light of divine
knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
held out his hand.

"My dear pastor," he said, "I am become as a little child. I belong to
you; I give my soul to your care."

Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
moved, recited the "Veni Creator" in a species of religious ecstasy.
The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
together for the first time.

"What has happened?" asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.

"My godfather believes in God at last!" replied Ursula.

"Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect," cried
the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.

"Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the
grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find
its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
sceptics."

The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's
evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible
editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His dear child
told him that he might know by how far he had advanced already in God's
kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the
prayers and applied his own intelligence to them; from the first, he
had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The
old neophyte understood the eternal symbol attached to that sacred
nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to
it her own profound and radiant essence. When on leaving the church he
had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely that he might once
more thank his dear child for having led him to "enter religion,"--the
beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in
the salon and kissing