Beulah shook her head, and Mrs. Williams added:
"She has lived only for this world and its pleasures. Is she afraid of the world to come? Can she die peacefully?"
"She will die calmly, but not hopefully. She does not believe in
Christianity."
She felt that the matron was searching her countenance, and was not surprised when she said falteringly:
"Neither do you believe in it. Oh, Beulah! I have known it since you came to reside under the same roof with me, and I have wept and prayed over you almost as much as over Eugene. When Sabbath after Sabbath passed, and you absented yourself from church, I knew something was wrong. Beulah, who has taught you infidelity? Oh, it would have been better that you too had followed Lilly, in the early days when you were pure in heart! Much as I love you, I would rather weep over your grave than know you had lived to forget God."
Beulah made no reply; and, passing her hands tenderly over the girl's head, she continued:
"When you came to me, a little child, I taught you your morning and evening prayers. Oh, Beulah! Beulah! now you lay down to sleep without a thought of prayer. My child, what is to become of you?"
"I don't know. But do not be distressed about me; I am trying to do my duty just as conscientiously as though I went to church."
"Don't deceive yourself, dear child. If you cease to pray and read your Bible, how are you to know what your duty is? How are you to keep yourself 'pure and unspotted from the world'? Beulah, a man without religion is to be pitied; but, oh! a Godless woman is a horror above all things. It is no marvel you look so anxious and hollow-eyed. You have forsaken the 'ways of pleasantness and the paths of peace.'"
"I am responsible to no one for my opinions."