"When some one peculiar qualityDoth so possess a man that it doth drawAll his effects, his spirits, and his powersIn their confluxions, all to run one way,This may be truly said to be a humor."
"When some one peculiar qualityDoth so possess a man that it doth drawAll his effects, his spirits, and his powersIn their confluxions, all to run one way,This may be truly said to be a humor."
"When some one peculiar qualityDoth so possess a man that it doth drawAll his effects, his spirits, and his powersIn their confluxions, all to run one way,This may be truly said to be a humor."
This humor was nothing less than entire abandonment of the world and its cares. Notwithstanding the obligations of her married life or those of her position in society, she determined to retire to some solitary spot, and there engage her mind in hard study of difficult and dry subjects.
Alarmed for her health, and probably deriving little comfort from such a moody consort, her husband consented to her retiring to live in a small country villa a few miles from the Hague. She engaged a distinguished professor of the city, named Hemsterhuys, to give her lessons in Greek, with a view to following under his guidance, too, a course of Greek philosophy.
Strange to say, the moment she entered with ardor on this uninviting task, her mind became completely calmed, and she felt a peace and contentment which for years she had not known.
Besides the seeking of her own peace of mind, the resting the weariness of her heart, she had another object in view—to prepare herself to be doubly the mother of her children by imparting to them herself a thorough education. In the six years that she toiled in this seclusion, this was the great sustaining motive of her labors.
When the children grew to the years of discretion, she relented in her harder studies to devote herself with no less assiduity to their early instruction. Everything was made subservient to that end. Even the recreations requisite for herself, and the amusements necessary for them, the pleasure excursions away from home, all were designed to open and mature their young minds.
But in these respects Holland had but poor resources. One quickly wearies of its changeless lowlands. It can boast of no wild scenery which grows new at every gaze and invites repeated visits, and it has few places of any peculiarly instructive interest. It was this consideration that determined the princess to remove to the more picturesque and favored land of Switzerland, where her husband owned a country-house near Geneva.
Her preparations for this change of residence were nearly completed, when news reached her of the projects of the Abbé de Furstenberg for a reform in the method of public instruction.
This Abbé de Furstenberg was one of the most remarkable men of that day in Germany.
Of noble birth, he received a thorough civil and ecclesiastical education, and at the age of thirty-five found himself chief administrator, spiritual and temporal, of the principality of Münster, under the prince-bishop. His administration was attended with most marked success, and had brought the little state to an unequalled degree of prosperity, not only religious and political, but even commercial and military. His latest labor was his educational reform regarding the method of teaching. To mature this scheme, he had studied, consulted, and travelled much during seven years. When, at length, he published the result of his researches, it was received far and near with much applause, whose echoes had now reached the Princess Amelia in Holland on the eve of her departure for Switzerland. She at once indefinitely deferred this journey, and resolved to lose no time in making the acquaintance of this accomplished ecclesiastic, in order to master under his own guidance the details of this new method of instruction. For this purpose, in the May of the year 1779, she set out for Münster, intending to pay only a short visit. She remained nineteen days, and, though the greater part of the time was spent in the company of the learned abbé, she found it impossible in so short a space to take in the result of his experience. This, and probably a certain charm which his great conversational powers exercised over her, made her determine to return again, and, with the permission of her husband, remain a whole year in Münster before setting out for Switzerland. Consequently, in the same year, she took leave of her husband and her old preceptor Hemsterhuys, purposing not to return to the Hague, but to pursue her Swiss project after her year's sojourn at Münster. But this programme was never to be carried out. Any one who has ever felt the influence of our affections on our plans and schemes—how plastic they are beneath them, how readily they yield in their direction—will easily divine the cause of this. In fact, so strong had grown this intellectual friendship between the princess and the Abbé de Furstenberg that every idea of going to Switzerland yielded before it; so much so that, before the end of the year, she had purchased a house in Münster, and engaged a country-château for the summer months of every year.
All this time she had kept up a frequent correspondence with her husband and her old professor, and she had made them promise to come and spend as long a time as they could spare every summer at her country-seat.
She was yet in the unchristian portion of her life. In her conversation and communications with Hemsterhuys, she had worked out a complete scheme of natural virtue and happiness, which she embodied in a work entitledSimon; or, The Faculties of the Soul. While we must admit that this is a curious specimen of a mere human, religionless view of a virtuous and happy life, yet we cannot allow that it could have been drawn up had not some faint remembrances of early Christian teaching still lingered in the mind of the authoress; much less can we grant that it could have been realized in any life without the sustaining aid of divine grace. Even if it were practicable, its practicability would, from its very character, be necessarily limited to a few rarely gifted minds; consequently, lacking the generalizing principles of the truly Christiancode, which makes a life of Christian virtue accessible to all, the lowly and the great, the rude and the wise alike, it is assuredly a failure.
She now applied herself with great assiduity to her children's education. Not content with imparting the mere rudimentary portion, she aimed at giving them a higher and more thorough course of instruction than most of our graduating colleges can boast. It was a bold task for a woman, but the order of her day at Münster shows us how little its difficulty could bend the will or weary the mind of one who could unswervingly follow the regulations it contained.
The household rose early every morning. Some hours were devoted to study before breakfast, and soon after the lessons of the day began. To these she gave six hours daily. With the exception of classic literature and German history, for which she engaged the services of the two distinguished professors, Kistermaker and Speiskman, she gave unaided all the other lessons.
She had competent persons to superintend the studies of the young prince and his sister while she was engaged in her own, but she reserved the teaching exclusively to herself. She very often spent entire nights in preparation for the morrow's instruction. After the labors of the day, she always devoted the evenings to conversation. It was then she received the visits of Furstenberg and a number of his literary friends, among whom was the Abbé Overberg, with whom she was afterwards to be so intimately related. Her old friend Hemsterhuys sometimes made one of the party, and he was the only one of her guests at that time who was not a Catholic.
This was the beginning, the nucleus of that brilliant literary circle which, a little later, became so famous throughout Germany.
Invitations to the literarysoiréesof the princess soon began to be coveted as no common honor. The most distinguished Protestant authors andsavantssought introduction to that Catholic society, and even infidels who did not openly scoff at religion were soon found among its members. It would have been a sight of curious interest, standing aside unseen in that drawing-room on any evening of their reunions, to watch that strangely mingled crowd. The Princess Amelia is evidently the ruling spirit, and the marks of respect and homage which her distinguished visitors pay her on their arrival tell plainly that her presence is not the least among the attractions of that pleasant assembly. Scattered through the room are men of the most varied minds and opposite views. There were many there who had already acquired literary notoriety of no mean degree. There were many more, the history of whose minds would have been the story of the anxious doubts and bold speculations of unbelief which swayed society in the waning of the eighteenth century.
