prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE APPLE OF DISCORD.

Besides Fifine Beck's mother, another power had a word to say to M.
Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We
were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously
her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to
which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the
confessional.

"Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?" asks the reader.
"Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof
of a certain partiality in his feelings?"

Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly--that he
was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender
deference--that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when
taught how. He had called me "sister." It was well. Yes; he might call
me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be
his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that
relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to
celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.

Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening's
interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for
the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and
breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last
which brought me the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more
thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how
much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to prove
how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover whether I
could summon a sister's courage, and he a brother's frankness.

He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will
not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His
lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also
more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly
to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I got
neither: to my portion fell one nod--hurried, shy.

This distance, I argued, is accidental--it is involuntary; patience,
and it will vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it
increased. I suppressed my surprise, and swallowed whatever other
feelings began to surge.

Well might I ask when he offered fraternity--"Dare I rely on you?" Well
might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True, he had
bid me make my own experiments--tease and try him. Vain injunction!
Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use it! Nothing in
my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave band. Left alone, I
was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my lips would not utter,
nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had been an error
somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to disclose it.

But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One
evening in seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to
the examination of what had been done in various studies during the
past week, and to the preparation of work for the week in prospect. On
these occasions my schoolroom was anywhere, wherever the pupils and the
other teachers happened to be, or in their close vicinage, very often
in the large second division, where it was easy to choose a quiet nook
when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the few boarders gathered
in a knot about the surveillante's estrade.

On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I
collected my books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large
division.

In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but
through the open double doors was seen the carre, filled with pupils
and with light; over hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It
blushed so ruddily and vividly, that the hues of the walls and the
variegated tints of the dresses seemed all fused in one warm glow. The
girls were seated, working or studying; in the midst of their circle
stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. His dark
paletot, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of crimson; his
Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the sun's
animated kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk.

The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom,
basked also in the sun's laughing bounty; they had partaken it the
whole day, and now asked water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening;
he liked to tend and foster plants. I used to think that working
amongst shrubs with a spade or a watering-pot soothed his nerves; it
was a recreation to which he often had recourse; and now he looked to
the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous cactuses, and revived
them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His lips meantime
sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and prime
luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the
flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor
to the mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small
spanieless (if one may coin a word), that nominally belonged to the
house, but virtually owned him as master, being fonder of him than any
inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and lovable little doggie she was,
trotting at his side, looking with expressive, attached eyes into his
face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his handkerchief,
which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the air of
a miniature lion guarding a kingdom's flag.

There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the
water from the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work
spun on to some length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour
struck. The carre and the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset.
Day was drooping. My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very short;
but the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Was
it my turn?

Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,--favourite
rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and
whine followed the receding paletot down the alleys. I put up some of
my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited,
involuntarily deprecating the creeping invasion of twilight.

Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the
returning paletot; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it
had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in
a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere
long the prayer-bell must ring; but still we should meet; he would
speak; a chance would be offered of reading in his eyes the riddle of
his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly re-arranging his
cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the opal sky,
and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched the
mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to
break it. He looked down.

"Petite exigeante," said he; "you must not be forgotten one moment, it
seems."

He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within
a yard of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered
lingeringly, fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender
names in a tender voice. On the front-door steps he turned; once again
he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires
and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the
sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he
suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white
facade of the classes, swept the long line of croisees. I think he
bowed; if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he
was gone; the moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the
closed front door.

Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I
carried back the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The
prayer-bell rang; I obeyed its summons.

The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being
devoted entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over
the intermediate hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself for
its heavy ennuis. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates, or
to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter
alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart
or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the
lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some
book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black
fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with
a weary hand I turned up its contents.

One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers,
were taken out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could not
comfort. Is this something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not seen
it before, and I re-arranged my desk this very day--this very
afternoon; the tract must have been introduced within the last hour,
while we were at dinner.

I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me?

It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither
sung, nor related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it
preached and it persuaded.

I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed
its own spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism; it
persuaded to conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a
honeyed voice; its accents were all unction and balm. Here roared no
utterance of Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her
displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, not so much in fear of
the heretic's hell, as on account of the comfort, the indulgence, the
tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten or to
coerce; her wish was to guide and win. _She_ persecute? Oh dear no! not
on any account!

