed by an obstinate war, sometimes of

a Julianistic character, sometimes of that of a Nero--a war which

attacks directly or indirectly the church itself, and all connected

with it, and this in such a manner as to render it palpable that not

even the Unity of Italy is desired for its own sake, but rather as a

means by which to work the destruction of Catholicity and the

overthrow of the Papacy.

2. It is shown by the special mandate which the Subalpine faction

superintending the Masonic government of the Peninsula have received

from the General Masonic Order--a mandate bidding them become the

immediate (because proximate) instruments of the downfall of Papal

Rome, the centre of the Catholic Church; and which then bids them

proceed to the utter spoliation of the Sovereign Pontiff himself--two

events which it hopes will lead (if that were possible) to the

annihilation of Catholicity, that being the ultimate end of all the

conspiracies of the order.

3. It is shown by the open confessions made in Rome, throughout Italy,

and in all Europe, by journalists united by the bonds of faction to

our Subalpine patrons; and even more by the discovery, lately made,

that persecution is already well established in Rome against

everything ecclesiastical or Catholic--whether in things or persons.

From these facts, it is demonstrated that the Holy Father is now the

prisoner in Rome of a government which in his person hates above

everything, and as far as it dare makes war against, his prerogatives

as Pontiff, and as Head of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion.

Pius IX. is in the hands of Turks embittered to the last degree.

Against him and his tiara every tool is made use of, and with equal

skill--whether it be cannons or sophistry, buffoonery or the

judgment-hall, the pick-axe or calumny.

IV.

The war of Nero carried on against the Holy Father and the church is

at the present moment tempered by the war of Julian. It was for this

purpose that our Subalpinists devised the law of the Guarantees,

behind which they know how to mask the ugliness of their rascalities,

at least for a time. “Do you see?” they exclaim in every tone, and

have had written in every language: “We have surrounded the Pope with

so many _privileges_ that the like was never seen. Of what do you

complain, O you insatiable Catholics? Have we not constituted the Pope

_inviolable_ as is the king? What more would you have?”

We would have--simply that the Pope should be inviolable, because he

is a king in earnest truth, and not a mere semblance of one. But to

this question of to-day concerning the sovereign and personal

inviolability of the Pope, facts are the best reply. These show that

_practically_ he is as inviolable as the first article of the statute,

and has been inviolable throughout the kingdom.

This privilege of inviolability implies that the person sovereignly

inviolable can, in no manner whatsoever, be publicly insulted without

the offenders being repressed by force and punished according to law.

Meantime, first, it is a notorious fact that every day the sheets 781

belonging to this faction, not excepting those of the government

throughout the kingdom, and particularly in Rome, insult, hold up to

derision, and vilify the inviolable person of the Pope: and that he is

exposed to ridicule by means of most infamous caricatures; and all

this with impunity. For it is notorious that newspapers are very

rarely sequestrated on account of this continuous and general

contravention of the laws of the Guarantees; and up to this period not

a single sentence has been issued from the tribunals against the

insulters of his Pontifical Majesty. On the other hand, the exchequer

is most rigorous against any one suspected of insulting the royal

majesty through the press; chiefly, however, against the Catholic

journalists who defend the inviolable Pontiff. Thus (a fitting

commentary), of ten law-suits against offenders by means of the press,

eight are commonly to the prejudice of Catholics accused of offences

against the king or of illicit voting. The inviolability of the Holy

Father, therefore, practically resolves itself into the fact that

every miscreant may insult him with impunity, while it is dangerous

for an honest Catholic to defend him through the press.

It is a notorious fact, and of very frequent occurrence, that groups

of ribald men, escaped from every Italian galley, stroll along the

avenues, singing shameful verses, nay, even menacing ones, in regard

to the Supreme Pontiff, and it is no rare thing for a rabble to

provoke and utter cries of a character most outraging to his name and

honor. And yet the police, ever ready to hinder similar outrages in

regard to the king, become deaf or soften down the words when they

hear the Holy Father vituperated in this fashion. No one has ever been

arrested for such a crime, and no one has ever been cited before the

tribunals. The inviolability of the Holy Father, we repeat it,

consists practically in the freedom with which every vagabond is

permitted publicly to insult him.

3. It is a notorious fact that large bands of these miscreants have

often gathered together beneath the walls of the Papal palace to load

the guard stationed inside with foul language, that guard being placed

there by the consent of the laws of the Guarantees to the Pope. Yet

here they hurl their blasphemies and imprecations against the sanctity

of the Pope, in the very hearing of the _guard of honor_ placed there

by the government, and these have never been known to discompose

themselves on this account even to the extent of a gesture of

disapprobation toward the rogues thus possessed by the devil. Yet woe

to the wretch who should commit any such atrocity at the portals of

the Quirinal, when inhabited by certain other inviolable persons in

the kingdom of the Subalpinists! Therefore, once more: the

inviolability of the Pontiff is practically converted into a tacit

license for the lowest rabble to insult his person beneath the very

portals and under the windows of the Vatican.

We might enumerate many other facts, equally well known, to

demonstrate how little is the practical value of the sovereign

inviolability decreed to the captive Pope; but let those already

brought forward suffice. These being admitted, it will be understood

that his Holiness, thanks to the distinguished privilege conferred on

him by our Subalpine gentlemen, not only could not make his appearance

in the streets of his own Rome without manifest risk of life, but he

could not even descend to the basilica of the Vatican to perform a 782

sacred function, without exposing himself to contumely and insult by

the very side of St. Peter’s tomb, and even on the altar itself. The

occurrences of the 8th December, 1870, in the vestibule of the

Pontifical residence; of the 10th March, 1871, within the Gesù; and of

the 23rd, 24th, 25th August, close to the Lateran and the Church of

Maria soprà Minerva, confirm what we assert.

This, then, in its veritable reality, is the present condition of Pope

Pius IX. in Rome, after the oft-repeated promulgation of the law

declaring him an inviolable sovereign like to the king.

Nor may the salaried apologists of our patrons treat these matters as

a jest in order to exculpate themselves from so horrible an

abomination. Facts are facts, while words are but breath. The most

irrefutable facts prove that if our Holy Father were to show himself

publicly in the Rome of to-day, uncivilized as it is by these

Subalpine rulers, the treatment he would receive would be no other

than such as is given alike to the clergy as to the most holy things,

nay, to Christ himself, in the blessed sacrament of the altar.

Now, it cannot be denied, for the Roman journals attest it, citing

days, time, places, names and surnames, that every day priests or

religious, bishops or prelates, are attacked or ill-used in the most

populous districts of Rome; that almost every day sacred images are

stoned or profaned at the corners of the streets; and not unfrequently

the adorable eucharist, when borne as a viaticum to the sick, is

exposed to mockery in the public square, even by those who wear

military badges; and all this occurs with the tacit consent of the

officers charged with keeping order in the city, no one of whom has

ever imprisoned a single person guilty of such misdeeds. And after that

they would have us believe that Pope Pius IX. would be safe either in

the city or in the Vatican from the outrages or even from the blow of

these most civilized gentlemen who form the new Roman people!

Be silent, as long as we live, O whited sepulchres!--race fit only to

patronize assassins!

V.

Moreover, the Holy Father, by the noble munificence of his jailers, is

reduced to that degree of poverty that, were it not for the oblations

of the faithful, he must either pine in misery or suffer the

degradation of his majesty. The glorious conquerors of Rome have taken

everything from him, excepting the Vatican. And if, up to this time,

they have refrained from sacking this edifice, it is owing to that

_veto_ of potentates which, as yet, has forbidden them access to

it. Jugglers are in possession of the Quirinal; and they drew near to

the public treasury of the Pontificate with the sword of guardianship.

In one flash of lightning, the Pope saw himself deprived of

everything. With a simple substitution of voters, the Pontifical

estate is become the Subalpine estate--a magnificent example! since

then magnificently imitated by the Commune of Paris!