In the charm of that literary circle, Jacobi found rest from his restless scepticism. There Hamann could quiet his troubled mind. The cold infidelity of Claude thawed in the presence of venerable ecclesiastics and before the influence of their dignity and learning. Even Goethe himself confessed that the pleasantest hours of his life were passed in the society of the Princess Galitzin. During three years, these reunions were a literary celebrity.
Though the princess had not allowed her mind to be tainted by the impious philosophy of her time, and had formed, with the assistance ofHemsterhuys, a better philosophical system of her own, founded on the idea of the divinity, yet in all her views she was completely rationalistic, rejecting all positive religion. And she had to confess, too, the defectiveness of her system in its practical bearing on her life; for at this time she complained feelingly, in one of her letters, that instead of growing better, according to her idea of virtue and happiness, she was daily growing worse.
In the spring of 1783, she fell dangerously ill. Furstenberg took this first opportunity to persuade her to taste of the consolations of religion, and to try the virtue of the sacraments of the church. But, though he actually sent her a confessor, she declined his services, alleging that she had not sufficient faith, promising, however, at the same time, that, if her life were spared, she would turn her thoughts seriously to the subject of religion. It was spared, and she kept her promise; but it was a long time before her reflections took any definite shape or had any practical result. This was undoubtedly owing to a want of direction, and we cannot divine why, among so many distinguished clerical friends, one was not found to do her this kindly office. Yet so it was, and, most likely, the fault was all her own.
The time had now come when her children were of an age to receive religious instruction; and, this being a part of the self-imposed task of their education, she determined not to shrink from it. But what to teach them, when she herself knew nothing, was a most perplexing question. Hitherto her own researches only plunged her into a restless uncertainty of soul which betrayed itself even in her sleep. Her conscience would not allow her to impart to her children her own unbelief, nor yet permit her to instruct them in a religion of whose truth she herself was not convinced. She relieved herself from this perplexity by deciding not so much to instruct them in any religion as to give them a history of religion in general, abstaining from any comments that might betray her own incredulity, or be an obstacle to the choice she intended they should subsequently make for themselves.
To fit herself for this task, she commenced the study of the Bible. This was the turning-point in her destiny; she held in her hands, at length, what was designed to be for her the instrument of divine grace. Long years ago, when a child, at the Breslau boarding-school, it had been remarked that, when nothing else could curb her proud and self-willed nature, an appeal to her affections never failed of its effect. That tenderness of her young heart was to be her salvation.
She opened the sacred text to seek there only dry historic facts, which she was to note down and relate to her children. For aught that concerned herself, the study was undertaken with a careless, incredulous disinterestedness. But as she went on and on through the sacred volume, and the sublime character of the Almighty was unfolded before her in all the beauty and tendernesses of his mercies, and shining in all the brightness of his wisdom, her soul was moved, her heart was deeply touched; she bowed down before the omnipotent Creator, and, for the first time, felt herself a creature. She read on still; she came to the Gospel, that record breathing love—compassionate, prodigal love—on every page, and before its charm her heart melted, her pride of intellect faded away, her life came before her as a useless dream, and her tears flowed fast upon the sacredpage; for now she not only felt what it was to be a creature, but had realized what it was to besaved.
Her work now became a labor of love. She not only taught her children, but she instructed herself. With her usual intrepidity of intellect, she was soon acquainted with every mystery of our holy religion, and with every duty of the Catholic life. From the knowledge to the fulfilment of her duty was always with Amelia an easy step; consequently, she began immediately to prepare herself for a general confession. After a long and serious examination of her whole life, she at length made it, on the feast of St. Augustine, 1786, and, a few days later, approached the holy communion, for the first time, with feelings of deep and tender devotion.
From this moment, a complete change was wrought in her whole manner. Her habitual melancholy gave way to a cheering serenity, which was as consoling as it was agreeable and charming to all around her. Her children and her many friends were greatly struck with the visible effects which divine grace had so evidently produced in her soul.
She now wished, for her more rapid advancement in perfection, to place her conscience entirely under the direction of the saintly Abbé Overberg. She was not content to have him merely as her confessor, but she wished to enter on the same relations—to have the same intimate friendship with him—as existed between St. Vincent de Paul and Mme. de Gondi, St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa. Though she had written to him several times on the subject of her direction, yet she never dared fully to propose her project to him, lest he might reject her request altogether. However, she took courage at last, and, to her great joy, she was not disappointed.
This holy priest took up his residence in her palace in 1789, and remained there, in the capacity of chaplain, even after her death.
In the following year, Hemsterhuys, her old friend and preceptor, died; and in this year, also, the young Prince Dmitri, having finished an education which would have fitted him for any position or profession in life, took leave of his mother, to commence, in accordance with the fashion, his post-educational travels. For what particular reason he turned his steps toward the New World does not appear. It was during the voyage that he resolved to embrace and profess the Catholic faith. But Providence had designed for him more than a visit to the United States; his life and his labors in our country have made the name of Galitzin a familiar and much-loved word to American Catholics.
In 1803, the husband of the princess died suddenly at Brunswick. This loss she felt most keenly. He had ever been to her a good and indulgent husband, yielding, with even an abundance of good nature, to all her plans, and never interfering with the various projects of her life. We may suppose, too, that her grief was deepened as his unexpected death suddenly blighted all her hopes for his conversion.
But sore trials of another kind yet awaited her. The property of the prince, which, by the marriage contract, should have reverted to her in trust for her children, was seized by his relatives. Penury threatened her for a time, but her appeal was, at length, heard by the Emperor Alexander, and the property was restored.
Meanwhile, she began to suffer from a painful malady which producedhypochondria. The patient, plaintless manner in which she bore her pains; above all, the calm of mind which she preserved in that terrible physical malady which poisons every pleasure and clouds every brightness of life, shows what a high state of perfection she had already attained. Religion was now her solace and her succor. By the perfection of her resignation to the divine will, she not only succeeded in concealing from her friends her painful state, by joining cheerfully in every conversation and pastime; but she cheered the melancholy and depression of others without once evincing that she herself was a victim to its living martyrdom.
