Would it be strange, too, if in the heart of a girl taught as she had been, who had never known a mother's tenderness, there should be some hidden leaning toward those traditions of the Romish faith in which a holy mother appeared as one whose favor was to be supplicated? The worship of the Virgin was, indeed, too salient an object of attack among the heresies which the New England teachers combated, not to inspire a salutary caution in Adèle and entire concealment of any respect she might still feel for the Holy Mary. Nor was it so much a respect that shaped itself tangibly among her religious beliefs as a secret craving for that outpouring of maternal love denied her on earth,--a craving which found a certain repose and tender alleviation in entertaining fond regard for the sainted mother of Christ.
When, therefore, on one occasion, Miss Eliza had found among the toilet treasures of Adèle a little lithographic print of the Virgin, with the Christ's head surrounded by a nimbus of glory, and in her chilling way had sneered at it as a heathen vanity, the poor child had burst into tears, and carried the treasure to her bosom to guard it from sacrilegious touch.
The spinster, rendered watchful, perhaps, by this circumstance, had on another day been still more shocked to find in a corner of the escritoire of Adèle a rosary, and with a very grave face had borne it down for the condemnation of the Doctor.
"Adaly, my child, I trust you do not let this bawble bear any part in your devotions?"
And the Doctor made a movement as if he would have thrown it out of the window.
"No, New Papa!" said Adèle, darting toward him, and snatching it from his hand, with a fire in her eye he had never seen there before,--a welling-up for a moment of the hot Provençal blood in her veins; "_de grâce! je vous en prie_!" (in ecstatic moments her tongue ran to her own land and took up the echo of her first speech,)--then growing calm, as she held it, and looked into the pitying, wondering eyes of the poor Doctor, said only, "It was my mother's."
Of course the kind old gentleman never sought to reclaim such a treasure, but in his evening prayer besought God fervently "to overrule all things,--our joys, our sorrows, our vain affections, our delight in the vanities of this world, our misplaced longings,--to overrule all to His glory and the good of those that love Him."