Is is true that, in their law of the Guarantees, they have deigned to

assign to him a species of civil list amounting to several millions of

lire. But this was done for the sake of appearance alone; for well

they knew that, in practice, this article would have precisely the

same effect as that other article prescribing the famous

inviolability. How in fact could these persons, who for five-and-twenty

years have known the magnanimous firmness of character of Pius IX., 783

persuade themselves that he would lower his dignity to accept an

obolus from their criminal and sacrilegious hands, in compensation for

the kingdom they have taken from him? They understood beforehand that

this would be impossible, because, even admitting that the Holy Father

had been willing to admit their civil list, under the title of

restitution, a thing not unlawful in itself if done without prejudice

to his rights, they perceived only too clearly that he could not have

done so in view of the malignant interpretations which would have

followed the act, occasioning an immense scandal and clamor; as if the

Pope by receiving a modicum of that property the whole of which

belongs to him by right had conceded the rest, over which he has

immemorial claims.

The matter, however, took such a shape that these brave gentlemen had

an ample field in which to display large figures, and even to acquire

the name of prodigality in offering round numbers to their victim.

Yes, indeed, they were prodigals, like unto those who offered vinegar

to the crucified Saviour.

God, ever adorable in his providence, has so disposed events that the

hearts of Catholics throughout the world have been moved to

compassionate their father in chains, and the gold of their filial

charity has abounded so wonderfully in his hands, that he has been

able to succor most plentifully those of his faithful servants who

have fallen into straits for conscience’ sake, together with many

indigent persons who have no other resource for a livelihood than the

heart of the imprisoned Pontiff.

The glory of this munificence is due to God alone, and the merit of it

is to be ascribed to the faith of good Christians. On the other hand,

the infamy of having embittered the captivity of the Holy Father, by

reducing him, with the Sacred College and his whole court, to a state

of absolute want, if he would not wear the appearance of dishonor,

this belongs exclusively to the Subalpine rulers, who at the foot of

the Campidoglio are enjoying the spoils of the Pontificate, as the

crucifiers on Mount Calvary enjoyed the spoils obtained by rending the

garments of Christ.

VI.

The jailers, and the friends and servants of the jailers of the Holy

Father, boast very much of the ample liberty he enjoys, which he can

use during his imprisonment for the regulation of the church and for

performing his office as Pope.

Let us examine a little in what this charming liberty consists. This

at the very first glance resolves itself into the following very clear

formula: The Pope is at liberty to do that--and that alone--which the

inimical power whose prisoner he is permits him to do.

And, in point of fact, the Holy Father is under this power, which

holds him in its hands, being _sub hostilem potestatem redactus_, as

he himself lately expressed it again in the Encyclical of May 15,

1871, in which he formally repudiates the _Guarantees_ offered him in

exchange for his principality. He who is under is _dependent_, and can

do only that to which he who is above consents. Thus the liberty of

the Pope is subject to the limits which the inimical power, his

oppressor, pleases to impose on him. And this same law of the

Guarantees is the proof of the fact, inasmuch as it contains only a

concession of hypothetical privileges. But he who concedes accounts 784

himself superior to him to whom the concession is granted. Whence the

true measure of the liberty of Pius IX. as Pope, is now simply the

arbitrary will of Italian Masonry, governed by the Subalpinists. This

is a certain fact as to matters in general.

With regard to particulars, the Holy Father uses such liberty as he

owes to his own courage and diligence, and the inimical power, his

jailer, cannot hinder him, though it would willingly do so, because a

power stronger than itself, or certain human respects, forbid such

opposition. As, for example, the Subalpine patrons would gladly hinder

his Holiness from publishing bulls or encyclicals, in condemnation of

their lofty enterprises against God, religion, and the Apostolic See.

His Holiness, not being at liberty to publish them in Rome under their

very nose, sends them out of Italy to be printed, and in this way

publishes them.

Now, what can these very liberal gentlemen do in a case like this?

Drag the Pope before the courts, and imprison him in the Castle of St.

Angelo? Most willingly would they do this; but the rulers of Europe

would oppose it. There is, then, no course left to them except to

interdict the publication of them within the state by sequestrating

the papers which reprint these acts of the Pope; and this they did

with the Encyclical of November 1, 1870. If for others of later

appearance they have shut their eyes and left them to their course, it

has been because they have at last been obliged to pay some regard to

public opinion, and have found their account in putting on a semblance

of toleration.

In a similar manner, the Holy Father, finding that the Subalpine

masters trumpeted forth loudly to the world that he was left at

liberty in the creation of bishops throughout Italy, embraced the

opportunity to exercise his right and to fulfil his duty. With

prudence certainly, but yet with boldness, he addressed himself to the

work. The matter was very displeasing to our gentlemen. But how were

they to hinder it? They wanted to give the Christian world to

understand that they are honorable men, not only in the modern sense

of the word, but also somewhat in the ancient sense: they wanted to

prove that they knew how to keep their word without being compelled by

cannons so to do. So _for this time_ it does not appear that they will

refuse entrance into their dioceses to the new pastors.

But thieves and loyalists as they are, they have taken advantage of

this act of the Holy Father, turning it to their own interest by

cowardly proclaiming in every direction that the Holy Father, by thus

using the privileges comprised in the law of the Guarantees respecting

the induction of bishops into their sees, has, _ipso facto_, _accepted_

their law, and thus retracted his refusal of the 15th of May, 1871,

and thus (according to them) the conciliation between themselves and

the Holy See is in good progress; and it will not be long before the

august Pontiff will give up his kingly crown into the hands of John

Lanza: and in this manner the Italy of the Subalpinists will enjoy the

distinguished honor of having the supreme head of the church for the

court-chaplain, and most humble servant of his ministers: an honor

certainly due to their merits as against faith, morality, and Catholic

worship.

This attempt at imposition is the more senseless in that it supposes

that the Holy Father had no other right to nominate the bishops than

as a state privilege; while the contrary is the case: the insertion of 785

the state in these nominations is merely a privilege granted by the

Pope: and the fact that the Pope has not thus recognized the Subalpine

gentlemen outside of their own territory proves that he, far from

accepting their _Guarantees_, does not even recognize them as

juridically masters of the district in which they compiled the

documents.

But the senselessness of the attempted imposition serves to prove how

determined they are to prevent the Holy Father from exercising any

true liberty.

VII.

Excepting the above-named use of his liberty, which the Holy Father

courageously exercises in spite of the useless repugnance of his

jailers, he in everything else remains in all the bonds and

perplexities with which they think fit to surround him. And thus:

1. Pius IX. is not at liberty to have a journal in Rome, in which he

may contradict the infinite number of falsities which the inimical

power, through its officious and official oracles, utters against his

person, against his acts, those of his court, or those of the

ministers of the Holy See.

Should he do so, the executive would subject him to all those rigorous

measures and sequestrations to which all the Catholics sheets of Rome

have been subjected which have endeavored to defend his honor or his

cause.

2. Pius IX., as we have already pointed out, is no longer at liberty

to publish his bulls, encyclicals, or allocutions in Rome: the fact

being that the inimical power, in this same law of the Guarantees, has

reserved to itself the faculty of judging them; and hence, either by

way of legal or illegal confiscations, has full and absolute power to

suppress their publication by main force. This obliges the head of the

church to make public his acts regarding the universal government of

Catholicism, by despatching them to be divulged outside the dominion

of his jailers; as he has done up to this date, and will continue to

do _donec transeat iniquitas_.

3. Pius IX. in Rome is not at liberty to contradict publicly by

telegraph the inventions concerning himself and his Pontifical acts

which the inimical power, his jailer, diffuses through the world by

this said telegraph; because the telegraph is under the express

authority of said power, and the use of it can be denied or rendered

difficult at its pleasure. Thus, last March the world received through

the telegraph fabulous accounts of a consistory held by the Pope, of

an allocution and other particular acts, all invented on the spur of

the moment; and before the world can detect the disgraceful imposture,

it may expect that for many days the falsehoods will be printed even

in Catholic journals, because our Subalpine gentlemen have it in their

power to mislead by means of the telegraph the Catholic community with

any kind of misrepresentation concerning the words and deeds of the

Pope, without the possibility of the Pope’s being able immediately to

undeceive them. Whence the necessity that _no reliance at all_ should

be placed on any telegram that the agency of the Subalpine government

transmits from Rome respecting the words or affairs of the Supreme

Pontiff.