With equal fortitude, she was bearing at the same time yet a harder trial. It is always wounding enough to our feelings to have our actions misappreciated, our whole conduct misunderstood, by persons merely indifferent to us. But what is there harder to endure in life than to be misunderstood by those to whom we were once tenderly devoted, to whom we were bound in the closest friendship of intimacy, and to bear their consequent coldness and slights, and sometimes cruel wrongs? Yet this pang was added to the other trials of Princess Amelia. But her great charity checked every human feeling. She was never heard to complain of any neglect, or even the annoying treatment of false friends, and she never sought to soothe the sorrow of her tender heart by any human consolations. In a letter regarding the Abbé de Furstenberg, she described beautifully the rule of charity she followed in this sorest of her trials. Whenever the memory of her slighted friendship would send a pang through her soul, her love of God was her first resource; then she resolved never to intensify the sorrow of the moment by indulging in any dreams of the imagination with regard to an irremediable past, or in any speculations whatever on the subject which would strengthen her sorrow or tend to an uncharitable feeling.
Thus, in these purifying trials, were passed the last years of her life; and when, at length, the gold of her merits was made pure enough in the crucible to be moulded into her crown of glory, she rested from her sorrows.
In 1806, she died the death of the holy, and, at her own request, she was buried beneath the chapel of her country-house at Angelmodde, near Münster.
Were we right in saying that her life displays the struggle of a great soul for its own level above disadvantageous circumstances? She struggled above the sad defects of early training, then above the commonplace routine of ordinary lives in the world, and finally above the clouds of infidelity and ignorance of divine things, to the bright, clear atmosphere of the faith, where the love of her ardent heart was sated, and her yearning aspirations found their lasting rest.
It may be, too, that we now have an easier clue to the wonderful character of the Apostle of Western Pennsylvania since we have become better acquainted with themother of Prince Galitzin.
If Germany was the cradle of the Reformation, England can claim to have been its nurse, and to have fostered in it many phases even at present unknown to the land of its originators. In its last-born and perhaps most dangerous outgrowth, Ritualism, we see the English spirit that was already timidly visible long before, now fully flowering in delusive self-existence, uniting in this novel combination the cherished independence of Rome, that Englishmen are taught instinctively to regard as the only palladium of national freedom, and those æsthetic aspirations which come down to them, we venture to think, as instinctively, from their forefathers of "Merrie England" and the "Island of Saints."
But if there are in the English character great capabilities for evolving unthought-of theories out of stern dogmatic codes, there is also a strange power of assimilation by which it can engraft upon itself the alien modes of thought of other lands, and yet infuse into them something that is not their own—something that renders them unspeakably more attractive and, withal, more hopelessly earnest.
Such a power was most likely to have been encouraged and developed in Egbert Stanway by his almost foreign education and most sensitive and contemplative nature. The love of German philosophy and German literature had descended to him from his father, who had been a disciple and a friend of Goethe, and who had early sent him to the university at Heidelberg, where the boy still was at his father's death. The weird old city, with its castle overlooking the rushing Neckar, and its antique houses enshrined by woods of chestnut, was the earliest home he could remember, and as, during his holidays from the school where he had been preparing for university initiation, he had never left Germany, it was almost as a foreigner and a stranger that he visited Stanway Hall to attend his father's funeral.
The evening he arrived, the gloom of the old house, and the long shadows creeping round it, the hooting owl in the dark fir plantations, and the grim and spreading cedars nearly touching the hall-door, everything he saw, in fact, seemed to make a most painful impression on his sensitive mind. The old servants crowded round him in affectionate and mournful welcome, for they remembered the little fair-haired child that used to prattle so merrily through the house many years ago, and they thought they saw in his face the same expression that had melted their hearts within them as they had gazed on the child's dead mother the night he was born. One of his guardians, a cousin of his father's, a kind, grave man, with grizzling hair and soldier-like bearing, came and took his hand in silence, and led him to the low, wide dining-room where the coffin lay under its heavy velvet pall. There, in the gloom that the few tall candles near the bier could hardly brighten, he told the son how his father had fallen from his horse while returning at night from a distant farm where he had been to see the sick tenant, and relieve him from the rent that was due and which his familycould not meet. Egbert's face glowed as he lifted it from the coffin against which he had been resting his forehead, and as he said in faltering accents:
"So like him! I am glad he died like that."
The words were simple, but the old soldier could not refrain from the tears that his own narrative had not yet forced from him. The child's comment unlocked his heart, and after a few moments' silence he said:
"My boy, you will try to live like him, and try to do your duty like him. You know you will soon have power in your hands: use it as he did. In a few years you will be your own master; even now you are master of this house and this estate. Never forget the responsibilities you will have. Always be kind to your servants, and just to your tenants, and charitable to the poor. Be loved as your father was, so that, when you die, you may be regretted as he is."
Egbert pressed his guardian's hand in silence, and presently knelt down by the coffin. There was a wreath of cypress on it, and he broke off a little twig and hid it in his bosom. His lips seemed to move—was he praying, or thinking half aloud? The old man's hand was on his shoulder, and he felt its pressure weighing him down. When he stood up again, he said nothing, only motioned his guardian to the door, and followed him. There were a few relations, mostly men, gathered before the fire in the drawing-room, and as the boy came in there was a general welcome of silent sympathy, and then a pause. Some few spoke in whispers, but the gloom was too deep to be broken. There seemed in the dead man's son more dignity and manliness than is usual, even under such circumstances, in one so young, and there was deference and surprise as well as pity in the looks that were bent on the boy of sixteen, to whom nearly all were strangers, and to whom his own home and his own household were themselves but new and strange associations.
As night came on, every one disappeared noiselessly from the room, Egbert himself having left it at an earlier hour. He had gone out into the summer moonlight to roam through the grounds he scarcely remembered, and to be alone with his own thoughts that would not let him sleep. The tall formal evergreens that skirted the broad terrace threw their shadows across the many flights of ornamental steps leading to the flower-garden; the scent of the heliotrope and mignonnette in the borders was wafted on the cool breeze that came from the sedge-encircled pond where the water-fowl played and hid in the rushes; the smooth-stemmed beeches stood like columns of silver in the moonlight, supporting their vaulted arches of interlacing leaves; the rooks cawed solemnly from their restless homes as the soft wind blew the branches backward and forward across the mossy mound; squirrels made cracking noises as they chattered in careless gaiety on the slender twigs of the spruce-fir; and hares and rabbits scudded away with terror-impelled swiftness as they heard human footfalls on the dewy grass.