This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was
not even strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild
effluence of a mother's love towards her tenderest and her youngest;
intended wholly and solely for those whose head is to be reached
through the heart. Its appeal was not to intellect; it sought to win
the affectionate through their affections, the sympathizing through
their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his orphans about him,
never spoke more sweetly.

I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact
that the Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the
unspeakable solace of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did not
touch on the firmer peace of those whose belief dispenses with
purgatory altogether: but I thought of this; and, on the whole,
preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. The little book
amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting,
sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my
gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked
wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless
lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I
had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same
seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no
bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained cunning--the
cloven hoof of his system--I should pause before accusing himself of
insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props; it was
rickety.

I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the
ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own
disinclination, not to say disability, to meet these melting favours.
Glancing at the title-page, I found the name of "Pere Silas." A
fly-leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known pencil characters:
"From P. C. D. E. to L--y." And when I saw this I laughed: but not in
my former spirit. I was revived.

A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the
solution of the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two
names, Pere Silas and Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent
had been with his director; permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to
keep no corner of his heart sacred to God and to himself; the whole
narrative of our late interview had been drawn from him; he had avowed
the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted sister. How could
such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church? Fraternal
communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Pere Silas annulling the
unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils; entreating, enjoining
reserve, nay, by the authority of his office, and in the name, and by
the memory of all M. Emanuel held most dear and sacred, commanding the
enforcement of that new system whose frost had pierced to the marrow of
my bones.

These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were
welcome. The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background,
was as nothing, matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in
M. Paul himself.

At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above
conjectures were self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their
origin and confirmation to another quarter. Help was not wanting.

This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud;
no summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a
clammy fog from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the
watering-pot might rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had been
drizzling all the afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly. This
was no weather for rambling in the wet alleys, under the dripping
trees; and I started to hear Sylvie's sudden bark in the garden--her
bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied and yet this glad,
quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one presence.

Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep
vista of the allee defendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through
its gloom like a white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining,
springing, harassing little birds amongst the bushes. I watched five
minutes; no fulfilment followed the omen. I returned to my books;
Sylvie's sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I looked up. She was
standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery tail as
fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of
a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel,
bent over the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden and
streaming shrubs, working as hard as if his day's pittance were yet to
earn by the literal sweat of his brow.

In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow on
the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion, whether
of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He would dig
by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his head, or
open his lips.

Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding
here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last
discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as if
to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she had
seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and I doubt
not, considered it my duty to join him now, wet as it was.

She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course
perceived why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off; she
only barked the louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the glass
door opened. Tired, I suppose, with her importunity, he threw down his
spade, approached, and pushed the door ajar. Sylvie burst in all
impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her paws at my neck, and her
little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy about my face,
mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and scattered
books and papers far and wide.

M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the disarrangement.
Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and stowed her away
under his paletot, where she nestled as quiet as a mouse, her head just
peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the prettiest little innocent
face, the silkiest long ears, the finest dark eyes in the world. I
never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de Bassompierre: forgive the
association, reader, it _would_ occur.

M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not to
be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her vivacious
life.

While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books
just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he
half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to
address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more
honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second
effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It
is not sufficiently inviting?"

I replied that I had read it.

He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked.
Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any
concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was
the affair of the very docile pupil of Pere Silas, not mine. His eye
settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue
ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings
composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment
probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I
could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed
confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my
desk, and begin soberly to mend them.

I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to see
me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was
unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own
finger--half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state,
to set him at his ease, to get him to chide.

"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."

He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.

"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.

Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.

"Had it moved me?"

"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."

(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my faults
at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilite et de
sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so touching."

"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
all--not a whit."

And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief, still
clean and in its folds.

Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant
than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural
silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just
in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie
with the contents of a bonbonniere, which M. Emanuel's gifts kept well
supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see even a small
matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me and the spaniel
while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife. Touching my hand
with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites donc, petite
soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during the last two
days?"

But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made
my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--over the
desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he said: "I
hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think
of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you are to be
feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper caution."

"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."

"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
panoply. You are good--Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it gives you certain
tones and certain gestures that make my flesh creep. You are not
demonstrative, and yet, just now--when you handled that tract--my God!
I thought Lucifer smiled."

