ret of her want of religion, and once when I asked her the direct
question, frankly acknowledged: 'that she really did not know whether
there was any God at all.' She would not have denied it; but I never
disclosed it, I don't know whether she made such confessions to her
husband, but I almost think he would not have been puzzled by them; he
loved her very dearly. And to be sure, no one could help loving her; I
was unable to do so myself, long after I had given up trying to lead
her to the light which has guided me through all the depths and
shallows of this world. To be sure the fact that she was a Jewess,
rendered it difficult for her to obtain a knowledge of the truth. But
if she had only been a devout Jewess! I respect all genuine
convictions. But she, on the contrary, confessed to me with the calmest
possible face, that she knew no more of all the mysteries of life in
her thirtieth year than she did in her tenth; she did not _understand_
either this world or the next, and had no desire to fathom their
secrets; her beautiful, bright, thoughtless present, with her husband
and child, was all sufficient. I fairly started when this was first
uttered so plainly. What is this miserable twilight of our earthly
existence, if no ray from above warms and brightens it until we reach
the full light? And besides, hers was no shallow, sensual nature; or
how would she have been able to value so highly, love so fondly, her
delicate high-minded husband? But perhaps it was precisely because _he_
remained all his life as little understood by her, as she was by him,
that they were so fondly attached to each other. Possibly she felt a
secret longing for the peace of the children of God, and he, that
desire to save which does not renounce the most darkened nature and
ever seeks the lost! Besides, she was far from despising or jeering at
anything others held sacred, and took it as a matter of course that her
child should be educated in the religion of its father. As she herself
had none, and probably sometimes felt a horror of this nothingness, she
did not wish to sin against her daughter. But it was of no avail.
Nature is too powerful. I fear if the daughter were asked to answer a
plain question upon her conscience, she would be found to believe
little more of her catechism than her mother did."

The bell, which rang in the entry outside, interrupted the
conversation. "Unfortunately we shall be interrupted," said the lady,
hastily drying