The tall church-spire seemed to speak when the bell tolled out the hours through the night, and Egbert gazed longingly toward it, not as one who answers a well-known voice, but rather as one who strives painfully to guess the meaning of words he would gladly understand and yet cannot fathom.
"Oh!" he thought, "my father knows now allIwish to know; but he cannot come and tell me, and I shall have to live on, perhaps as longas he did, and never know what I seek, and never find the satisfaction and peace I look for. IfItoo could die, and know all at once!"
He thought, too, of the ceremony that would take place in that church to-morrow, and of the cold, damp vault his father's body would be laid in. And so great was the horror of this to his mind that the beauty of the night turned to hideousness for him, and its wooing sounds were changed into ghoul-like beckoning. Tears would not come to relieve his heart, and he felt as if an icy grasp were upon him, crushing out his young life, his father, he could only think of as he was, mute and helpless, not as he once had been, a true guide and monitor; his home, where was it? his duty, to what dreary fields of thankless labor might it not carry him? his friends, who were they? friends of yesterday? friends of the family, perhaps, but that was conventional friendship to him—or friends to him as the young landlord, but that was interested friendship!
And then came back a rush of Heidelberg memories, of the reckless young companions of his scarce-begun career, of the kind old professor, Herr Lebnach, and of his child-daughter Christina, of rambles among the chestnut woods, when the band had done playing in the castle gardens, and of two or three darker and more solemn rambles when he had gone to follow a dead comrade to his self-made grave.
The chill morning dew roused him at last, just when a faint-breaking light was to be seen over the fir-planted hill behind the house, and he went in and threw himself, all dressed, on his bed in the dim haunted-looking room he remembered as his nursery in days so long past that he could remember nothing else of them. The sun rose and gilded the many-hued flower-garden, and lighted red fires in the diamond-paned windows on the east side of the house, and sent long arrows of light into the tapestried and wainscoted chambers where the guests slept; it took the church-steeple by storm, and poured in floods of molten gold through the stained-glass windows of chancel and clerestory; it flashed through the dark beech grove, and blinded the uneasy rooks whom it roused to a new and jangling chorus; it threw rosy sparks across the pond, on the margin of which floated the water-lily and nestled the forget-me-not; and, lastly, it penetrated the sombre curtains of the darkened dining-room, and, braving death on his throne, threw a coronal of light on the very cypress wreath on the bier. And had it not a royal right, nay, a God-given mission, so to do? For the morning of the resurrection is ever near, and each morning's sun is its fit representative and the forerunner of its joy.
The same consoling ray that would not leave the dead alone in death's own shadow shone on the boy's fair curls as he bent, half in sorrow, half in slumber, over the hidden coffin. Soon, very soon, that coffin would not be there in the dear sunshine. It would be away in the darksome earth, in a lonely vault, with no one save the bats to make any moan over it, and, if ever the sun's darts made their way to it through low, grated air-holes or widening cracks in the stone, they would be pale and spectral themselves, like torches in a deadly atmosphere, like phantom lights over the quaking bog.
The hours wore on, and the time came for the funeral. Again there was a gathering together of friends and relatives, and a marshalling of tenants and servants, a whispering among the awed assemblage, and theboy asked once to have the pall lifted and the lid removed. In silence it was done, and in silence Egbert Stanway came near, and laid his right hand on his father's cold, calm forehead. His lips seemed to move, and a deeper expression of mingled sorrow and resolution settled upon his features; and thus, without a tear, he took leave of the best friend and best lover he had ever had on earth. He seemed much quieter after this, and the funeral procession now started on its way to the church, Egbert walking next the coffin as chief mourner.
The next day, he was far on his road to Heidelberg.
Four years passed by. Egbert Stanway was high in honors at the university, renowned among the reading set as an indefatigable scholar, beloved by his favorite professor, Herr Lebnach, and his no longer child-daughter, courted by all the best men, and respected by all the worst, in the old city of Heidelberg. Having resolutely set his face against duelling and all kinds of brawls, and even against all innocent-seeming meetings that, nevertheless, were likely to end in brawls, he had yet not acquired the unenviable notoriety of a misanthrope, and, though many called him proud, still none called him churlish. Herr Lebnach used often to gather a few real friends about him, and there was generally some musical banquet provided for his delicate and discriminating guests.
His room was one of those that are dreamt of, but seldom seen, homely and artistic at once, quaint and suggestive as one of the mysterious dens of those sages whom modern times have called sorcerers and tamperers with arts forbidden. There stood on one side a great oak book-case, massive and plain, filled with huge folios, and smaller books laid carelessly across their dust-covered edges, old tomes that looked black enough for magic, though they might contain nothing more than medical lore and visionaries' dreams; over the carved mantelpiece, where a dark stove hid itself in the wide space it could not fill, was an array of pipes, meerschaum silver-mounted, and rare wood cunningly wrought; pipes of tarnished Eastern splendor, and calumets of Indian workmanship; a real old spinning-wheel, where Gretchen might have sat as she sang of her demon-lover Faustus, stood in one corner, and a collection of antique armor hung on all the spaces on the wall that were not occupied by medical portraits and angel-crowded tryptichs in twisted golden frames. Here, in one oak-carved case, was Venetian ruby glass and old Dresden ware, and there, on the quaint low tables, lay illuminated missals of the thirteenth century, alongside of dainty woman's embroidery-frames, and the last new pamphlet on the last new philosophical incomprehensibility. Then, as the dim light of the lamp flashed when some motion was made near the long table by the stove, there appeared on the other side of the room a great organ, with golden pipes and carved case—a world within a world, the kingdom of music enshrined within the surrounding kingdom of science and of literature. The treble manual, with its tiers of smooth white notes sheathing the melodies a moment's touch might set free, shone under the golden arbor of the spreading pipes, and beneath the dark carved garlands of oak-leaves and hanging fruit and sporting beasts, that seemed only as petrified embodiments of the thoughts that had once been living and breathing in those keys.
A girl sat by the organ, her hairseeming to have caught the golden reflection of the music-laden pipes, and her slender fingers the litheness of those easily-moulded keys. Beside her was a large basket, where balls of wool mingled with half-finished garments of domestic mystery, while in her own hands she held a piece of knitting. A kitten played at her feet, and now and then tangled the long thread that fell from her work. Egbert Stanway sat quite close, one hand resting on the organ-notes, reading aloud by the dark light of one little candle in the fixed organ candlestick.