"Certainly I don't respect that tract--what then?"

"Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love,
charity! I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted
that it could not fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must
indeed be a sinner: Heaven will not hear the petitions that come
warmest from my heart. You scorn my little offering. Oh, cela me fait
mal!"

"Monsieur, I don't scorn it--at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit
down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not
unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble
your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I."

"But _do_ you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation? What
limits are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and sect.
Pere Silas dropped dark hints."

By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they
amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked
seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. _I_ could not argue--a
fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical opposition to
effect all the director wished to be effected; but I could talk in my
own way--the way M. Paul was used to--and of which he could follow the
meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the strange stammerings,
strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I could defend my creed and
faith in my own fashion; in some degree I could lull his prejudices. He
was not satisfied when he went away, hardly was he appeased; but he was
made thoroughly to feel that Protestants were not necessarily the
irreverent Pagans his director had insinuated; he was made to
comprehend something of their mode of honouring the Light, the Life,
the Word; he was enabled partly to perceive that, while their
veneration for things venerable was not quite like that cultivated in
his Church, it had its own, perhaps, deeper power--its own more solemn
awe.

I found that Pere Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though
the advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in
general, and myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to
us strange "isms;" Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank
fashion, which knew not secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with a
kind, earnest fear, almost trembling lest there should be truth in the
charges. Pere Silas, it seems, had closely watched me, had ascertained
that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, to the three Protestant
Chapels of Villette--the French, German, and English--_id est_, the
Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such liberality argued in the
father's eyes profound indifference--who tolerates all, he reasoned,
can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had often secretly
wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the differences
between these three sects--at the unity and identity of their vital
doctrines: I saw nothing to hinder them from being one day fused into
one grand Holy Alliance, and I respected them all, though I thought
that in each there were faults of form, incumbrances, and trivialities.
Just what I thought, that did I tell M. Emanuel, and explained to him
that my own last appeal, the guide to which I looked, and the teacher
which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, rather than any sect,
of whatever name or nation.

He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as strong
as a prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right. I heard,
poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to "Marie, Reine
du Ciel," some deep aspiration that _his_ hope might yet be _mine_.

Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his
fathers. I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and
clay; but it seemed to me that _this_ Romanist held the purer elements
of his creed with an innocency of heart which God must love.

The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o'clock of the
evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a
sequestered garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour
of the succeeding evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience,
were breathed verbatim in an attent ear, at the panel of a
confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It ensued that Pere
Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not what
mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the
Englishwoman's spiritual direction.

Hereupon I was put through a course of reading--that is, I just glanced
at the books lent me; they were too little in my way to be thoroughly
read, marked, learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I had a book
up-stairs, under my pillow, whereof certain chapters satisfied my needs
in the article of spiritual lore, furnishing such precept and example
as, to my heart's core, I was convinced could not be improved on.

Then Pere Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and
bade me judge the tree by its fruits.

In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were _not_ the fruits
of Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair promise
she showed the world, that bloom when set, savoured not of charity;
the apple full formed was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry. Out of
men's afflictions and affections were forged the rivets of their
servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and sheltered, to bind it by
obligation to "the Church;" orphanage was reared and educated that it
might grow up in the fold of "the Church;" sickness was tended that it
might die after the formula and in the ordinance of "the Church;" and
men were overwrought, and women most murderously sacrificed, and all
laid down a world God made pleasant for his creatures' good, and took
up a cross, monstrous in its galling weight, that they might serve
Rome, prove her sanctity, confirm her power, and spread the reign of
her tyrant "Church."

For man's good was little done; for God's glory, less. A thousand ways
were opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life;
mountains were cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to
their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight on
and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they might at
last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch "Church."

It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still for
the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and ambitions, as
once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed Jerusalem!

Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world's kingdoms! an
hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your
hearts--pausing faint at each broken beat--that there is a Mercy beyond
human compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even
you must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds--nay, absolves Priests.

       *       *       *       *       *

My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome--the glory of her
kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions--days of fete
and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at it.

Many people--men and women--no doubt far my superiors in a thousand
ways, have felt this display impressive, have declared that though
their Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say
the same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers,
nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.

