Chapter IX.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 46, 14 March 1884, Page 7

Chapter IX.

May 29. My dearest Elise, since last I wrote to you I had reason to think that my castles in the air had received a shock which would overthrow them, never to ascend in their dreamy beauty to the sky again. One d ay I saw a great fuss going on outside Germain's quiet house — people going to and fro and bringing all sorts of things, including a great many ladies' knicknacks, a work-table, a toilet-table, a flowerstand, etc. What if Germain was going to be married 1 Yesterday morning he came out with a bright, elegant-looking girl leaning on his arm to whom he was showing the most loving attention. He seemed quite a difls rent person from the grave, quiet gentleman I was accustomed to meet. He laughed, chatted, and once be caught the hand lying on his Brm, and then they laughed again. Of course, she must be bis wife, and how happy they looked I Ah ! my Lord Viscount de Sauveterre, never did you seem less pleasing to the object of your honoured attentions than in the strong light of this simple, lost happiness. 1 put on my bat and went off to Mass. I knew that a quiet hour of prayer would do me all the good in the world. Germain and his companion were there before me, kneeling side by side. I knelt down very quietly behind them and prayed for them with all my heart. But by-and-by came a servant, who stopped beside the young lady and spoke one of the sweetest words 1 have ever heard in all my life—" Mademoiselle 1" I wish I chuld pay back that mopt excellent girl for the pleasure she gave me at.that moment. Mademoiselle turned round and showed an unmismakable family likeness to Germain. She was not his wife, but simply his sister, who had come to live with him, the sister who long ago learned to love little Roeschen. She said a word or two to her brother and then followed the servant. She had one of the fairest young ' faces I have ever seen. A bright, clever, good, wholesome face of some twenty summers, that looked as if a frown Of bad temper had never crossed it, as if no shade of evil could rest long upon it, a face in fact, quite in keeping with early Mass on a glorious morning in May. In a short time she came back with an old lady leaning on her arm, for whom Germain busily prepared a comfortable prie-diev,, and who, of course, must be their mother. It was a Tare sight, Elise, when the moment of Communion came, to see the three go up so reverently, the mother leaning on her noble son. I could not help feeling that I belonged to them. It seemed strange for me to be away alone, separated from them, and something seemed to tell me that God had wise ends in bringing us together again, I think we know our own in this world, Elise, and we stretch out our longing arms to them, and woe, woe, to us if we let wealth, or rank, or any other thing but duty thrust us apart ; for I believe that jut-t so shall we know them one day in Heaven. My three friends made a very long thanksgiving, but not so long as mine ; and T defy all their piety to make a more fervent one. When I am in the church, these thoughts, far from distracting me, seem to gather up my whole will, my whole soul, into one earnest, refreshing prayer. It seems as if the shadow of the holy place fell across my heart, and that by the light of the sanctuary lamp my thonghts stole in ; grave, calm. holy. Here God is my confidant my counsellor, my guardian : and feelings that I would watch anxiously abroad in the world's glare, may here throw themselves down at His feet in all their strength, for with them goes the cry that they are to be subject to the affair of salvation, and only important as they effect salvation. Do not be uneasy about me on this score. I yesterday learned one consoling experience of my own spirit. I have seen that the final overthrow of all my hopes might crush my h- art, but they could not root out resignation.