A few men began to drop in, but the reading was not interrupted, for the room was large, and the professor was sitting not far from the door. Some came in with rolls of white music; some with instruments tenderly imprisoned in warmly-lined cases; some, again, with their hands unoccupied, but their large pockets bursting with the treasures of meerschaum and tobacco; some thoughtful, student-like, long-haired; some gay and rubicund, as if dinner were but a late and cherished memory; some young and uneasily conscious of the stranger by the organ. Presently one came in who was neither student nor professor, but long-haired and quaint-looking nevertheless, with iron-gray locks, straight and wiry, strongly-marked features, tall, spare figure, and almost kingly demeanor, so mixed was it of haughtiness and courtesy.
Christina rose and signed to her companion to close the book. She went forward, and said a few words of blushing welcome to the royal stranger, and then turned to Egbert, saying:
"Mein herr, this is my father's young friend who was so anxious to know you."
He put out his hand with kind eagerness, and, as he did so, Egbert noticed the long, slender, nervous fingers, like iron sheathed in age-tinted ivory.
"I am very glad to see you, Herr Stanway," he said, "and very glad to see you here, for I have no better friend than Christina's father."
The girl fell back as he spoke, and passed through the room, speaking, now and then, to the bearded guests, who all smiled at her like the Flemish saints in the old pictures of the Maiden-mother and her mystic court; and made her way to an inner apartment where a grand piano occupied most of the space, and round the walls of which were many brackets with bronze and marble busts of sages and poets, philosophers and musicians, gleaming out, ghost like, against the heavy crimson draperies that fell round window and doorway.
The stranger was still talking to Egbert in German when the sounds of tuning instruments in the next room drew his attention. He took the young man's arm, and hurried in, casting a glance over the sheets of music scattered on the piano. A flush of pleasure and surprise came over his countenance; they were headed, "Overture—St. Elizabeth." Egbert looked across to Christina, but she was busying herself with a refractory violoncello-case, whose huge fastenings would not open, and whether or no she saw the maestro's puzzled air remained a mystery both to the young man and to his companion, whose glance had followed his own, as if half-guessing what it meant.
Herr Lebnach struck his friend on the shoulder as he approached the wondering musician.
"You must forgive my boldness," he said; "in fact, I can only call it smuggling. I got a copy from a pupil of yours—one whose enthusiasm was stronger than his sense ofobedience; but, of course, this is all among friends-it shall go no further. Indeed, if you wish it, I will burn the manuscript after the performance."
"No, no, dear friend," returned the composer; "it will be publicly performed and given to the world in a month or two, and I am glad you should have the first-fruits."
The amateur orchestra was in a state of nervous delight at these words, and as the maestro took the baton in his hand there was a hush that said far more than words could have embodied. Christina and her father and Egbert sat aloof near the doorway, and a few others gathered in silent groups round the room. The music came forth, at last, like the rush of an elfin cavalcade out of darksome caverns and cloven rocks of unimagined depth, wild and weird, like the cry of the storm-tossed sea-gulls among the reverberating crags of foam-washed granite. It was the music of delirium, the music of madness, the music of despair. It was the voice of a soul that had lost its way in a labyrinth of dreams so fantastic that they had thrown a spell over its returning footsteps, and so made it for ever an enchanted exile among their mazy paths. It was unintelligible, yet full of meaning; unapproachable, yet full of allurement; impregnable, yet full of sympathy. Later on, in great cities, and before critical audiences, it was held to be the music of a maniac, while it lacked the charm or the interest of Shakespeare's maniac-heroes and their too-faithful rhapsodies; and even now, though the performance was a labor of love, it was not without difficulty that many phrases were interpreted.
Christina seemed to think more of the composer than of his work, and more of his pleasure in seeing his music appreciated than of his actual skill in composition. Indeed, her father and Egbert shared her feelings, as was apparent from their careful watching of the conductor's face rather than of the performers' bows. But when the long piece was over, and every one started forward to congratulate and be congratulated, there was a general appearance of satisfaction at having mastered something that was no little difficulty, and offered such a grateful and acceptable homage to one whose heart seemed to value it so highly. Soon there was a hush again, and Christina glided to the piano, where the maestro was now sitting.
"You will not refuse to reward us now, will you?" she said.
A smile and a soft chord were the speedy answer; and now the piano spoke and wailed, pleaded and wept, as the strong, supple fingers swept its astonished keys. It seemed as if there were within it an imprisoned and hitherto dumb spirit, whose voice was now unshrouded and allowed full power over the hearts of those who had scarcely before suspected its hidden existence. Far different from the tempestuous overture was this soft and swift blending of chords in garlands of sweet sound. Flowers were dropping around the feet of the artist; clouds of faintly-suggested and dream-like fancies were fanning the air around his head; a spell, as of Eastern languor, was slowly deadening the senses of the listeners to any other sound save that of the marvellous melody the piano was sighing forth, when, with a wild toss of the head and a sudden bending forward of the body, the maestro changed the key, and burst into a half-triumphant, half-defiant pæan—a chant of patriotic and maddened enthusiasm—which soon merged into the last movement of his impromptu and the last appeal of every Christian to theGod that made him; a solemn, dirge-like hymn, full of unspoken sadness, full of expressed confidence, a lifting up of the soul above everything of earth, a consecration, a supplication, a thanksgiving, and a sacrifice.
Never before had Egbert heard anything like that prayer; never after was he destined to hear it again.
Christina drew a long sigh, as if such beauty were too heavenly to be gazed upon without pain, and turning to the young man:
"I am glad," she said, "I cannot play the piano. One could not dare to touch the instrument after that, unless it were to destroy it!"
"You are right," he answered slowly and musingly; "but where can he have learnt the things he puts into his music?"
"In his prayers, Herr Stanway."
A dark shade of melancholy passed over Egbert's face; there was pain at the implied rebuke, and a vague sorrow, as for something lost, in that fugitive expression, but the music chased it away as the violins were tuning up again for Beethoven's "Septet."
So the evening wore away, and chorus and concerted piece followed fast upon one another, till the musicians were so excited they could hardly speak. The maestro conducted all through, and as he shook his hair like a mane about his eyes and swayed to and fro in the intensity of his enthusiasm, Egbert whispered to Christina:
"He is the magician of music, is he not?"
When all was over, and some of the guests had left in singing groups that would probably serenade the town for the rest of the night, the great artist called the young Englishman, and asked him to show him the way home.
