“Oh! no; I am not a Catholic, nor is any of my family; so I think this lady can be no relative, as my husband was never a Catholic.”
What makes her voice change as she shapes her reply in this evasive way? It is not altogether the keen, inquiring eyes of the landlady trying to find if she is wife or widow. She can scarcely tell herself; but the sharpened sense of expectation of some coming revelation, or else the nearness of Martin Vanderlyn’s wife, makes her feel for the first time a sense of guilt in speaking of him as her husband. Not that she says even to herself as yet that he is not her husband; but the two wives—if this is his wife—in such close proximity, impresses her much as the fact of the two living fathers of her two boys has done. It cannot seem to her quite right for herself to be Martin Vanderlyn’s wife, while the woman in the next room is such a reality. As long as the divorced wife had seemed to belong to the past—perhaps dead—it had not impressed Agnes so keenly as to be living under the same roof with her; for Agnes feels almost sure that it is so. Still, her desire to see her neighbor is by no means lessened; and it is not idle curiosity, but a nobler feeling, which leads her to ask the landlady to introduce her. That person has, in the meantime, remarked:
“The lady is a real lady, and, if she is a Catholic, I can’t say aught agin her. I do hate to see them beads, and crosses, and figgers, and picturs of folks with Saturn’s rings on their heads, which she keeps in her room; but, if she gits any comfort from ‘em, poor soul, why, I can’t begrudge her that. Only I wish she had more light and some real religion, now that she’s so near dyin’. I do hate to see her sunk in darkness, without no light o’ the Gospel. But ‘tain’t no use talkin’ to her, she never gits offended; but, when I wanted to send a good Methodist minister to pray with her, she said her spiritooal needs was already cared for by. Father what’s-his-name, and she jist give me back that lovely tract about Going to Hell, as if she warn’t scared a bit. ‘Tain’t no use, Mrs. Vanderlyn, to talk to her. They’re all of ‘em so set and superstitious they can’t experience religion or have any realizin’ sense o’ their sins.”
Says Agnes: “I don’t want to minister to her soul. That is not my mission. I only thought she was lonely, and I might do her some good in being a little company for her some of the time, if nothing more.”
“And so you might, and it’s right good of you to think of it. It’ll take some off my mind to know you’ll see her sometimes, as I can’t find time to go in and sit with her as often as I think she may expect of me.”
And the landlady, followed by Agnes, taps at the door of Mrs. Vanderlyn’s room. In a minute more, Agnes finds herself face to face with the invalid, who is sitting in a large easy-chair by the window. After some words from the landlady, explaining Agnes’ kind intention and sympathy, that garrulous person withdraws to her pressing household cares.
TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER.
“BEATI QUI LUGEANT.”
FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.