"And you will take the home care of her?" asked the Doctor.
"Certainly. She would at first, I suppose, attend school with Reuben and the young Elderkins?"
"Probably," returned the Doctor; "but the more special religious training which I fear the poor girl needs must be given at home, Eliza."
"Of course, Benjamin."
It was further agreed between the two that a French attendant would make a very undesirable addition to the household, as well as sadly compromise their efforts to build up the little stranger in full knowledge of the faith.
The Doctor was earnest in his convictions of the duty that lay before him, and his sister's consent to share the charge left him free to act. He felt all the best impulses of his nature challenged by the proposal. Here, at least, was one chance to snatch a brand from the burning,—to lead this poor little misguided wayfarer into those paths which are "paths of pleasantness." No image of French grace or of French modes was prefigured to the mind of the parson; his imagination had different range. He saw a young innocent (so far as any child in his view could be innocent) who prattled in the terrible language of Rousseau and Voltaire, who by the providence of God had been born in a realm where all iniquities flourished, and to whom, by the further and richer providence of God, a means of escape was now offered. He would no more have thought of declining the proposed service, even though the poor girl were dressed in homespun and clattered in sabots, than he would have closed his ear to the cry of a drowning child.
Within that very week the Doctor wrote his reply to Maverick. He assured him that he would most gladly undertake the trust he had proposed,—"hoping, by God's grace, to lead the little one away from the delusions of sense and the abominations of Antichrist, to the fold of the faithful."
"I could wish," he continued, "that you had given me more definite information in regard to the character of her early religious instruction, and told me how far the child may still remain under the mother's influence in this respect; for, next to special interposition of Divine Grace, I know no influence so strong in determining religious tendencies as the early instruction or example of a mother.
"My sister has promised to give home care to the little stranger, and will, I am sure, welcome her with zeal It will be our purpose to place your daughter at the day-school of a worthy person, Miss Betsey Onthank, who has had large experience, and under whose tuition my boy Reuben has been for some time established. My sister and myself are both of opinion that the presence of any French attendant upon the child would be undesirable.
"I hope that God may have mercy upon the French people,—and that those who dwell temporarily among them may be watched over and be graciously snatched from the great destruction that awaits the ungodly."