"I am somewhat of a stranger here, my friend, and there is no one whose company I would more gladly ask under the pretence of wanting a guide home."
As soon as they were out of the house, he turned suddenly on his companion, and, lingering so as to stay for a few moments in the full moonlight, he said:
"And so you are the betrothed of my old friend's daughter?"
A start and a blush that he could not repress were Egbert's first answers to this abrupt but not unkind question, yet the old man saw that his arrow had perhaps overshot the mark.
"Is it not so?" he said again, but doubtfully now.
"No,mein herr," replied Egbert, with slow and sorrowful composure; "and I fear it never will be."
"You fear, dear friend? Therefore you hope?"
"Ihavehoped, but I see now how useless it must ever be for me to think of her except as a friend."
"Can I do anything for you thatherown favor could not do?"
"I have never asked her for anything, and I never shall, and it suffices that she knows as well as I do what the reason of my silence is."
"Then she does know that you love her?"
"She knows it as the angels do—if there be angels!"
"If! What do you mean?"
"Only this, that, if there are angels, they are not more remote from me than she is."
"You speak in riddles. I have no wish to force your confidence, my friend; but I have known that child from her cradle, and I cannot help being interested in anything concerning her."
"Omein herr! I have nothing to conceal; you misunderstand me.She is a Catholic; that is why she is so far from me."
"And you are a Protestant? But so is her father."
"No, I am not a Protestant, though I am English."
"Ah! perhaps you have no settled outward form of religion?"
"That is it. But, if IwereProtestant, she would not marry me."
"In a few years, dear young friend, you may think differently. I was very like you once, only far worse; yet, you see, I too am a Catholic now."
The young man shook his head in silence. They had journeyed through the dark winding streets very near to the maestro's temporary home, and the old artist turned now solemnly and affectionately to his companion, putting his hand on his shoulder:
"Herr Stanway," he said, "I may never see you again, and you must forgive an old man for speaking so plainly to you; but I cannot bear to leave Heidelberg, where your friends and mine have made me so happy, without trying to do something towardsyourhappiness, and, I am sure, towardshers. Do not, for Heaven's sake, give way to those foolish and yet wrecking tendencies of the young men of your day. Stand by religion, for I tell you by experience she is the best philosopher, as well as the best comforter; she is the only friend for the student, as well as for the priest; and, above all, she is the only guardian for the home, and the only giver of true peace. Remember that as an old man's advice, and, if you trust to the word of one who has run the round of all pleasures without finding true ones till very late, you will save yourself the long struggle of experience that wears the body and sears the mind, and leaves you in your old age but a shattered wreck to carry back to the feet of him who sent you forth a perfect man. Will you remember this, dear young friend?"
"I will try to do so," Egbert answered slowly, with intense but hopeless yearning to be able to do so. He kissed the hand of the old man whose words seemed to him but a mortal record of that other one written in notes of fire on the awakened instrument at Christina's home, and the artist took him in his arms and embraced him as a son. They parted, the one to go to his peaceful rest, the other to turn for consolation and for calm to the wild woods above the castle, whence through vistas could be seen the silver-flashing river, with here and there its dark semblances of reversed houses, and spires, and turrets. "My father! my father!" thought the young man, "why can you not tell me what you know—why can you not assure me of all I long to believe, yet cannot?Shehas often said that the dead are all of her faith when they reach God's throne, and that they believe in it even more firmly, if possible, than those of her creed do on earth—because to them evidence has been given. Perhaps to some the evidence is eternal fire—if that exist! But surely, he who made this earth so fair, he who gave us this solemn night-beauty to enjoy, and a mind fitted to admire it, he cannot have meant to bind us to cruel, unyielding formulas. If one heart feels its love go out to him in one way, and another in a different way, why should not both be as welcome to him as is the varied beauty of the many different-tinted and different-scented flowers? Who has been to God's feet and learned his secrets, and come back to tell us with certainty that he loathes one heart's worship, and accepts another's? Not till I have such an assurance will I, or can I, if I would,go to Christina, and say, 'I am a Catholic.'"
And so the specious and seemingly religious poison worked on and cankered his heart, notwithstanding the solemn warning of his new-found friend, whose voice, he should have known it, was near akin to that of the spirit-witness he was but now invoking.
The night was very lovely, and reminded him of that one preceding his father's funeral, when already wandering dreams of a self-revealed faith were turning him away from the belief in a just and personal God. The Church of England Catechism, which he had learnt by heart as a child, the teachings of a zealous Episcopalian clergyman who had prepared him for confirmation in Germany itself, rushed back upon his memory as he looked on the symbolic beauty of the dying night; but in the dawn that already stirred the birdlings in their nests and shot pale darts of virgin light across the purple-blue heaven, he could see no emblem of truer life coming to his soul nor any sign of silent joy offering itself to his weary heart. And yet the dawn was shining into a little flower-scented chamber, and striking a sweeter perfume from the silent prayer of its occupant than it could draw even from the fragrant blossoms of the golden lime and the starry pendent clusters of flowering chestnut gathered in the large earthen vases near the window.
That prayer was for Egbert, but he could not feel it yet.
Night again, summer again, but a year has passed, and the German student is now an English landlord. To-morrow he will assume the duties of his new position; to-day he received the first-fruits of its honors.
The customary rejoicings attendant on a "coming of age" in Old England had been duly gone through; there had been banqueting in the hall, and feasting in the dining-room; healths had been drunk and speeches had been made, and every one was supposed to be in a superlative state of happiness. Probably every one was—that is, according to their kind, and to their capability of enjoyment. Egbert alone seemed thoughtful and preoccupied; his assembled relations thought him reserved and cold; some said a foreign education could be no good to an Englishman, and he would never be popular in the country; others thought he would marry abroad, some said he would turn Roman Catholic, and the sporting squires wondered whether he would ride and would subscribe to the hunt.
Contrary to the expectation of the marriageable young ladies of the neighborhood, there was no ball included in the programme of the birthdayfêtes, and the guests who were not staying at the house all left towards dark, lighted on their way by the last explosions of the fantastic fireworks that had been introduced as afinaleto the rejoicings. After dinner, Egbert and his guardian, the one we alluded to in the beginning of this tale, sauntered out on the terrace, talking in a desultory way about the little incidents of the day.
"You gave us so little time, my dear boy," he said presently, "to make your acquaintance over again, considering the time you have been abroad, that I feel almost as a stranger to you."
