“What is it, Helen?” asked May, while the color faded from her cheeks, and she looked with mingled sorrow and dread on the miserable one.

“Hush! there is Walter’s footsteps!” she exclaimed, starting.  “Oh, May, I could not bear to lose my husband’s affection—­to be spurned by him.”

“How are you now, Helle?  Better, I hope, now that May is with you?” said her husband, coming in.  “And ready to pardon me for my insensibility to your happiness?”

“Oh, Walter!” said Helen, covering her face with her hands.

“I had hoped that these clouds would all be dispelled by the time I returned home.  May and I were talking about you as we came along, and if she had not succeeded in making you believe that I wish you to be happy your own way, let this be a gage between us,” said Mr. Jerrold, unfolding a small parcel he held in his hand, and handing her a Catholic prayer-book.  It was bound in ivory, with an exquisite miniature painting of “Ecce Homo” on one back and “Mater Dolorosa” on the other.  The paintings were covered with crystals, and set with a rim of gold and pearls.  The edges and clasps were of the same exquisite finish.  “If you will only promise to be happy, dear Helen, I will buy a pew in the cathedral for you, and escort you thither whenever you wish to go.”

“Dear Walter, why bring me so costly a gift?” said Helen, looking at the sorrowful and sacred faces on the covers of the book, with a shudder.  “Indeed, I am not worthy of such tender and restless affection.”

“Look up, Helen—­look up, my love!  I am prouder of you this day than any king could be of his crown, but if religion is going to make you abject and tame, and mistrustful, I will have none of it,” said the worldly man, in an impatient tone.

“Religion gives birth to nothing gloomy.  Even in her penitential tears, there are rainbows,” cried May, “She is the mother of all that is lovely, cheerful, amiable, and perfect.  Even our tribulations must be borne with joy, because the divine hope which sanctifies them leads the soul up to God its Father.”

“That seems right—­it sounds right.  I know positively nothing about it, and wish I did.  If I could only get Helen out once more, I should be the happiest fellow on earth,” said Mr. Jerrold, with a sad and puzzled expression on his fine face.  “I suspected all along that perhaps some religious crank had got into Helle’s head, from the circumstances of her allowing no picture but that Mater Dolorosa to come into her room.  It was a queer fancy in one so devoted to paintings as she is.  I have been wishing ever since she got it to buy a pendant for it.  I found a splendid ’Niobe in Tears’—­paid an exorbitant price for it—­brought it home, thinking Helen would be charmed, but she banished it to the library.  Then I purchased a ’Hecate’—­a wonderfully beautiful thing, but that was also condemned, and sent into banishment.  Was it not so Helen?”