4. Pius IX. in Rome is not at liberty to carry on a private

correspondence securely with the bishops and faithful of the world by 786

means of letters or telegrams; because both mails and telegraphs

belong to the inimical power which holds him captive. As an inimical

power, precisely because it is inimical, believes itself licensed to

take every precaution regarding its imprisoned _enemy_, so no one can

ever feel certain that the secrecy of the letters interchanged has not

been violated, or that the telegrams have not been altered or refused.

All this is _a question of trust_. But meanwhile, setting aside the

case of telegrams directed to the Pope, and refused by the telegraph

officials, it is a fact that the Holy Father is obliged to keep his

missives away from the mail-bags of Italy when he has any important

correspondence to carry on, as also other persons are obliged to do

when they wish to communicate with the Holy See. We repeat it: _it is

a question of trust_: and how much those who now command in Rome may

be trusted is attested by the honesty they have thus far exhibited.

5. Pius IX. in Rome and in the Vatican is not at liberty to receive

every one who wishes to visit him, or whom it may be necessary he

should see. All the approaches to the Pontifical palace are guarded by

bailiffs of the inimical power. And these men, though they may often

allow the goers and comers to be insulted by the rabble, never,

however, omit to play the spy. This office they perform so well that

certain journals written by those who are doubly linked with the

police of the Subalpine gentry would be able to furnish, if needed,

the daily list of all those admitted to the vestibule of the apostolic

residence. It is clear from these circumstances that it depends solely

on the arbitrary will of the inimical power to forbid any one the power

of ingress, or, if it prefer, to expel the individual from the city,

and thus save him the trouble of the journey to the Vatican.

In addition to these facts, the stonings, menaces, hootings, and

similar acts of urbanity practised in the streets of Rome and in the

neighborhood of St. Peter’s toward the numerous Catholic deputations

which came this year to pay their homage to the august prisoner, by

the rabble introduced through the breach of the _Porta Pia_--these

attest how great is that beautiful liberty enjoyed by the Pope in

receiving visitors, whether they come of their own accord or that he

sends for them.

6. Pius IX. in Rome will not long be at liberty to regulate the

religious institutions, and to employ them in the service of the

churches, as is right and proper he should do; because the inimical

power is already on the alert to deprive the Holy See of this strong

spiritual garrison: it is abolishing the orders, and depriving them of

their property. The superiors-general of these orders, which are

immediately subject to the Pontiff, will in a short time have no bread

to eat, no room to shelter them; they will wander homeless over the

earth, and lose their subjects on all sides. In this way, one of the

instruments of the Pontiff, most useful to him in the administration

of the church, will be, as it were, broken in his hand, and in the

city in which the Head of the Catholic Church has his seat the

profession of the evangelical state will be prohibited; and the Pope

will not be even able to give shelter to the various missionaries who

are toiling in the cause of Christianity among the heathen of Asia and

America, when they come to render an account of their newly founded

missions; for in all Rome he will no longer have a religious house of 787

hospitality at his disposal.

We will not lengthen details in order to enumerate the various other

particular modes of liberty which the Holy Father can no longer

exercise in the fulfilment of his supreme office. The exposition we

have already given suffices to prove that he has no liberty, save such

as the author of his affliction permits, either from his own authority

or from other causes; the permission being compulsory on the part of

the enemy, and most unwillingly given. And this is the marvellous

liberty now enjoyed by the Sovereign Pontiff, thanks to the

Subalpinists, who have dethroned him and uncrowned him in Rome itself,

out of love, as they say, for the holy church!

VIII.

Let us be just. Our Holy Father might be in a much worse condition

than the present one. His jailers as yet do not do him all the wrong

they would wish, but are not able to do him. This is true enough. They

have not as yet assailed the Vatican, and dragged Pius IX. to the

Fortress of Ancona, as they have done to the illustrious Cardinal

Morichini, Bishop of Jesi; or to a convent of Turin, as they have done

to the imperturbable Cardinal de Angelis. We repeat it: they would

like to do this, but are not able; they would like to do this and

worse, but the governments of Europe have absolutely forbidden them to

set foot in the Vatican, or to lay hands on the Sovereign Pontiff.

This and nothing else restrains them in the frenzy of their hatred

from beheading him at once. This and nothing else constrains them to

moderate the impetuosity of their hatred in carrying on their

persecutions against the Papacy. Fear compels these little Neros to

don the mantle of Julian; for, while under the eyes of two diplomatic

bodies in Rome, they dare not carry their outrages on the Pope and his

dignity beyond a certain limit.

From this we may infer that the only and _ultimate_ safeguard remaining

at the present moment to the Holy Father in the Vatican is not the law

called the law of the Guarantees, nor is it trust in the governors,

but the corps of diplomatists who have received from their various

governments instructions to maintain inviolate the asylum of the

octogenarian Pontiff, and to protect his august person.

Were it not for this only and ultimate safeguard, Catholics throughout

the world would now be weeping over their Father exiled from Rome, and

perhaps as having already expired from the bullets or sword of the

enemy.

IX.

But how long will this only and ultimate safeguard endure?--this

protection which renders the life and person of the Holy Father secure

in Rome?

As long as the Subalpinists hold the reins of government in Italy,

there seems no reason to fear that the security will become less.

These men know too well that, were they to lose Rome, they would lose

everything; and the only mode of keeping possession of Rome a little

longer is not to violate the Vatican. But on that day on which the

Italian faction shall get tired of being led by these ten or twelve

Piedmontese who form the perpetual Zodiac of the ministry; on that day

when this faction is weary of seeing all the master-machinery of the

state, the army, finance, bureaucracy, and diplomacy regulated by

Piedmontese; on that day when it takes it into its head to render the

government of this factious Italy _Italian_ in its manner of rebellion, 788

rather than provincial--on that day the danger will arise that even

this said only and ultimate safeguard may lose its force. For in such

a case, the mobocracy would come to the surface, and a scene of

destruction would be inaugurated varying little from that carried out

by the Commune of Paris.

The dilemma is this: either the Subalpinists or the Socialists must

prove fatal to our poor Italy, prepared as it is for revolution. God

alone knows what is to happen in the proximate future. But it is

certain that the present condition of the Holy Father in Rome cannot

endure much longer: it is certain that any agreement between him and

his spoilers is utterly out of the question. It is also certain that

Europe could not tolerate for a series of years that the Head of the

Catholic Church should be held as a prisoner by the men who at the

present day hold dominion throughout the Peninsula; and, finally, it

is certain that in his own time God will interfere, and his

intervention will not be to reward the persecutors of his Vicar on

earth. These four certainties keep the world in suspense, and the

authors and approvers of the transitory triumph of the _Porta Pia_

in uneasiness.

But in this extremity of affairs and in this intense trepidation of

mind, what is the duty of Catholics?

Is it to wish for an agreement between the Pope and the inimical power

which oppresses him?

This is but to assume the office of members of the faction, under the

disguise of zealous Catholics. He only who hath his part in the leaven

of the Pharisees can believe it possible for the successor of St.

Peter to sacrifice the eternal rights of Christ to the interests of

Belial.

Is it to recommend the Holy Father to abandon his own state and seek

compensation in some Catholic country outside of Italy? This is the

advice of the imprudent. The Holy Father has received from God the

grace of office to determine what is the best for the Apostolic See

and for the church. No one need trouble himself to give advice

unasked. He has his natural counsellors, and above all he has the

Spirit of the Lord, with whom he is in daily and fervent communion. If

Pius IX. remains in Rome, notwithstanding the satanic tempest which

howls so wildly and so furiously against him, it is a sign that he

knows such to be the will of God, and therefore makes it his duty to

remain. In the course of events, we shall see that, if the Pope has

remained in Rome, it is because it was best that he should remain

there.

