Never once had Felix wavered in his desire to take orders and become a
clergyman, from the time his boyish imagination had been fired by the
stories of his great-grandfather's perils and labors in the Jura.
Felicita had looked coldly on his resolution, having a quiet contempt
for English clergymen, in spite of her friendship for Mr. Pascal, if
friendship it could be called. For each year as it passed over Felicita
left her in a separation from her fellow-creatures, always growing more
chilly and dreary. It seemed to herself as if her lips were even losing
the use of language, and that only with her pen could she find vent in
expression. And these written thoughts of hers, printed and published
for any eye to read, how unutterably empty of all but bitterness she
found them. She almost marvelled at the popularity of her own books. How
could it be that the cynical, scornful pictures she drew of human nature
and human fellowship could be read so eagerly? She felt ashamed of her
children seeing them, lest they should learn to distrust all men's truth
and honor, and she would not suffer a word to be said about them in her
own family.

But Madame Sefton, in her failing old age, was always ready to
sympathize with Felix, and to help to keep him steady to her own simple
faith; and Phebe was on the same side. These two women, with their
quiet, unquestioning trust in God, and sweet charity toward their
fellow-men, did more for Felix than all the opposing influences of
college life could undo; and when his grandmother's peaceful and happy
death set the last seal on her truthful life, Felix devoted himself with
renewed earnestness to the career he had chosen. To enter the lists in
the battle against darkness, and ignorance, and sin, wherever these foes
were to be met in close quarters, was his ambition; and the enthusiasm
with which he followed it made Felicita smile, yet sigh with unutterable
bitterness as she looked into the midnight gloom of her own soul.

It became quite plain to Felicita as the years passed by that her son
was no genius. At present there was a freshness and singleness of
purpose about him, which, with the charm of his handsome young face and
the genial simplicity of his manners, made him everywhere a favorite,
and carried him into circles where a graver man and a deeper thinker
could not find entrance; but let twenty years pass by, and Felix, she
said to herself, would be nothing but a commonplace country cl