Whereupon she smiled, rubbed her cheek against his grizzly beard, and without answering thought to herself: “The fantastic plan which came last night in a dream will succeed; I feel sure it will. And though I shall have to brave your wrath once more, in the end, father, you will forgive me.”
And now was ushered in the loveliest season of the year—Indian Summer. Of an early morning on one of these lovely days Helen mounted a pillion behind Evelyn, and, accompanied by her waiting-woman, set out for St. Joseph’s, which was the name Berkeley had given to the new settlement, and where report said he was become the chief man. Her father made no objection to her taking this trip, for he knew there was a widow lady, with whom Helen had been once exceedingly intimate, who was now living at St. Joseph’s, and it was quite natural that the girl should wish to visit her.
Moreover, good Father McElroy—formerly Helen’s confessor—was living there too; so that the old gentleman, as guileless as he was proud, did not suspect the real object of this journey, for he had not heard Helen breathe Berkeley’s name in several months.
As for Helen daring to wed him, nay, even to plight Berkeley her troth—this Sir Henry could have sworn that his meek, obedient child never would do.
Accordingly, as we have said, Helen departed for St. Joseph’s, her father wishing her “God speed! and come back soon,” and she waving her hand to him until the forest hid him from view. Then Sir Henry turned to his old comrade, saying: “’Tis well I have you with me, Dick, otherwise this castle would be horribly dull now”; on which the other answered: “Depend upon it, Harry, there’s a match brewing ’tween Miss Helen and Sir Charles. Ay, I can tell by the sparkle of a lassie’s eye when she’s in love; nor is there any thought of priesthood in Evelyn. And at the wedding feast we’ll drain dry my cask of Canary and set the whole town in a roar.”
“May the Lord hasten that day!” returned Sir Henry. “Oh! I long with a longing words cannot express to see a grandchild ere I die.”
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
THE FUTURE OF FAITH.
“Looking, then, at the Church of Rome from a strictly logical stand-point, it is hard to see how, if we believe in free will and morality in the face of these modern discoveries, which, as far as they go, show us all life as nothing but a vast machine—it is hard to see how we can consider the Church of Rome as logically in any way wounded, or crippled, or in a condition, should occasion offer, to be less active than she was in the days of her most undisputed ascendency. I conceive of her as a ship that seems now unable to go upon any voyage, or to carry men anywhere, but that this is not because, as was said not long since, that her ‘hull was riddled by logic,’ or that she is dismasted or has lost her sails, but merely because she has no wind to fill them. In other words, with regard to supernatural religion, and Catholicism as its one form that still survives unshattered, I conceive that the imagination of the world has been to a great measure paralyzed; but that it may be seen eventually that it never was in any way convinced; and that nothing is wanting to revive the Roman Church into stronger life than ever but a craving amongst men for the certainty, the guidance, and the consolation that she alone offers them.
“The only question is whether such an outburst of feeling is in any way probable. It is possible that the world may be outgrowing such a craving as that I speak of; or that it may find some new way of appeasing it.”