The real duty of Catholics is, on the other hand (besides assiduous

prayer, conformably to the example of the primitive Christians when

St. Peter was _in vinculis_), to unite and so work as to hasten the

liberation of our common Father.

The Italian factionists reproach us Catholics of Italy with being

parricides because we implore from God and men this sighed-for

liberation. But it seems to us that it is they who commit parricide

who, having imprisoned the Pope after officially declaring such an act

to be contrary to the laws of nations and more than barbarous, have

brought injury and evil upon the country which we are ever praying God

to diminish. As for the rest, we Italian Catholics do not understand

how the independence, glory, and prosperity of our country can be made

properly to consist in the spoliation and captivity of the Supreme

Pontiff, and in being trod under foot by the Subalpinists.

We, imploring the liberation of our Holy Father, have not the remotest 789

idea that that liberation will cost any part of Italy its

independence. The honor of calling foreigners into Italy, to subject

it to personal advantage, and to pay for such power by presenting

these foreigners with Italian provinces, nay, with the keys of Italy

itself--we Catholics leave this to the idol of the Subalpinists, to

their Cavour, and to their sheep of every color.

We Italian Catholics, we say it again, do not desire that the

domination of our Father should bring with it any foreign domination,

not even over a hand’s-breadth of Italian territory. The shameful

traffic in people and in Italian territory could not be for us a means

of liberating the Pope, as for the Subalpinists it has been a means of

the so-called liberation of Italy. In this we are all agreed; we wish

for the independence of justice, because justice alone ensures the

happiness of nations.

But we Italian Catholics can of ourselves do little, because the

dominant inimical power, being the enemy of the Pope, is naturally our

enemy also, although we are the immense national majority. We are the

deplorable victims of modern liberty, which wholly consists in the

oppression of the many, who are honest but weak, beneath the feet of

the few, who are crafty and strong. Besides this, very serious and

insuperable difficulties of conscience oblige us to abstain from using

the most powerful of legal arms which liberalism says it has left in

the hands of that majority which is trodden under foot by the

minority. So that, if we may from this take occasion to cherish more

solid hopes that God will at length assist us in effecting means of

safety, yet in actual combat we now find ourselves unequal to the

contest.

This is not the case with the Catholics of the other countries of

Europe. It is their peculiar privilege so to address themselves to the

work that their governments may not only preserve and strengthen the

only and ultimate safeguard of the life and person of the Holy Father

in Rome; but that they may use their power for his liberation; that

thus with his full liberty the true liberty of the people may again

flourish--that liberty which is now enchained with Pius IX. in the

Vatican.

----------

ELINOR’S TRIAL. 790

“I do think John Lloyd is very weak in giving in to his wife so much!

To think now of his letting her send Elinor to a convent school! Such

a risk for a Protestant! Ten chances to one that Elinor comes back a

Papist. And then her _reasons_ are so absurd, that Protestant

boarding-schools cultivate too much of folly and fashion, etc.! I have

no patience with Elizabeth. If she were a Catholic herself, there

might be some excuse for her wanting her daughter educated among them,

but as she is a Protestant, I think Protestant schools might serve her

purpose.”

Thus speaks Mrs. Robert Lennox of her husband’s sister. She is talking

to her husband while they are going home from a fashionable church in

New York. She is a stately, handsome lady, to whom her rich attire

seems well adapted. Just now she appears displeased and somewhat more

haughty than usual, but the face is refined and the bearing polished.

More gentle than his wife in the treatment of the question in hand is

Mr. Lennox.

“Well, I cannot say Elizabeth is so very far out of the way. You know

John’s means are very limited, and these convent schools are cheaper

than ours. Besides, Elizabeth knows Elly cannot compete in dress and

all the furbelows, as our Lizzie does. So she prefers not to have her

exposed to the uncomfortableness of being the subject of derogatory

comparisons. You know young folks are keenly sensitive on such

points.”

“But, Robert, must such reasons weigh against the risk of perverting

the girl’s faith, the undermining of her religion? Would you trust

those sly, insinuating sisters with our daughter?”

Mr. Lennox smiles significantly as he replies: “I would not object to

Lizzie’s receiving some of that peculiar, modest, quiet air which

those sisters have and so often impart to their pupils. There is some

nameless charm, I cannot describe it better than by saying it is the

opposite of that which the young ladies of the present day cultivate

for their deportment, and which seems to belong almost exclusively to

this training.”

“Pshaw! Mere affectation of meekness. The girls are all the same at

heart. Why should not they be? I tell you it isn’t worth the risk!

Mark my words, you’ll see the effect on Elly’s religion.”

“Well, you know Elizabeth said that even that change of religion was

better than the irreligion or isms of the day.”

“Now, Robert, it is just to oppose me that you so persistently uphold

Elizabeth in this. Is it to be supposed that girls of sixteen are

going to take to isms in Protestant schools or irreligion either? Why,

they don’t know enough for that, at their age!”

“I do not dispute you. I only think that Elizabeth has preferred for

Elly this risk rather than have her of John’s state of mind. And that

is why John is so easy in the matter. Being of no faith himself, he

prides himself on being also of no prejudice. ‘The greater the faith,

the greater the bigotry,’ he says.”

“And I think you are just about as bad as John,” says the lady. “I 791

don’t believe you listened to the sermon at all to-day.”

This last charge passes unanswered, because they have arrived at their

own door, where we leave them.

II.

Two years after this, the cousins, Lizzie Lennox and Elinor Lloyd,

have returned from their respective schools: Lizzie from her

fashionable seminary, where she has received every advantage that

money could purchase, and where she has associated with the daughters

of the wealthiest, if not the most refined, families in the land. And

if wealth will not purchase the means and open the way for refinement,

pray what will? Does it not free the path from the thorns of toil,

give time and means for culture and for travel, and to surround

ourselves with the ennobling influences of art? And, above all, does

it not grant us the free indulgence of generous impulses? Do not all

the mortal ills of flesh which bear upon the rich bear also on the

poor, with more added to stand in the way of their refinement? It

would seem so.

Lizzie Lennox has all these advantages of wealth in her case, but her

cousin Elinor Lloyd is the daughter of a poor man. Poorer now than he

was two years ago, when he let his prudent wife have her way in the

choice of a convent school for her daughter. Elinor has been very

happy with the sisters, to whom she has become sincerely attached.

Their good example has not been lost upon her, but she denies

indignantly that any under-handed means have been used to warp her

religious feelings. They have simply and honestly acted out the

dictates of their own faith, exacting from her only such general

compliance as would be required in the schools of any denomination

among Protestants. If her affections have been won, and her young

heart drawn toward the religion of these gentle teachers, that was the

risk her mother took when she sent her willingly among the Sisters of

Charity.

The cousins are nearly of an age. Lizzie is named after her father’s

sister, Mrs. Lloyd, and Elinor after her aunt, Mrs. Lennox.

These cousins are strikingly alike, and yet singularly unlike in their

appearance. Their faces seem to have been cast in almost the same

mould, so exactly does every feature correspond, but the coloring is

so different that they present opposite types of beauty. For they are

very beautiful. Lizzie is exceedingly fair, with light auburn hair and

hazel eyes; the same reddish tint seeming to lurk in the eyes and

lashes as in the hair, which peculiarity any close observer of faces

may often see in this type. But Elinor’s eyes are a dark brown, and

her hair is very dark. She is too fair and pale for a brunette, and

her eyes are not black enough. Despite this difference in color, they

are very like her cousin Lizzie’s light orbs in expression. It is as

if a painter should take two sketches of the same face, and simply

change his colors for the touching of them. Indeed, a cast of each

might pass for the same person, so like are they, even to the carriage

of the head, the turn of the throat, the curve of the shoulders. I am

thus exact in my description, because out of this wonderful likeness

and difference of face and form came Elinor’s trial. But now, at

eighteen, Elinor’s face is softer and sweeter than that of her blonde

cousin. This difference is seen as they are listening or talking, more

than while their faces are in repose. Shall we say that it is the 792

result of training and education that Elinor seems the more refined

and modest? Or is it only a matter of inheritance, or a trick of

manner betokening nothing? I present them thus to the reader, who may

guess somewhat of their respective characters, as they sit chatting

their cousinly talk in Lizzie’s room. Lizzie is dressing to go out

with Elinor, and talking while she proceeds with her toilet.

