eligious nature. It was
taking her at an unfair disadvantage, no doubt. In the old communion,
some priest might have wrought upon her while in this condition, and we
might have had at this very moment among us another Saint Theresa or
Jacqueline Pascal. She found but a dangerous substitute in the spiritual
companionship of a saint like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker.

People think the confessional is unknown in our Protestant churches. It
is a great mistake. The principal change is, that there is no screen
between the penitent and the father confessor. The minister knew his
rights, and very soon asserted them. He gave aunt Silence to understand
that he could talk more at ease if he and his young disciple were left
alone together. Cynthia Badlam did not like this arrangement. She was
afraid to speak about it; but she glared at them aslant, with the look of
a biting horse when his eyes follow one sideways until they are all white
but one little vicious spark of pupil.

It was not very long before the Rev. Mr. Stoker had established pretty
intimate relations with the household at The Poplars. He had reason to
think, he assured Miss Silence, that Myrtle was in a state of mind which
promised a complete transformation of her character. He used the phrases
of his sect, of course, in talking with the elderly lady; but the
language which he employed with the young girl was free from those
mechanical expressions which would have been like to offend or disgust
her.

As to his rougher formulae, he knew better than to apply them to a
creature of her fine texture. If he had been disposed to do so, her
simple questions and answers to his inquiries would have made it
difficult. But it was in her bright and beautiful eyes, in her handsome
features, and her winning voice, that he found his chief obstacle. How
could he look upon her face in its loveliness, and talk to her as if she
must be under the wrath and curse of God for the mere fact of her
existence? It seemed more natural and it certainly was more
entertaining, to question her in such a way as to find out what kind of
theology had grown up in her mind as the result of her training in the
complex scheme of his doctrinal school. And as he knew that the merest
child, so soon as it begins to think at all, works out for itself
something like a theory of human nature, he pretty soon began sounding
Myrtle's thoughts on this matter.

What was her own idea; he would be pl