O,
sir, what are earthly flowers compared with those blossoms of the soul
you have shed so liberally over us? Our immortal parts were all asleep
when you came here and wakened them by the fire of your words.
Eloquence! 't was a thing I had read of, but never heard, nor thought to
hear. Methought the orators and poets of the Church were all in their
graves this thousand years, and she must go all the way to heaven that
would hear the soul's true music. But I know better now."

Leonard colored high with pleasure, "Such praise from you is too sweet,"
he muttered. "I must not court it. The heart is full of vanity." And he
deprecated further eulogy, by a movement of the hand extremely refined,
and, in fact, rather feminine.

Deferring to his wish Mrs. Gaunt glided to other matters, and was
naturally led to speak of the prospects of their Church, and the
possibility of reconverting these islands. This had been the dream of
her young heart; but marriage and maternity, and the universal coldness
with which the subject had been received, had chilled her so, that of
late years she had almost ceased to speak of it. Even Leonard, on a
former occasion, had listened coldly to her; but now his heart was open
to her. He was, in fact, quite as enthusiastic on this point as ever she
had been; and then he had digested his aspirations into clearer forms.
Not only had he resolved that Great Britain must be reconverted, but had
planned the way to do it. His cheek glowed, his eyes gleamed, and he
poured out his hopes and his plans before her with an eloquence that few
mortals could have resisted.

As for this, his hearer, she was quite carried away by it. She joined
herself to his plans on the spot; she begged, with tears in her eyes, to
be permitted to support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her
substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her: the
hours passed like minutes in this high converse; and when the tinkling
of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her
with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly
in like one in a dream, and the world seemed dead to her forever.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ryder, combing out her long hair, gave one
inadvertent tug, the fair enthusiast came back to earth, and asked her,
rather sharply, who her head was running on.

Ryder, a very handsome young woman, with fine black eyes, made no