“But, Elly, where is the harm of flirting a little, so long as you do

nothing serious, and never commit yourself?”

“I think you do commit yourself, Lizzie, when you put pen to paper to

answer a stranger’s letter, and when you cannot tell whether he is

true or false. More likely he is the latter, from the very fact of his

trying to draw you on. How do you know how he may use your letter?”

“But I haven’t signed my name, only my own initials. I use E. L., not

L. L. And you know I am known rather as Lizzie Lennox than Elizabeth

Lennox. No one ever thinks of me as Elizabeth--I don’t seem to be that

to myself. Now, you are either Elinor or Elly, but I am just Lizzie.

So you see I can hide under my own honest initials.”

“Ah Lizzie! why hide at all? Give it up. I don’t like this kind of

thing. I don’t believe the men who write to girls in this way care one

bit for them, except to make them contribute to their own amusement,

and feed their conceit. What good does it do when you don’t even see

each other?”

“But we may, after, if we want to, you know.”

“I shouldn’t want to see him, Lizzie; I hope you will never meet.”

“Now, Elly, it is just being with those sisters that makes you talk

so. Why, all the girls do so. It is only for fun, and the young men

know we don’t mean wrong. I could say ‘Evil he who evil thinks,’ only

I know you are not evil, only sisterified in this matter.”

“But, Lizzie, sisterified or not, you know I like fun as much as other

girls, only I don’t think this _is_ fun: I think it isn’t just right.

It is making yourself too cheap. I don’t like men well enough to do so

much for their amusement. I may be peculiar, but I certainly hate a

covert thing, and personals in the newspapers are very covert and very

cowardly. Mamma says a respectable paper will not publish them.

Besides, you dare not let your father and mother know this, dare you?”

“Oh! of course they would get a great scare, and think I was going to

do something much worse than I mean. But that doesn’t prove I would do

wrong.”

“No; but, Lizzie, don’t you hate to deceive them when they trust you

so freely? Is this stranger to be trusted and they not?”

“Well, I don’t want to give pain to either papa or mamma; and so if

they don’t know it, they will be spared all pain and fuss in the

matter, and nobody hurt. Now I’m ready. Let’s go.” And the two leaving

the house, the subject is dropped for the time.

* * * * *

Only one month has passed since the cousins have had this morning’s

talk together, but it has brought a great change in their feelings and

relations to each other.

First, Elinor has quietly but courageously avowed herself a Catholic.

Alone and unsupported she has made the great step--alone she goes to

Mass and Vespers--and without sympathy from her family she practises

faithfully all the observances of her church. In all this, she has 793

shown her aunt Lennox a wise prophet, but that lady is no less

indignant on that account. She enlarges upon her favorite text, and

congratulates herself that she has taken no such risk for her own

daughter’s falling into Popish pitfalls, and traps set for the young

and innocent. Lizzie chooses to consider herself called upon to give

up the intimacy and nearly all intercourse with her cousin. In this

she is secretly governed by a sense of annoyance at Elinor’s

persistent discountenancing of her clandestine correspondences, but

she makes a show of setting herself against “Popish influences.”

The parents of Elinor have taken the matter with seeming indifference.

She loses none of their love in consequence of the change in her

faith, and they are sure she is quite as good a daughter as ever. But

a greater trouble, if this is a trouble, now absorbs their minds. John

Lloyd has failed in business and failed in health. He is a broken-down

man. In this emergency, Elinor has determined to accept a situation as

musical governess in a wealthy family. She has felt the tug at her

heartstrings, no less from her wounded pride in the matter of her

changed social position, than in the hard necessity to leave her home

and parents. She is no saint, only a good, pure-minded girl, who is

scrupulously conscientious in all things. She battles against a bitter

feeling of almost envy toward the better luck and easier life of her

cousin. She does not really wish Lizzie to be as poor as herself, and

she is sure she would rather be herself than Lizzie, but she does wish

her father and mother were in the same comfortable ease that her uncle

and aunt enjoy. Her uncle is disposed to be very kind to her, but he

is hampered by his wife and daughter in their bitter opposition to

her. He has sent her a check to defray all necessary expenses in her

wardrobe. So she goes to her new home so nicely clad that at least no

air of shabbiness clings to her. Brave as she may be, this feminine

sensitiveness to her appearance is very acute in her. Foolish vanity

concerning dress she may not have, but, being young, she is only

natural in liking to look well, to pass criticism which she cannot

ignore at least creditably. If a young woman has not this much of

feeling concerning her toilet, she is probably slovenly, or else she

affects an eccentricity which is more disagreeable than a love for

finery. Elinor is refined in her nature, and she is not strong-minded,

so she likes the good opinion of others.

Elinor soon settles into the new and changed relations of her life,

the more easily because her employer proves exceedingly kind. As her

forte is music, she is of course, in the exercise of that

accomplishment, brought into more constant contact and intercourse

with the guests at the house than the mere instruction and supervision

of her pupils would demand. Her seat at the piano calls to her the

attention and brings upon her the criticism of many who otherwise

might never notice her. And so it has happened that young Mr.

Schuyler, the brother of her hostess, has more frequently than any

other turned the leaves of her music, sang to her accompaniment, and

gazed admiringly upon the pretty hands moving over the keys and upon

the charming face turned to the pages before it. Mr. Schuyler is an

agreeable young gentleman, good-looking enough, graceful enough, and

flattering enough in his address to ladies to win their pleased

recognition of his attentions. But buzzing in his admiration around 794

each sweet flower like the veriest male coquette of a bee, he is just

unstable enough also to tantalize the fair recipients of his

attentions. Elinor likes him, but with a little reserve. She is not of

a distrustful nature, but she does not quite like Mr. Schuyler’s

manner to her. He has been very unreserved in his admiration. He has

attempted some sentimental love-making, but there has always been a

sort of holding back--a non-committal manner, which has not seemed to

her straightforward and manly. It has appeared to her that he has been

attempting to gain her regard without making any actual avowal

himself, and that he is trying to amuse himself or feed his own vanity

at her expense. Yet she is so afraid of being unjust to him, knowing

that her position in the family may make her unduly sensitive, that

she strives against this feeling. He really is very kind in a great

many little ways which she would be ashamed not to acknowledge, and

she thinks, if she were not a governess for his sister, she might

receive his attentions in a less cavilling spirit.

In the meantime, Mr. Schuyler studies Elinor from quite a different

point of view from any she imagines. He has found by repeated

experiment that he cannot make her understand or respond to various

little devices which he has been in the habit of using to flirt with

certain school-girls whom he has met often in his daily walks and

rides. All these signals pass unnoticed upon the convent girl. But in

fluttering thus around this innocent, cold light, the gay moth has got

his wings singed. He does really love Elinor as much as such a nature

is capable of loving. Just because she has _not_ responded to any of

his advances, he has become more seriously interested in her. But just

when an honorable feeling of choosing her from all others is dawning

as a possibility on his mind, a wonderful discovery bursts upon him.

He has been amusing himself by conducting a correspondence with some

unknown lady who has signed herself “E. L.” This incognita has at last

yielded to an oft-urged request to send her picture, and a fine

photograph of a beautiful girl has come to him. Whose face does he

see? “By all that is astounding,” he says, “Miss Lloyd!” He cannot be

mistaken. The very same. It is a Rembrandt shadow picture, by which he

studies every line of the profile, while it shows also the contour of

the full face. There is the dark hair waving from the same fair

forehead. The eyes are the same dark orbs with the long lashes, only

he has never seen just this bright, coquettish, laughing look in them

before. It is wonderfully charming in the picture, but he really does

not like it as well as the other thoughtful, intent gaze he has lately

come to love so well.

