“What you say may be true, I cannot tell, but it is not here in the Gospels. And surely there is all here that is necessary, if we could only understand,” said Frederica gently. And Selina added,—
“I know we are very ignorant; but I do not think it is wrong in us to read and to try to understand God’s Word for ourselves, and I believe God will teach us, and mama too. We will not fear.”
In the meantime Mr Jerome had still been making frequent visits to Mrs Vane’s house, where he made himself very agreeable to the children. Selina’s music progressed rapidly, and she had increasing pleasure in it. The boys and even Tessie welcomed him with the indiscriminating liking which children bestow on those who take pains to please and win them. Frederica said to herself, that this liking and Selina’s progress ought to be sufficient reason for her liking him too. And it might have been so if the priest had been content to treat her as a child.
But she was not a child, and he touched with her on graver matters than a child could comprehend. He was aware of her reading the Bible with her mother and the rest, and of her anxious questionings of Sister Agnace, and her wish to be religious and do right, and he was more than willing to give counsel and direction with regard to these matters. But on these things Frederica would never enter with him. At first she could give no better reason for this, than that “he had not a nice face,” which she acknowledged was a very foolish reason. But afterwards she had a reason which was all-powerful with her: he made her mother unhappy. He spoke softly and soothingly to her, as far as words and manners went: but he never came but he said some words that left her anxious and troubled either for herself or her children. He intimated his belief that she had forsaken the true Church—the Church of her fathers—when she married Mr Vane, and that all her ill-health and unhappiness had come upon her as a punishment for this wrong step. He never said all this to her in words at one time; but he uttered a word now and then, breathed a sigh, spoke a soft regret, or as soft a warning, that left the poor soul never quite at ease. He never spoke thus to her in the presence of her children. Without them there is little doubt that he could easily have bent the poor broken-spirited woman to his will—brought her to repentance and a better mind, he would have called it. But Selina’s gentleness, and Frederica’s sense of her mother’s helplessness and dependence, were a strong defence to their mother. At this time Frederica saw that she was unhappy a good while before she knew that the priest had anything to do with it. When she did know it, she resented it angrily, and told him with more than sufficient warmth, that it was neither kind nor wise of him to come with his hard words and harder judgments, to unsettle and perplex the mind of one so tender and delicate.
“Perhaps you mean it kindly, but it is not real kindness to make poor mama unhappy and afraid. You have your religion, and we have ours. We will not interfere with each other,” said Frederica, with trembling dignity.
“Have you then any religion?” asked the priest. “Because it has been intimated to me that you are in search of one, and know not where it is to be found. Is your mother then happier than you?”
Frederica looked at him in amazement and anger, yet other feelings also were in her heart.
“Mama is good,” said she. “One does not need to be very wise, or to have fine words to offer, in order to be a Christian.”
“And you? are you a Christian, dear?”
“I am not good,” said Frederica humbly; “but I wish to be, and God will teach me, and mama also.”