"I should not like ever to be a stranger toyou," replied Egbert; "but I own I felt a shrinking from coming here at all, much more upon such an occasion, and to meet such people."
"You have grown fastidious, I am afraid."
"I have led a very quiet life for the last few years, and I feel much older than I am, and quite different from all the young people, both men and girls, I have met to-day; and, to tell you the truth, I felt shy, so I delayed coming to the last moment. But ifyouwill stay when the house is quiet again, I am sure we shall understand each other."
"With all my heart, my dear fellow; your father was my earliest friend, and I should like his son to be as my own."
"I am glad you are alone in the world, Charles, if you will allow me that cousinly freedom; for I own I should have been scared at a bevy of ladies, and probably committed some dreadful solecism, and have got myself ostracized for ever."
"Well, well; it will all come in time, no doubt; and now tell me all about your life at Heidelberg."
Could Charles Beran have looked back at that life, and known what was called back to existence by his careless question, perhaps he might have asked it less carelessly, and been less astonished at the effect it produced. His cousin grew pale.
"My dear boy," he added hurriedly, "if there is any painful recollection I have stirred up without knowing it, pray forgive me."
"No," answered Egbert slowly, "I have nopainfulrecollection in all my life, not even my father's death (Beran looked at him anxiously); for nothing has happened to me without making me sadder and wiser, that is, teaching me more and more that I know nothing."
His companion did not answer. Egbert was getting beyond him, but he pressed his hand to show him that, whatever he might mean, he had one to sympathize with, even if he could not share, his sorrow. Egbert understood the wistful, loving sign of the old man whose happy disposition most fortunately kept him ignorant of the paths of gloom through which he himself was passing, and went on to tell him, in general terms, of his outward life and habits at Heidelberg. He made no concealment of his intimacy with the family of his old professor, but simply and truthfully said that, on account of her religion, Christina, he felt sure, could never be his wife.
"Perhaps," interrupted the old man, "it is better so, and Providence meant you to marry an English wife, and think more of your property and your own country."
Egbert smiled at this innocent pressing of Providence into the upholding of a mere actional prejudice; and said, unconsciously using the endearing phraseology of his adopted language:
"I knew you would think so, dear friend; but do you fancy that, coming from the feet of an angel, one would be likely to rush into the arms of a child of earth?"
"My dear fellow, you have growntooGerman by far! Excuse me, but this will never do for England, you know."
"I am afraid England will not do for me," Egbert replied, laughing; "that is, if England is to mean Englishmen and Englishwomen.
"Oh! you will think differently when you have mixed with them a little; we really must try and cure you."
"Well, you can try, if you like. Perhaps we had better go in and begin with the assembled company around that piano," said the young man, as he shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a white-robed girl attitudinizing before a splendid instrument, which, I think, could it have spoken, would have begged tobe delivered from the attacks of unmusical school-girls on the matrimonial lookout.
But every one was tired now, even school-girls and croquet-playing young gentlemen—and heir-huntresses, and heiress-hunters, and diggers after coronets, and the various other pliers of unhallowed trades—so Egbert was soon left to himself again, which with him always meant a long night-ramble in the whispering woods.
The English beauty of his own unknown possessions was new to him; it was also sad, for it was associated with the memory of his father's funeral; but, because of its very sadness, it was the less new, the more familiar. Across the flower-garden, across the terraced lawn dotted with rare trees from Rocky Mountain gorges and California valleys, across the network of gravel paths, he walked thoughtfully over to where an old ruin stood, with its mantle of ivy, shrouding crumbled wall and broken buttress, climbing over scutcheon and carven doorway, and flinging its tendrils like falling lace across the tall mullioned windows. This gray ruin had been a house once, but now it was disused and had fallen into decay. Opposite, only parted from it by a shrubbery, was the church where Egbert's father was buried, and to the left stretched a wide and long quadrangle with walls of coral-berried yew, and hedges of trailing rose and honeysuckle within, enclosing a tract of wild, rank grass, and little, nestling, creeping flowers hidden among the tall tufts. In the centre stood a sun-dial, lichened over in brown and yellow patches, catching the moonbeams now, as if it were a solitary tombstone in a desecrated graveyard. The long shadows from church and ruin stretched themselves across the lonely enclosure; the sweetbrier gave forth soft perfume that carried on its breath some remembrance of the Heidelberg limes and chestnuts; falling twigs made a ghost-like rustling in the tall trees beyond, and the voice of the night seemed to say to the young man's heart, "Peace is nigh."
Egbert wandered on till he came to the sun-dial; he leaned upon it and looked around. His thoughts were deep and sad, but something within him seemed changed—he himself knew not what. "Is it my father's spirit calling me, or Christina's heart sending me some heavenly message? Is it that I am going to die, or to live and know God?" Such were the flitting thoughts that sped like restless wanderers through his mind, and all night through, as he walked backward and forward in the yew quadrangle, and then by the edge of the beech-shadowed pond, these same thoughts pursued him, and shaped themselves to his fancy into the whispering of the ever-quivering leaves and the trembling of the unrestful grass.
It was dawn again before he left the grounds, and he had scarcely been asleep a few hours when a hasty message came to him that a poor woman from the village was asking for him in great distress, and was sure he would not refuse to see her. It seemed that she came to say her little girl was taken suddenly ill, and the doctor thought she would not live. Egbert had specially noticed this little one, and played with her during the preceding day, when the school-children were enjoying their share of the day's delight; and, without the slightest hesitation, he followed the poor mother to her cottage, where he found a whole nest of children; some old enough to look sorry and frightened, some hardly able to do aught else than crow and laugh and give trouble to the elder ones.Up-stairs in a poor little garret lay the sick child, rocked on the knees of its eldest sister, and looking very pinched and white and mournful. A Catholic priest was in the room, and there were a few rude prints and a crucifix on the walls. The little one was very silent, but the mother said it had asked piteously for the "pretty gentleman" to bring it some flowers. Egbert took its hand and stroked its small, thin face. The child was not pretty, but it had that patient, confiding look that always stirs the heart, that prematurely yet unconsciously sad expression that is a thousand times more winning and more touching than beauty. For this very reason had Egbert noticed it the day before, and asked its name and age with an interest that made all its companions jealous.
As he bent down to it, it said something he could not make out, and turning to the mother for explanation, "She says, sir," answered the poor woman, "would you please say a prayer?" The young man reddened and looked at the priest. Again the child spoke. The priest said to Egbert: "She has a fancy for it. Will you not say an Our Father for her?"