“The demure little cheat!” he says. “Well, she is very versatile, it

must be confessed. Who would have thought it? But stop. This may be a

cheat. The whole thing is so unlike her. I do believe the writer has

sent Miss Lloyd’s picture instead of her own. ‘E. L.’ L for Lloyd

certainly, and I saw Elinor Lloyd written on her music, and, by Jove!

I think it was the very writing. I’ll look again”--which he does, and

finds it to be just the very same E and L; and no wonder, for Lizzie

Lennox wrote it in other days, when she gave that music to her cousin.

Then he observes, what careless Lizzie has never once thought of, the

name of the photographer, to whom he goes at once, and by no very

adroit means discovers the name of the fair original. And here he is 795

again astonished. He finds he has the photograph of Miss Lizzie

Lennox. “L. L.,” he says to himself, “and not E. L., after all,” and

in his bewilderment it is actually some days before it occurs to him

that Lizzie is the pet name for Elizabeth.

Now, having arrived thus far in his pursuit of information under

difficulties, he is unable to decide whether she is Miss Lennox or

Miss Lloyd. In this dilemma he questions his sister, Mrs. Wood, and

determines that she can scarcely be any other than the Miss Lloyd she

professes herself. So the false name has been given the photographer,

he thinks; and he makes up his mind that Miss Lloyd, though

unquestionably very charming, is about as profound a coquette as he is

ever likely to meet.

And so believing, his manner toward Elinor takes on a new phase, which

pleases her so little that it has the effect of making her more

reserved than heretofore. She now avoids him as much as possible, and

yet she is conscious of a sharp pain in thus being driven to an

attitude of defence. She is young and frank, and would be

light-hearted if in her true position. She has really liked Frederick

Schuyler because she found him companionable in a house where all are

either older or younger than herself except him. Their tastes are

similar in many things, and of late he had seemed to her more honest.

But now he treats her with a certain familiarity of look and tone

which offends her nice sense of propriety. She cannot guess at the

false position in which she is placed. She has been very reticent

concerning herself and her relatives. True pride and dignity have made

her forbear to allude to her wealthy relations, the Lennoxes, now that

she is supporting herself. She does not wish to seem to make any claim

for consideration outside of her own individual merits. This is not

vanity, but proper self-respect; and this feeling is increased by the

utter silence which Lizzie has preserved toward her. But as she

withdraws from even the slight friendship which she had allowed to

spring up between herself and Mr. Schuyler, she feels more lonely. Her

religion separates her also from a closer confidence with Mrs. Wood,

who goes to a fashionable Unitarian church.

But Frederick Schuyler does not give up his interest in this baffling

coquette, for so he firmly believes Elinor to be. Does he not hold the

proof? He has sent his own picture to E. L. at the usual address, and

he firmly believes that Elinor Lloyd has that picture in her

possession. He waits until he receives an acknowledgment from E. L.;

and then he watches Elinor. He is prepared to see her betray her

overwhelming confusion at discovering who her unknown correspondent

is. What, then, is his amazement, his disappointment, at seeing no

ripple of disturbance in her composed demeanor! He is exasperated at

this assurance. He determines to shake her composure by direct means.

The opportunity offers only too soon.

As the last music lesson for the day is finished and the pupil bounds

from the room, Mr. Frederick Schuyler presents himself with a peculiar

and, to Elinor, an offensive smile on his face.

“Miss Lloyd,” he says blandly, “do you not think it is time to drop

this masking?”

Elinor looks at him with wondering and offended eyes. They are not the

eyes of either the picture, or the soft brown ones he has known

hitherto as hers. They flash up to him in angry brilliancy as she 796

replies:

“I do not understand you, sir!” So sure is he, and so amazed at this

stubbornness, that he almost as indignantly replies:

“And I am sure I cannot understand you!”

“I do not desire that you should,” she retorts: “but I think it due to

myself to demand why you presume to thus address me, Mr. Schuyler.”

The offended tone remains, but blended with it is a little faint touch

of grieved feeling, which his nice ear detects.

“Can you pretend to still treat me as if you did not recognize me? Is

my picture so unlike me that you do not know the original?”

“Your picture!” and such a world of wonderment is expressed in her

voice that he thinks she ought to be on the stage for consummate

acting.

“Perhaps you do not recognize this,” and he holds before her a picture

so like herself that she is confounded. For the moment, she really

does not see her cousin Lizzie as plainly as herself. The photograph,

like one of those libellous stories which are true in detail, but

false in implication, has given the reddish tint in Lizzie’s hair,

brows, and lashes dark as her own, and there is the blonde cousin

presented, the very counterpart of the brunette, one. The light hazel

eyes are in the photograph, dark as Elinor’s own.

Elinor gazes speechless for a moment. Then she recognizes the dress of

her cousin, and the expression _not_ her own which she knows so

well. It all rushes upon her perception at once--the cruel

mistake--Lizzie’s clandestine correspondence, of which she disapproved

so much--the well-known resemblance between them--the picture more

like herself than Lizzie--she sees it all, and she sees Mr. Schuyler’s

triumph in her discomfiture. Guilty Lizzie would not look so guilty as

innocent Elinor looks now.

“Checkmate!” says Mr. Schuyler. His tone stings her.

“Mr. Schuyler, this is not my picture. I never sat for it.”

“Miss Lloyd!”

“I repeat, sir! This is not my picture, and I wear no mask.”

“But you are ‘E. L.,’” he says, showing her his last missive with that

signature, “and you acknowledge receiving one like this,” and he

confronts her with a duplicate of his own picture.

“My name is Elinor Lloyd, and I have never written to you, and this is

the first time I have seen either of these pictures,” she replies,

glancing disdainfully at each of them.

“Do you know whose this is?” he asks.

At this point-blank question, Elinor bursts into tears. The cruelty of

the position in which she finds herself is too much for her. She will

not betray her cousin, and she knows that on her own denial alone,

against overwhelming evidence, rests her defence of herself. And in

tears, distressed beyond measure, she rushes from the room. Mr.

Schuyler gives a long, low whistle. He is inclined to believe she has

told him the truth, in spite of all he knows and has seen. For why

does she wish to deny it? What girl who could do this thing would so

spurn the accusation? Her proud assertion, “My name is Elinor Lloyd,

and I have never written to you,” rings in his ears. He believes it,

as we will all of us sometimes believe, apparently against reason. He

knows that he wishes to believe in her truth, despite his vanity.

A little book lies near a roll of music on the piano, with her gloves

and hat. He takes up this book and examines it, for no reason except 797

that it appears to belong to her. A copy of Dickens’ _Barnaby Rudge_,

with a mark at the description of the Lord George Gordon Riots, and

pencil marks on the margin. He turns idly to the fly-leaf, and sees

written, “Elizabeth Lennox, from her brother Robert.” O cruel

evidence! “Circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator,” again

shows Elinor as a liar. What can he do now but doubt her word? Elinor

meanwhile is pacing her room in a tumult of agitation. Her first

impulse is to abandon her engagement with Mrs. Wood at once, and go to

her parents. But poverty among other hard impositions forbids us

acting on the dictates of pride, be it ever so honorable. Elinor

shrinks from staying, but also shrinks from giving her reasons for

leaving to her parents or to Mrs. Wood. To give false ones, covering

her real one, never for one moment occurs to her. She feels keenly the

cruelty, the injustice of the false position in which Lizzie’s folly

has placed her. Yet she is too generous at heart to betray Lizzie even

to her mother. She knows that when Lizzie told her of this “bit of

fun” it was in confidence, and troublesome as the trust has proved,

she will keep it until she is released. But she feels how hard it is

to know how to act rightly, unaided, uncounselled. One refuge,

however, she has--one counsellor who never betrays his trust, and who

does not require her cousin’s name or identity. O blessed privilege of

a Catholic! The safe, sure refuge of the confessional is Elinor’s.

