ever, have contained ten righteous people, for whose sake
it should be spared!

The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and seemingly
self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and cane and went
forth to call on his heretical brother. The old minister took it for
granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew the private history of
his parishioner's family. He did not reflect that there are griefs
men never put into words,--that there are fears which must not be
spoken,--intimate matters of consciousness which must be carried,
as bullets which have been driven deep into the living tissues are
sometimes carried, for a whole lifetime,--encysted griefs, if we may
borrow the chirurgeon's term, never to be reached, never to be seen,
never to be thrown out, but to go into the dust with the frame that
bore them about with it, during long years of anguish, known only to the
sufferer and his Maker. Dudley Venner had talked with his minister about
this child of his. But he had talked cautiously, feeling his way for
sympathy, looking out for those indications of tact and judgment which
would warrant him in some partial communication, at least, of the origin
of his doubts and fears, and never finding them.

There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which repressed
all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this something was,
Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it distinctly, and it
sealed his lips. He never got beyond certain generalities connected
with education and religious instruction. The minister could not help
discovering, however, that there were difficulties connected with this
girl's management, and he heard enough outside of the family to convince
him that she had manifested tendencies, from an early age, at variance
with the theoretical opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in
a dim way of holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the
human being.

About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs
began to cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around its
nucleus. Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, had it not
been for the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every Sunday, on his
way to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of worshippers, swarming into the
pews like bees, filling all the aisles, running over at the door like
berries heaped too full in the measure,--some kneeling on the steps,
some stan