He had chosen a prayer on which there could be no controversy, he thought, and was surprised when Egbert, instead of the Lord's Prayer, began a beautiful and impromptu supplication. For some time he went on, and the child listened bewildered; but as he stretched his hand towards her, and drew her head upon his arm, she said with a soft, childish accent, as if recovering from an unintelligible surprise: "No; say the Hail Mary."
The priest saw his head suddenly droop, and his fair hair touch the child's darker locks; his voice sank, and sobs came instead of words; then there was silence.
"Say the Hail Mary," said the child.
Egbert never raised his head, but in a broken voice he said the prayer as the little one directed, and the Our Father directly after. But the priest noticed that he said it as Catholics do, omitting the superadded words of the Protestant liturgy.
A few moments after, the child's father came in; he had been sent for from his work.
It was not long before God counted another angel in his train, and the mother one treasure less upon earth.
Egbert left the cottage with the priest, promising to send flowers for the little one's coffin, and to return to see it one more in the evening.
He was silent for some minutes, his companion watching him in appreciative sympathy, half-guessing the truth, and giving thanks to God for his double accession to his church in one and the same hour. At last the young man said:
"Mr. Carey, you were surprised I knew your prayers?"
"I own I was, Mr. Stanway, but I was happy to see you did."
"I know more than them, and I always thought that, could I make any form of faith my own, it would be yours."
"And what you saw this morning has, I think, induced you to do so?"
"I will tell you the truth, Mr. Carey. Up to this morning I could not bring myself to any tangible belief; at this moment, thank God, I think I may venture to say I am a Catholic."
"My dear Mr. Stanway, this is indeed happy news. And see the instrument God has chosen for your conversion!"
"I have only one more question to ask you. I have studied the Catholic faith a long time; I maysay I have loved it long, and, now that I feel it to be the faith of my understanding as well as of my heart, may I not be received at once?"
"Of course, if you will only come to my house, and we will have a few moments' conversation. I have no doubt you can be made one of us before to-night."
The priest's house was a humble little cottage beyond the village green, and it had indeed needed all the Oxford scholar's taste to make its evangelical poverty the type rather of voluntary detachment than of necessary want.
Here, in a modest little room, whose only ornaments were two or three Düsseldorf prints and a book-case of theological and controversial books uniformly bound, Egbert and Carey sat down for a short time, that a few questions might satisfy the latter's judgment as to the propriety of at once receiving the new convert. He rose at last, and pointed to a temporary confessional that stood in one corner. Egbert was soon prepared, and every ceremony was rapidly performed. The priest could not help noticing the look of perfect peace that seemed to be the expression of the young man's predominant frame of mind. As he was still fasting, Egbert pleaded hard to be allowed to receive communion directly after baptism, and, after a moment's hesitation, the request was granted. He then paid another visit to the poor cottage where God had wrought this marvellous change in him, and reverently kissed the tiny white forehead of the little angel who had gone before him. And from that hour, there was not one in the village that would not have died for the "dear, kind gentleman that never said one hard word to a poor man." That day was remembered long years after, when the children of the girl he had seen nursing her little sick sister followed his own honored remains to their last earthly abode, and when another and a less kind master had come to reign over Stanway Hall.
Meanwhile, in the great dining-room where the guests were assembled for breakfast, conjectures were rife about the absent host, and laughing questions were put about his idleness on his too-romantic morning wanderings, until Mr. Beran, who also came in rather late, dispelled the whole mystery by an explanation consisting of one word, itself a mystery to many there present—business; and a courteous apology from Egbert, who hoped his friends would consider Mr. Beran as his delegate for the house. A few portly matrons and unmusical school-girls looked rather black at this substitution; but against fate what avails impatience? and against Beran, what availed black looks?
But when at luncheon Egbert did not appear, and when at dinner he came in with a saddened, grave demeanor, the discontented ones thought it really was time to throw up the game and go to other and more tempting hunting-grounds. So the party broke up the next day, and Egbert and his Cousin Charles were free again. The old man was soon made acquainted with what had taken place, and two days after both he and the young lord of the hall followed the little child's funeral to the Catholic cemetery.
But Egbert's heart was not yet satisfied. Heidelberg's memories were with him night and day, and it was not many weeks before he started for his German home with his new English friend as companion. He had not cared to trust his precious news to the slender certainty of foreign posts. He wanted to see thevery first glimmering of the expression he knew it would call forth on one ever-dreamt-of face, and the journey was to him a ceaseless preparation for a joy that would come suddenly after all.
Leaving Beran at the "Golden Kranz-Hof," he walked through the darkling streets, past the silentplatz, up to the old house he knew and loved so well. He never rang, for the door was open, and the next moment he stood in the organ-room. It was empty—so was the next apartment. A fear came over him, and he covered his face with his hands.
Presently the door opened, and Herr Lebnach came in, looking aged and haggard. There was no surprise on his face as he saw his pupil and friend. "I knew thou wouldst come," he said simply.
"Is she—" began Egbert, fearing to shape his dread in words.
"No; come to her. She has asked for thee. Didst thou not get my letter?"
"Letter! No, I came of my own accord."
"God be thanked! she will besohappy!"
And this was his welcome! this the home he had been journeying to! Christina was lying in a small iron bed by the window, a vase of golden-lime blossoms on the table near her, and a prayer-book beside it. Her hands were clasped carelessly on her knees, and her head propped up very high with pillows. Egbert took her white, cold fingers in his, and knelt down by the bed. She only said his name—it was the first time she had ever done so.
"Christina," he said at length, "I came to tell you something. Your faith is mine now."
A faint cry, and a pale, momentary flush, and then a long look in silence.
"My God, I thank thee! My prayer is answered!" So she spoke after a few minutes.
"And I came to ask you something also," continued Egbert. "Do you love me as I always hoped you did?"
"Egbert," she answered solemnly, "I loved you from the first time I saw you; but, when I found you did not love and know the dear God, I offered my life to him for your conversion, and he has answered me."
Egbert told her briefly the circumstances that had occurred. A few days passed, and one evening, when the red sunset was firing the casement, and her father, her lover, and Charles Beran, were around her, she suddenly said, taking the two former by the hand:
"God is calling me—do not forget me. Your blessing, dearest father! O Egbert!"
And so died Egbert's first and only love.
Strangers often asked, when they came to see the beautiful Catholic Church adjoining Stanway Hall why it was dedicated to the virgin martyr St. Christina.