, of God's care and love towards him,--towards this
poor, forsaken man, who, if any mortal could, might have been pardoned
for regarding himself as thrown aside, forgotten, and left to be the
sport of some fiend, whose playfulness was an ecstasy of mischief.

It was the Sabbath morning; one of those bright, calm Sabbaths, with
its own hallowed atmosphere, when Heaven seems to diffuse itself over
the earth's face in a solemn smile, no less sweet than solemn. On such
a Sabbath morn, were we pure enough to be its medium, we should be
conscious of the earth's natural worship ascending through our frames,
on whatever spot of ground we stood. The church-bells, with various
tones, but all in harmony, were calling out and responding to one
another,--"It is the Sabbath!--The Sabbath!--Yea; the Sabbath!"--and
over the whole city the bells scattered the blessed sounds, now slowly,
now with livelier joy, now one bell alone, now all the bells together,
crying earnestly,--"It is the Sabbath!"--and flinging their accents
afar off, to melt into the air and pervade it with the holy word. The
air with God's sweetest and tenderest sunshine in it, was meet for
mankind to breathe into their hearts, and send it forth again as the
utterance of prayer.

Clifford sat at the window with Hepzibah, watching the neighbors as
they stepped into the street. All of them, however unspiritual on
other days, were transfigured by the Sabbath influence; so that their
very garments--whether it were an old man's decent coat well brushed
for the thousandth time, or a little boy's first sack and trousers
finished yesterday by his mother's needle--had somewhat of the quality
of ascension-robes. Forth, likewise, from the portal of the old house
stepped Phoebe, putting up her small green sunshade, and throwing
upward a glance and smile of parting kindness to the faces at the
arched window. In her aspect there was a familiar gladness, and a
holiness that you could play with, and yet reverence it as much as
ever. She was like a prayer, offered up in the homeliest beauty of
one's mother-tongue. Fresh was Phoebe, moreover, and airy and sweet in
her apparel; as if nothing that she wore--neither her gown, nor her
small straw bonnet, nor her little kerchief, any more than her snowy
stockings--had ever been put on before; or, if worn, were all the
fresher for it, and with a fragrance as if they had lain among the
rosebuds.

The girl waved her hand to Hepzibah a