half understand, but there
was an awful solemnity about the transaction, that overpowered him. He
and Dame Briton had come to the meeting because Clarice urged them to do
so;--she had said she was going to make a public promise about Gabriel,
and that was all she told them; for, beside that there was little time
for explanation in the hurry of preparing Gabriel and herself, Clarice's
heart was too deeply stirred to admit of speech. After she had obtained
the promise of her parents, she said no more to them; they did not hear
her speak again until her firm "I will" broke on their ears.

Dame Briton was not half pleased at what she saw and heard, during this
service. She looked at Bondo Emmins to see what he was thinking,--but
little she learned from his solemn face. When the sign of the cross was
laid on the forehead of Clarice, and on the forehead of Gabriel, a
frown for an instant was seen on his own; but it was succeeded by an
expression of feature such as made the dame look quickly away, for in
that same instant his eyes were upon her.

Enough of surprise and gaping wonder would Dame Briton have discovered
in other directions, had she sought the evidences; but from Bondo Emmins
she looked down at her "old man," and she saw his tears. Then came
Clarice, and before she knew it she was holding the little Christian
Gabriel in her stern old arms, and kissing away the drops of hallowed
water that flashed upon his eye-lids.

A sermon followed, the like of which, for poetry or wonder, was never
heard among these people. The preacher seemed to think this an occasion
for all his eloquence; nay, for the sake of justice, I will say, his
heart was full of rejoicing, for now he believed a church was grafted
here, a Branch which the Root would nourish. His words served to deepen
the impression made by the ceremonial. Clarice Briton and little Gabriel
shone in white raiment that day; and, thanks to him, when he went on to
prove the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth one with that mysterious majesty
on high, a single leap took Clarice Briton over the boundaries of faith.

VII.

But if to others Clarice seemed to have passed the boundary line of
their dominion, to herself the bond of neighborhood was strengthened.
The missionary told her all he had a right to expect of her now, as a
fellow-worker, and pointed out to her the ways in which she might second
his labors at the Bay. It was but a new form of the old work to which
she had