This I did not tell Pere Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
through every abortive experiment, under every repeated disappointment,
he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender of hurting his
feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when, from the balcony of
a great house, I had been made to witness a huge mingled procession of
the church and the army--priests with relics, and soldiers with
weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited in cambric and lace,
looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-paradise plumage, and a
band of young girls fantastically robed and garlanded--_then_ I spoke
my mind to M. Paul.

"I did not like it," I told him; "I did not respect such ceremonies; I
wished to see no more."

And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to go
on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show him
that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were errors
in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely pure was
my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face had been
unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer forms between
us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of
mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I
could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-lights and embroidery, at
such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting
the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His
being--Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly
corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe--I could not care
for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of
existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me--when the
mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in view--_then_,
even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and
dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry--"God
be merciful to me, a sinner!"

When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
myself, from him I addressed--then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting spirits.

"Whatever say priests or controversialists," murmured M. Emanuel, "God
is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
cry--'O Dieu, sois appaise envers moi qui suis pecheur!'"

He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:

"How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
yonder--how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God,
nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in
our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of
one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He
has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites
about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that
mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange
mental effort only divined.

"God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Chapter XXXVI, it is clear that Lucy and M. Paul have become close friends. Lucy is aware of his Catholicism, however, and she is apprehensive that the difference in their religions will keep them apart. As is his custom, M. Paul leaves improving reading material in Lucy's desk. One day Lucy finds there a pamphlet on Catholicism. Lucy is far too British in her religious feelings; the pomp and circumstance and the "superstitious" beliefs of Catholicism are not for her. M. Paul, Lucy finds out, was made to give this pamphlet to her as part of his penance, given him by Pere Silas, for being such close friends with a Protestant. M. Paul digs in the garden that evening, and Lucy finds him. They discuss the pamphlet, but she does not give any indication that she is sympathetic or susceptible to conversion. M. Paul distractedly tells Lucy that it is dangerous for them, on opposite ends of Christianity, to be friends. Lucy reminds him that they are both Christians, and it is not as if she is trying to subvert his faith in any way. Lucy explains her difficulties with Catholicism, and she tries to convince M. Paul that Protestants are not as bad as Pere Silas says that they are. That one of the main tenets of Lucy's Protestant Christianity is that each person's relationship with God is one's own responsibility is something that neither Pere Silas nor M. Paul can understand. M. Paul still hopes that Lucy will convert, and Lucy wonders why she does not hope the same for M. Paul. Pere Silas now comes often to Madame Beck's in an attempt to convert Lucy to Catholicism. While Lucy and M. Paul know that Lucy will not convert, he, however, has come to understand her piety and accept it as a true faith


prompt:
Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVII.

SUNSHINE.

It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
could not live within a league of the Hotel Crecy, and not contrive to
visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.

All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
gratification when it came.

I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and answered
with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a music waxing
finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a suggestive,
persuasive, magic accent that opened a scarce-known treasure-house
within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind, and what was
better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way in which the
other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression pleased; each
keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met each other's
meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often matched like
carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina
possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--unstimulated, she
inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she seemed merry as a
lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad
light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I can hardly express,
but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice of hers--that reserve
on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah! Graham would not long
bear it; he brought with him a generous influence that soon thawed the
timid, self-imposed restriction.

Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his
own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
than if suggested by me.

More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she had
once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces, and
cried out, "Graham, I _do_ like you!" He told her how she would set a
footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At this day he
said he could recall the sensation of her little hands smoothing his
cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He remembered the touch
of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly, half curiously, in
the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with which she would name it
"a pretty dimple," then seek his eyes and question why they pierced so,
telling him he had a "nice, strange face; far nicer, far stranger, than
either his mamma or Lucy Snowe."

"Child as I was," remarked Paulina, "I wonder how I dared be so
venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin,
at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is
not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful, but what is
he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do _you_ admire him?"

"I'll tell you what I do, Paulina," was once my answer to her many
questions. "_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice about a
year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he
were to cross their balls twelve times between each day's sunset and
sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what shape had gone
by."

"Lucy, what do you mean?" said she, under her breath.

"I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind."

It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the
tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and
sometimes dropped in my ear--molten lead. To me, she commented no more
on her lover's beauty.

Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite in
itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled her
native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy--fitful.

"Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says
you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
you are excellent; we both think so."

"You both think you know not what," said I. "Have the goodness to make
me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
I have my sort of life apart from yours."

