Adelaide summoned her father. Whatever were the words spoken, they appeared to distress him very much. He gazed at his wife as though in a stupor. She held his hand and faintly whispered, "My last wishes, can you refuse them?" "No," said he, half choked, "he shall be sent for;" and he left her to seek Eugene. That evening a stranger was ushered by Eugene, as it were by stealth, into his mother's room. Annie alone was present. The last sacraments of the church were administered, and the stranger priest passed down the back staircase so secretly that none knew of or suspected his visit save those present and Mr. Godfrey, who had insisted on such secrecy being observed.
Adelaide had at length gathered all the facts concerning her brother being disinherited, and the effect the transaction had produced on Mrs. Godfrey's mind. A great feeling of repulsion for Hester was the consequence, and her manner soon betrayed symptoms of the feelings that swayed her.
"I can never again call her sister," she whispered, half-aloud, one day, in her meditation, by her mother's side; Mrs. Godfrey's eyes opened. "My children, love one another," she said. "Love, for he loved even sinners; forgive, for he forgave those who crucified him." She sank to sleep after pronouncing these words, and when the watchers bent over her to see what prolonged that sleep to so unusual a time, they found that the sweet purified spirit had already winged its way to the mansions of the blessed.
Of all the mourners there, perhaps the grief of Adelaide was the most violent. The feelings of Annie and Eugene were tempered by the hope that their mother was now happier than she had ever been before. Hester's were modified by the deep meditation in which she was plunged by the fact that her mother had received full insight into that faith of which she had caught but a glimpse, and of which [{753}] she so earnestly desired to know more. But she dared not question Eugene or Annie, for fear of angering her father and her mother! "O mother, pray for me!" was in her heart, and checked the outward demonstration of' her grief.
They were standing round the coffin, those four children, whom she had brought so faithfully through the cares and dangers of childhood! No pride of station had withdrawn her from fulfilling her nursery duties; no sloth, no command of riches had caused her to delegate to hireling hands the cultivation of their infant minds; riches to them had been as an accessory, not, as too often happens, causing a withdrawal of maternal offices. How had they requited her? Oh! happy they who can stand by the bier of those to whom they are bound by duty or by love, and feel no remorse for duty oft neglected.
Adelaide was standing on one side at the head of the coffin, rapt in grief, Eugene and Annie were on the other side. Hester at the foot absorbed in intense thought, but tearless and as it seemed to Adelaide not paying homage in her thoughts to that dear mother. "Was she even then dwelling on her own wild schemes?" The thought maddened Adelaide, and forgetting the self-control for which she was usually so remarkable, she in the overmastering impulse of the moment seized Hester's arm, led her to the head of the coffin, and, pointing to the sweet pale face before them, said in a frenzied tone, regardless of the presence of Mr. Godfrey, who just then entered the room: "And did you dare to wring the heart of that most noble woman? Was it for you, whom she loved so dearly, to crush her loving spirit, and then stand by so calmly contemplating her remains? How my heart loathes you!"
"Hush! hush! dear sister," said Eugene tenderly, as he disengaged her clasp from Hester, who fell nearly fainting into her father's arms. "Hush! Adelaide, hush! she bade us love each other; you have misconceived this matter. Come with me, I will explain it"—and he took her to another apartment, and tried to make her understand Hester's intentions of ultimately settling all according to equity, while Mr. Godfrey and Annie did their best, to restore Hester to her usual equanimity.
Mr. Godfrey was so much moved by this affront put upon his darling that he forgot his intention of keeping Mrs. Godfrey's change of religion secret, and in the evening he called Adelaide to his private study, and there explained that the delusions under which her dear mother had labored had no particular reference to Hester, but were caused by religion. "In fact,'" said; Mr. Godfrey, "what she wanted the day you came to summon me to her, was a Catholic priest. Of course I refused her nothing; the priest came that night, but secretly, out of respect to the reputation of the family."
"Was my mother a Catholic?"
"She became one latterly."