What better human guide and comforter than her pastor can she seek? No

fears of a betrayed trust is here. So to him she goes, and from him

she receives the needed strength to bear her heavy trial--for heavy

trial it is on such a young heart, all the more so because she cannot

suppose her silence has put a stop to this disgraceful affair. She has

written to Lizzie explaining what has happened, and begging her to

lift this weight from her, and at least free her from this blame. And

Lizzie has indignantly replied that she will not interfere, and that

she believes Elinor to be the betrayer of her name to Fred Schuyler,

and moreover hints that it has been done to win him to herself.

This rouses Elinor to such a degree that she nearly forgets her

counsel to “return good for evil.” Prayer and meditation, however,

those best of medicines for disturbed souls, work their good effect

for her, and she is able still to bear in silence, trusting that time

will lift the stigma off her. So she shuns as best she can all

intercourse with Mr. Schuyler.

And thus about three unhappy weeks pass. Mr. Schuyler gives up trying

to enlist Elinor’s attention, and he leaves the last communication of

E. L. unanswered. He receives no more of those interesting missives.

Lizzie, thoroughly frightened, stops this amusement for herself.

But at last the Nemesis, circumstance, overtakes her--the circumstance

of meeting Mr. Frederick Schuyler at a party. A very small

circumstance apparently, but pregnant with much for three individuals.

He sees her standing not far off from him, in all the blaze of

gas-light and full dress. He has never seen Elinor at this advantage,

but the perfect profile and the proud carriage of the head impress him

at once. Yet those blonde locks and the light laughing eyes--these are

neither like Elinor’s nor the picture. Lovely this face certainly is,

but he remembers the darker one as pleasing him more. The remarkable 798

resemblance, however, has so startled him, that he actually trembles

as he asks a friend who has been talking with her to tell him her name.

“Miss Lennox.”

“Do you know her first name?” he says, with forced composure.

“Oh! yes. Lizzie Lennox and I are old friends; let me introduce you.”

And in the brief interval before he is presented, he only remembers

that it is L. L. and not E. L., the lady of the photograph but not of

the correspondence.

Lizzie passes this ordeal with a frightened, throbbing heart, but a

polite, calm exterior, thankful to be very soon claimed for the next

dance, and to leave Mr. Schuyler for the present at least. She is a

foolish coquette, but not an evil-minded girl. Weak, vain, selfish,

but not bad-hearted--she has really felt troubled by the mean way in

which she has refused to clear her cousin of the suspicion which she

has brought upon her, but her selfishness has prevailed in the matter.

To protect herself has seemed to her of more consequence than to clear

Elinor. And the possible consequence of her parents knowing all about

this little escapade has not seemed to her at all pleasant to

contemplate. And so she has been vacillating between the desire to do

right and the fear of exposure ever since she has received Elinor’s

letter. She is equally ignorant of how much she may be known to Mr.

Schuyler, or how far she may be protected by her cousin’s magnanimity.

She moreover finds Mr. Schuyler better than his photograph on

inspection, as a handsome face generally is better than a photograph

of it. Meanwhile, that gentleman has recollected that Elizabeth and

Lizzie are the same name. He has been watching this airy, graceful dancer,

and he has seen that she has been observing him. Elinor is

absolved from all blame in his mind. The only shred of mystery left is

the name in that book of hers. Lizzie, resting after her last round

dance, sees him approach with both dread and pleasure. He wastes no

time in prefatory remarks, but says, “Miss Lennox, are you related to

a Miss Elinor Lloyd?”

Lizzie has the command of this situation better than Mr. Schuyler. She

knows the full purport of the question, but being asked by Elinor in a

letter to speak the truth while she can yet hide it, and by handsome

Fred Schuyler looking into her eyes, and knowing her for the girl he

has been flirting with, are two very different matters. Here she may

make a virtue of necessity, and perhaps a conquest at the same time.

Ah! if our good deeds are viewed by the light of our motives, how very

much the virtue in them seems to pale.

Lizzie says with charming candor, “Oh! yes, she is my cousin; do you

know her?”

“Yes, Miss Lennox, and I saw your name in a book she had--_Barnaby

Rudge_--and it appeared to have been quite attentively read, from

the marginal notes I saw.”

Lizzie shows a momentary astonishment. “Why, Mr. Schuyler, the only

copy of Dickens’ _Barnaby Rudge_ I have is at home in the New

Riverside set papa gave me only lately--since”--she pauses a little

confused--“since I have seen Elly last. Besides, I don’t make notes on

the margins of my books, and I am quite sure Elly would not in mine. I

think it could not have been my name you saw.”

“Indeed, I saw it, ‘Elizabeth Lennox,’ and from your ‘brother Robert.’”

Lizzie laughs merrily, and she looks the very image of innocent fun as 799

she responds to this triumphant assertion.

“Oh! that’s a good joke! My _brother_ Robert! Why, that’s papa! And

the name is his sister’s. She is Elinor’s mother. Why didn’t she tell

you! I hate such mysteries.” And she shoots such a glance as would

once have been a challenge irresistible. He keeps up the badinage, but

he is answering that question, “Why did she not tell you?” in a manner

not flattering to Miss Lennox, but very much so to Miss Lloyd. The

former young lady is not quite pleased with his abstracted manner.

True, he dances with her, chats with her, compliments her, but she is

not satisfied. She is wishing that this was the first intercourse she

has had with Mr. Schuyler, and that he had nothing to remember of

Lizzie Lennox, and no previous knowledge of her--she has an intuitive

sense that she does not stand as well as her cousin in his estimation,

and that her chance would have been better if she had never written to

him. He, however, generously makes no allusion to that correspondence.

He is ashamed of it for her, and heartily wishes it had never been. He

is thinking how he can make his peace with her cousin, of whom he

feels glad to think so well, when he is startled by the words.

“Elinor and I are not friends now as we were once--before she became a

Catholic.”

“Miss Lloyd a Catholic!”

“Yes, Mr. Schuyler, did you not know that? All of the family are

Protestants except her. Her mother was so very liberal as to allow her

to be educated at a convent of those Sisters of Charity, and this is

the result. I have never been intimate with her since.”

Mr. Schuyler is very uncomfortably astonished by this information.

He has had pleasant thoughts of the possible consequence of his

reconciliation with Elinor. She has so much risen in his estimation by

this solution of the picture mystery and her generous, honorable

forbearance toward Lizzie, that he is thinking how very pleasant it

would be to pass his life with such a companion. She certainly has

proved herself very trustworthy. But a Catholic! That changes the

aspect of affairs. Does he want a wife of that faith? Would not the

coquettish blonde beauty be more desirable? And yet he cannot say that

the ways of Miss Lennox altogether please him. He has been willing to

amuse himself by a clandestine correspondence with the unknown beauty,

but the known writer of those entertaining epistles does not seem to

him just the one to trust with his life’s chance of domestic bliss.

The trust is not for just such as she. He really believes no harm of

Lizzie, but he knows a worse man might think worse of her than she

deserves. He wishes she were the Catholic and Elinor the Protestant.

Why now, for the upholding of all his cherished beliefs and

prejudices, could not the result of the two different systems of

education have been reversed? Surely, he thinks, “Popery would, as a

rule, have made such a girl as Lizzie rather than one like Elinor.

After all,” he concludes, “the difference is in their own natures, and

would have shown itself had they both had the same training,” and in

this we cannot dispute him. But possibly, although Elinor might never

have condescended to such a course, Lizzie might with better teaching

have been saved from it also. The girl is not evil, only young, weak,

vain, and she has needed just that which Elinor has had to sustain and

strengthen her. Lizzie relies on herself, on her own crude knowledge 800

of the world, and on just as much advice as she chooses to accept. She

never bares her conscience and her soul, as Elinor does, to any one.

Therefore, she not only robs herself of the counsel of wiser heads,

but she never brings upon herself that searching self-examination

necessary to the seeing of herself rightly. Had she done that, had she

been forced to look with this introverted gaze upon herself, she would

have shrunk from placing herself in this doubtful position. She will

remember this in after years with a sense of annoyance, if not of any

deeper sentiment. And yet her present feeling toward Elinor is one of

irritation. She knows that Elinor was right in her advice to her, and

that she can look down upon her from a more exalted height. The fact

that she has not taken airs of superiority on herself has not lessened

Lizzie’s resentment. The feeling that she is on a lower moral plane

than that of her Catholic, convent-educated cousin, is a sufficient

grievance of itself, and admits to her unregulated mind of no

extenuation in Elinor’s behalf.

