and vanquish the specter of Atheism!  Oh, sir! the dear God stretches his arm about each and all of us!  ’When the sorrow-laden lays himself, with a galled back, into the earth, to sleep till a fairer morning,’ it is not true that ’he awakens in a stormy chaos, in an everlasting midnight!’ It is not true!  He goes home to his loved dead, and spends a blissful eternity in the kingdom of Jehovah, where death is no more, ’where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!’”

She laid the volume on his knee, and tears which would not be restrained rolled swiftly over her cheeks.

He looked at her mournfully, and took her hand in his.

“My child, do you believe all this as heartily as you did when a little girl?  Is your faith in your religion unshaken?”

He felt her fingers close over his spasmodically, as she hastily replied: 

“Of course, of course!  What could shake a faith which years should strengthen?”

But the shiver which crept through her frame denied her assertion, and with a keen pang he saw the footprints of the Destroyer.  She must not know, however, that he doubted her words, and, with an effort, he said: 

“I am glad, Beulah; and if you would continue to believe, don’t read my books promiscuously.  There are many on those shelves yonder which I would advise you never to open.  Be warned in time, my child.”

She snatched her hand from his, and answered proudly: 

“Sir, think you I could be satisfied with a creed which I could not bear to have investigated?  If I abstained from reading your books, dreading lest my faith be shaken, then I could no longer confide in that faith.  Christianity has triumphed over the subtleties of infidelity for eighteen hundred years.  What have I to fear?”

“Beulah, do you want to be just what I am?  Without belief in any creed! hopeless of eternity as of life!  Do you want to be like me?  If not, keep your hands off of my books!  Good night; it is time for you to be asleep.”

He motioned her away, and, too much pained to reply, she silently withdrew.

CHAPTER XV.

The day had been clear, though cold, and late in the afternoon Beulah wrapped a shawl about her, and ran out into the front yard for a walk.  The rippling tones of the fountain were hushed; the shrubs were bare, and, outside the greenhouse, not a flower was to be seen.  Even the hardy chrysanthemums were brown and shriveled.  Here vegetation slumbered in the grave of winter.  The hedges were green, and occasional clumps of cassina bent their branches beneath the weight of coral fruitage.  Tall poplars lifted their leafless arms helplessly toward the sky, and threw grotesque shadows on the ground beneath, while the wintry wind chanted a mournful dirge through the somber foliage of the aged, solemn cedars.  Noisy flocks of robins fluttered among the trees,