"But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
share it."

"I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you
understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary."

"But solitude is sadness."

"Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
melancholy, lies heart-break."

"Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether."

There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a
witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had
forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and of
the heiress's imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I read
Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride:
they were fine letters--manly and fond--modest and gallant. Hers must
have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to show her
talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the contrary, it
appeared that she had proposed to herself the task of hiding that
feeling, and bridling her lover's ardour. But how could such letters
serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her life; he drew her
like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence unspeakable in all
he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this unconfessed
confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from greeting to adieu.

"I wish papa knew; I _do_ wish papa knew!" began now to be her anxious
murmur. "I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back from
telling him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this affair
settled--to speak out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I know, I
am certain, papa will be angry at the first; I fear he will dislike me
almost; it will seem to him an untoward business; it will be a
surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its whole effect on him."

The fact was--her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little
stirred: long blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning to
trespass on his eye.

To _her_, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or perhaps
thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her.

One evening--Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to
Graham; she had left me in the library, reading--M. de Bassompierre
came in; he sat down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to
remain--gently, yet in a manner which showed he wished compliance. He
had taken his seat near the window, at a distance from me; he opened a
desk; he took from it what looked like a memorandum-book; of this book
he studied a certain entry for several minutes.

"Miss Snowe," said he, laying it down, "do you know my little girl's
age?"

"About eighteen, is it not, sir?"

"It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of
May, in the year 18--, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost
the just reckoning of her age. I thought of her as twelve--fourteen--an
indefinite date; but she seemed a child."

"She is about eighteen," I repeated. "She is grown up; she will be no
taller."

"My little jewel!" said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated
like some of his daughter's accents.

He sat very thoughtful.

"Sir, don't grieve," I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken
as they were.

"She is the only pearl I have," he said; "and now others will find out
that she is pure and of price: they will covet her."

I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had
shone both in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom
embellished his aspect and mellowed his intercourse. Under the stimulus
of a high hope, something had unfolded in his whole manner which
compelled attention. I think he had purposed on that day to indicate
the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his ambition. M. de
Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the
direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he
was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided
him through a long labyrinth.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"She is up-stairs."

"What is she doing?"

"She is writing."

"She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?"

"None but such as she can show me. And--sir--she--_they_ have long
wanted to consult you."

"Pshaw! They don't think of me--an old father! I am in the way."

"Ah, M. de Bassompierre--not so--that can't be! But Paulina must speak
for herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate."

"It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems."

"Sir, till you approve, nothing is done--only they love each other."

"Only!" he echoed.

Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was
obliged to go on: "Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point
of appealing to you, sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you
mortally."

"He may well--he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I
have. Had he but let her alone, she would have remained a child for
years yet. So. Are they engaged?"

"They could not become engaged without your permission."

"It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety
which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my
little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son; Bretton
might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich and
pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks, and
conduct, and connection. Would nothing serve him but my Polly?"

"If he had never seen your 'Polly,' others might and would have pleased
him--your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance."

"Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!--I
can't let him have her. No--I can't. He is not her equal," he affirmed,
rather gruffly. "In what particular is he her match? They talk of
fortune! I am not an avaricious or interested man, but the world thinks
of these things--and Polly will be rich."

"Yes, that is known," said I: "all Villette knows her as an heiress."

"Do they talk of my little girl in that light?"

"They do, sir."

He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, "Would you, sir, think
any one Paulina's match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do
you think higher rank or more wealth would make much difference in your
feelings towards a future son-in-law?"

"You touch me there," said he.

"Look at the aristocracy of Villette--you would not like them, sir?"

"I should not--never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot."

"I am told many of these persons think about her, sir," I went on,
gaining courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse.
"Other suitors will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused.
Wherever you go, I suppose, aspirants will not be wanting. Independent
of heiress-ship, it appears to me that Paulina charms most of those who
see her."

"Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty."

"Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful."

"Nonsense!--begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too
partial. I like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks--but then
I am her father; and even I never thought about beauty. She is amusing,
fairy-like, interesting to me;--you must be mistaken in supposing her
handsome?"

"She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your
wealth and position."

"My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought
so----"

"Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de
Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would--as _you_ would
yourself, under the same circumstances--but they are not his baits. He
loves your daughter very much; he feels her finest qualities, and they
influence him worthily."