It is not very easy for Mr. Schuyler to find an opportunity to explain

to Elinor his enlightenment and change of views. She shuns him so

sedulously that he begins to think he will have to tell her at the

table, in the presence of the family, that he has met her cousin.

True, he could do this without any indelicacy, but he has planned a

little programme of a _tête-à-tête_, which he thinks more pleasant,

to himself at least, than leaving her to draw her own conclusions from

such meagre information as he can give her in the presence of others.

Moreover, he does not wish to startle her before others by mentioning

Lizzie’s name--a sore subject to her, he suspects. So he bides his

time, although impatiently. If Elinor were like her cousin, he thinks

he would not wait so long for opportunity to speak. His man’s nature

is aroused by the necessity of pursuing.

But Mr. Schuyler has not made up his mind that he is willing to take a

Catholic wife. He is at present only desirous of establishing the old

pleasant, friendly footing between Elinor and himself--possibly a more

tender one; but he will not yet commit himself. Not until he has seen

how deeply rooted is her Catholicism--only an ism, it seems to him. He

is getting impatient, however, at her continued indifference toward

him. He sees that he must make his opportunity; and, being a young

gentleman fertile in expedients, he resorts to waylaying her at the

hour when her last music lesson is ended for the day.

Elinor’s face flushes and her brow contracts--a little indignant flash

is in her brown eyes as he confronts her. She remembers the last scene

between them at that hour by the piano, and it does not tend to soften

her manner. Evidently he has got all the work to do, unhelped by her.

So he starts off, as is his usual manner, with an abrupt introduction

of the subject.

“Miss Lloyd, I owe you an apology for declaring that I had your

picture in my possession. I know now whose picture it is.”

“You should have known it was not mine, sir, when I told you so,” and

she blushes again at the thought of Lizzie’s being known. Even when

the blame is lifted from herself, she does not rejoice in her cousin’s

exposure.

“I did know it, Miss Lloyd; I did believe you, on my soul, against all

the wonderful evidence of the remarkable likeness to you. I did believe

that picture was not yours, or that at least you did not send me it, 801

or know of my having it. But how could I know that it was your

mother’s name in your book?”

He stops confused. Elinor has never yet known of that added testimony

against her. Had she known it, she would at once have told him it was

her mother’s name. There was no reason for any mystery concerning

that, it being no part of Lizzie’s confidences to her. If he had had

that clue, perhaps he might have come to some imperfect glimpse of the

truth. In answer to her wondering inquiry, “What book?” he says now

humbly:

“You left a book you appeared to own on the piano. I took the liberty

of looking at it, and read a name in it which I knew belonged to her

whose picture I mistook for yours. Your cousin, Miss Lloyd, is very

like and very unlike yourself. I met her a short time since at a

party; and even seeing her before me, the original of that picture, I

could scarcely believe it was those fair locks which the sun made so

dark in her picture. I may certainly be excused for not remembering

this trick of photography, especially when you two are in features so

very similar.” He says this last pleadingly, because the displeased

look is not gone from her face.

“Mr. Schuyler,” she says, “your mistake concerning that picture was

more natural and more excusable than your supposing me the writer of

that letter, or the giver of that picture. I think, whatever the

evidence you may have supposed yourself to possess, my uniform bearing

and manner toward you should have freed me from any such supposition

on your part. I could not tell you whose picture you had, but I was

free to tell you whose name was in my book.”

“But, Miss Lloyd, even if you had given me the chance to ask you, I

could scarcely take upon myself the liberty of seeming to make you

accountable to myself for any name written in your book. The very

asking of that would have seemed an accusation.”

Elinor’s quick sense of justice sees this readily, and her brow

clears. Hard as it has been against herself, she admits that it was an

entanglement for him. So she says more graciously: “We will let it

pass, Mr. Schuyler. I wish the whole matter for all parties could be

disposed of as easily as I can pass out of it.” And she endeavors to

leave him, with a provoking air of taking no further interest in him

or his changed footing toward herself. He gently makes a motion of

barring her way. She stands waiting to hear what he has further to say

to her, but there is no evidence of any desire to remain.

“It is so long since we have spoken together in this friendly fashion,

that I think you need not be in such haste to shorten our

conversation.”

He says this in such a flattering way, implying that to talk with her

is the one great delight for him, that her girl’s sense of pleasing

and being pleased is quickened, but she only toys with the tassel of

the curtain near which she is standing, and says nothing.

Again Mr. Frederick finds he has all the advances to make toward

conversation, unaided by her.

“Miss Lennox tells me you were educated at a convent. Is that the

reason you are so shy of me, or is it because I am a Protestant, Miss

Lloyd?”

“My parents are Protestants, and all my relatives. It would be strange

for me to be afraid of a Protestant.”

“And yet you can be of so very different a faith. May I ask, is it a 802

matter of conscience with you, or only one of taste?”

“I do not understand religion being a matter of only taste, Mr.

Schuyler,” she says simply.

“Why, don’t you think it is taste, preference only for the gorgeous

and ceremonial, which makes the Ritualists of St. Alban’s and St.

Mary’s do as they do?”

“I cannot decide upon their motives, Mr. Schuyler. I only know that if

my conscience were not in this, I should not separate myself in my

faith from that of my family.” She says this with a firm bearing and a

lofty look at him which abashes him. He begins to suspect that this

young convert _will not_ swerve from her path from any regard for him.

He has a full share of conceit, fed by his success with the girls of

his acquaintance. He has won their smiles so readily heretofore, and

he has pleased and flattered them so easily, that he is piqued at

making no better impression now when he really tries.

Again Elinor moves to the door. He lets her pass with the words, “We

are friends now, are we not?”

“Friends, oh! certainly,” she says, but her tone does not seem so

delighted at this change in their relations as he thinks it should be.

The truth is, Elinor has thought much over Mr. Schuyler’s little

flirtation with her cousin, and he has not come out from that

inspection of his conduct with any great credit, in her way of looking

at it. She thinks that although he may pass unscathed by such

indulgence, it is not honorable in him to tempt one younger and weaker

than himself into such practices. She thinks if Lizzie could find no

one like him to entice her into this folly, she must perforce amuse

herself in some other way. It seems to her that his motives were bad.

And she suspects that if she would have lent herself to this sort of

thing, he would have been just as ready to conduct an affair of the

kind with herself. Her native good sense shows her this, and she is

thankful for the different example and teaching which has hedged her

in from ever giving a chance for such a thing. The amount of all this

is, that the little inclination to like Mr. Fred Schuyler which she

had once is now gone, she has no trust in him, and without, trust

there can be no abiding love.

Therefore, when, some days after that gentleman overcomes his dislike

of her religion so far as to absolutely offer his heart, hand, and

fortune to her, this disdainful Catholic astonishes him with these

words:

“I think, Mr. Schuyler, that these protestations are more due to my

cousin Lizzie than to me. If you speak truth to me, you have spoken

false to her. If it is truth to her, what am I to believe? Mr.

Schuyler, ‘I must trust all in all,’ or not at all.”

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OWEN ON SPIRITISM.[159] 803

Mr. Owen, though he has since been a member of Congress, and an

American minister at Naples, was formerly well known in this city as

associated with Frances Wright in editing the _Free Enquirer_, as the

author of an infamous work on moral physiology, and as an avowed

atheist. He now claims to be a believer in the existence of God, and

in the truth of the Christian religion; but his God has no freedom of

action, being hedged in and bound hand and foot by the laws of nature,

and his Christianity is a Christianity without Christ, and

indistinguishable from unmitigated heathenism. How much he has gained

by his conversion, through the intervention of the spirits, from

atheism to demonism and gross superstition, it is not easy to say,

though it is better to believe in the devil, if one does not mistake

him for God, than it is to believe in nothing.