“No.  There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers:  I believe; and I believe the Gospel.  You missed your epithet.  I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher —­ a follower of the sect of Jesus.  As His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines.  I advocate them:  I am sworn to spread them.  Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities thus:- From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy.  From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice.  Of the ambition to win power and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross.  So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning and training nature.  But she could not eradicate nature:  nor will it be eradicated ’till this mortal shall put on immortality.’”

Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette.  Once more he looked at the portrait.

“She is lovely,” he murmured.  “She is well named the Rose of the World, indeed!”

“And may I not paint one like it for you?”

“Cui Bono?  No.”

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from being sullied.  What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye.  He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible:  a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning.  His lips parted, as if to speak:  but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin.  It disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished.

“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps the globe, however!”

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil.  I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night.  The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable.  I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down “Marmion,” and beginning —