"What! has my little pet 'fine qualities?'"

"Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of eminence
and learning dined here?"

"I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day;
its womanliness made me smile."

"And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the
drawing-room?"

"I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation--as one might amuse
one's self with a pretty infant."

"Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French
gentlemen say she was 'petrie d'esprit et de graces.' Dr. Bretton
thought the same."

"She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I _do_ believe she has
some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly nursed me;
they thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once stronger and
tenderer as I grew worse in health. And as I recovered, what a sunbeam
she was in my sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair as noiselessly
and as cheerful as light. And now she is sought in marriage! I don't
want to part with her," said he, and he groaned.

"You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long," I suggested, "it would
be less like separation to give her to him than to another."

He reflected rather gloomily.

"True. I have long known Louisa Bretton," he murmured. "She and I are
indeed old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was young.
You talk of beauty, Miss Snowe! _she_ was handsome, if you will--tall,
straight, and blooming--not the mere child or elf my Polly seems to me:
at eighteen, Louisa had a carriage and stature fit for a princess. She
is a comely and a good woman now. The lad is like her; I have always
thought so, and favoured and wished him well. Now he repays me by this
robbery! My little treasure used to love her old father dearly and
truly. It is all over now, doubtless--I am an incumbrance."

The door opened--his "little treasure" came in. She was dressed, so to
speak, in evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with the
close of day, warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson
heightened her complexion; her curls fell full and long on her lily
neck; her white dress suited the heat of June. Thinking me alone, she
had brought in her hand the letter just written--brought it folded but
unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her father, her tripping step
faltered a little, paused a moment--the colour in her cheek flowed rosy
over her whole face.

"Polly," said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile,
"do you blush at seeing papa? That is something new."

"I don't blush--I never _do_ blush," affirmed she, while another eddy
from the heart sent up its scarlet. "But I thought you were in the
dining-room, and I wanted Lucy."

"You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has just
been called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your letter
for you; it will save Matthieu a 'course,' as he calls it."

"I don't post letters," said she, rather pettishly.

"What do you do with them, then?--come here and tell me."

Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second--to say "Shall I
come?"--but she approached.

"How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems
yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely
with both hands at the pen."

"Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag;
they are only notes, which I give now and then into the person's hands,
just to satisfy."

"The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?"

"No, papa--not Lucy."

"Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?"

"No, papa--not Mrs. Bretton."

"Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth."

"Oh, papa!" she cried with earnestness, "I will--I _will_ tell you the
truth--all the truth; I am glad to tell you--glad, though I tremble."

She _did_ tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also
gathering courage, shook her.

"I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you
above everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address."

She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand
shaking, his eyes glistening meantime.

He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender, mournful
amaze.

"Can _she_ write so--the little thing that stood at my knee but
yesterday? Can she feel so?"

"Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?"

"There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains
me."

"But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up
everything--almost" (correcting herself); "I would die rather than make
you unhappy; that would be too wicked!"

She shuddered.

"Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It
shall, for your sake, if you order it."

"I order nothing."

"Order something, papa; express your wish; only don't hurt, don't
grieve Graham. I cannot, _cannot_ bear that. I love you, papa; but I
love Graham too--because--because--it is impossible to help it."

"This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly--that is my present
notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not
love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye I
never quite fathomed--something his mother has not--a depth which
warned a man not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I
find myself taken over the crown of the head."

"Papa, you don't--you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank; you
can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up in a
convent, and break Graham's heart to-morrow, if you choose to be so
cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?"

"Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don't like
him, Polly, and I wonder that you should."

"Papa," said she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
an expression in your face which does not belong to you."

"Off with him!" pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely crossed
and annoyed--even a little bitter; "but, I suppose, if he went, Polly
would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly won--won,
and weaned from her old father."

"Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way.
I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence
_can_ wean me."

"Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
go and be a wife!"

"Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."

"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."

She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his few
foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring;
it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let it pass with
dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in no stead.
Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:--"I won't
leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you! I'll never
pain you!" was her cry.

"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said
no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.

The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to
prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman
was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
slowly--lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
sign nor word; yet his eye said:--"Lucy, come here." And I went.

Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
which now fevered him.

"M. de Bassompierre is there--is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the
library.

