e time communing with the very God himself, manifest in
his own shape, which is ours also!--all the time learning that her
imagination could never--not to say originate, but, when presented,
receive into it the unspeakable excess of his loveliness, of his
absolute devotion and tenderness to the creatures, the children of his
father!

In the absence of Miss Carmichael she had thought with less oppression
of many things that in her presence appeared ghastly-hopeless; now in
the prospect of her reappearance she began to feel wicked in daring a
thought of her own concerning the God that was nearer to her than her
thoughts! Such an unhealthy mastery had she gained over her! What if
they met Donal, and she saw her smile to him as she always did now! One
thing she was determined upon--and herein lay the pledge of her coming
freedom!--that she would not behave to him in the least otherwise than
her wont. If she would be worthy, she must be straightforward!

Donal and she had never had any further talk, much as she would have
liked it, upon things poetic. As a matter of supposed duty--where she
had got the idea I do not know--certainly not from Miss Carmichael,
seeing she approved of little poetry but that of Young, Cowper, Pollok,
and James Montgomery--she had been reading the Paradise Lost, and
wished much to speak of it to Donal, but had not the courage.

When Miss Carmichael came, she at once perceived a difference in her,
and it set her thinking. She was not one to do or say anything without
thinking over it first. She had such a thorough confidence in her
judgment, and such a pleasure in exercising it, that she almost always
rejected an impulse. Judgment was on the throne; feeling under the
footstool. There was something in Arctura's carriage which reminded her
of the only time when she had stood upon her rank with her. This was
once she made a remark disparaging a favourite dog: for the animals
Arctura could brave even her spiritual nightmare: they were not under
the wrath and curse like men and women, therefore might be defended!
She had on that occasion shown so much offence that Miss Carmichael
saw, if she was to keep her influence over her, she must avoid rousing
the phantom of rank in defence of prejudice. She was now therefore
careful--said next to nothing, but watched her keenly, and not the less
slyly that she looked her straight in the face. There is an effort to
see into the soul of others that is essentially