"Yes."

"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"

"Yes, Graham."

"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?"

"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
"is talking to his daughter."

"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"

He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living like
him)--a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this
trouble his smile never faded.

"Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?"

"_She_ is very faithful, Graham."

"What will be done unto me?"

"Graham, your star must be fortunate."

"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to
quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them,
and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_ are true as
steel. Are you not?"

"Yes, Graham."

"Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"

He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"--which I did to please him:
the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born
vanquished.

"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home's presence.

"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"

The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.

"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of
hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You
spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me, but I am
bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have won."

"Sir, I cannot repent."

"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
The red--(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of guile, and
brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."

"Sir, I _feel_ honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English blush
covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet," he
added, "I won't deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I
did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
now."

"John, you ask much."

"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."

"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
Answer this 'braw wooer;' send him away!"

She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.

"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I need
not send Graham away--he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,"
she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont
to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.

"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr.
Home. "I don't want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
him to march."

"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
first--like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would
rather not have him otherwise."

"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."

"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."

"Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and
tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly,
you and I will bid him good-by."

"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."

"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don't think to coax me
between you."

"Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your right
hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don't be stiff;
close your fingers; be pliant--there! But that is not a clasp--it is a
grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham's hand to the
bone; you hurt him!"

He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham's flesh and drew
blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him smile.

"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They
went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive.
The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many
things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and language
or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I understood
afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had managed his
affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his fortunes were
in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to marry.

Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.

"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with you
as you deal with her!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
palace at Bois l'Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
this group, was solitary.

Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little
hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a
nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she
had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and was now
occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden wave. The
plait woven--no silk-thread being at hand to bind it--a tress of her
own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a knot,
prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.

"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you
two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."

An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.

"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the
father, the daughter, the future husband, now united--all blessed and
blessing.

Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of
fancy, it is so. Some real lives do--for some certain days or
years--actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
the deep cloud.

I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so born,
so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that
no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous
blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered,
selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and benign; men and
women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind attributes.

Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too,
was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband's love, she
aided in his progress--of his happiness she was the corner stone.

This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these
were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose
face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to
the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Bassompierre was
taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a
cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others
sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw
himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his
disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these
children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up
according to inheritance and nurture.

In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of
Graham and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob's favoured son,
with "blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies
under." It was so, for God saw that it was good.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: "Sunshine," the engagement of Polly and Graham is made known. Paulina, always thinking of others, is afraid to tell her father because he doubtless will be sad to lose her. Dr. John has become a better person for being in love with Paulina since he desires so much to please her--and she only desires good things. Paulina and Lucy discuss him often, and Lucy, though inwardly pained, is truly happy for Paulina and Dr. John, a good match. M. de Bassompierre has figured out that his little daughter has grown up and that she is probably being pursued by Dr. John. One night after dinner at the Hotel Crecy, M. de Bassompierre and Lucy talk about the couple. They will not marry, of course, without M. de Bassompierre's permission. Though M. de Bassompierre is obviously grieved at losing his daughter, he is reasonable. Lucy appeals to that reason by saying that Paulina is beautiful and rich and will no doubt be very sought-after. It is better to have her marry someone M. de Bassompierre knows, namely Dr. John. Paulina comes in with a letter written to Dr. John, which her father asks her about. Now directly questioned, Polly can no longer hide her love for Dr. John. She loves her papa more than anyone else, but she also loves her John Graham Bretton. She is worried that this will make her father unhappy, and, unselfishly, she says that she will give Graham up if he wants her to. M. de Bassompierre has no illusions about Dr. John, and he points out some of his faults. The scene is tense, but M. de Bassompierre says that she may marry Dr. John. Polly cannot bear this grudging approval; she declares that she will never leave her papa. Dr. John comes, and Lucy intercepts him. She explains that Polly is very devoted to her father and cannot bear his anger at their secret attachment. The two men meet and verbally battle over Polly. Paulina makes them shake hands and be friends, and the engagement is settled. John and Polly marry, and Lucy reflects that there are people whom God has smiled upon. As an outsider, Lucy peers in at their happiness, thinking it perpetual and perfect. They may have some trials in their life, Lucy thinks, but they will lead a much more happy and blessed life than she will. The two do live together happily with many children, blessed by God