he family being understood to
belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There was so little like religion
of any kind in the family, that the idea of their belonging to any faith
savored something of the ludicrous. In the case of poor Dolores,
however, it was different. The earnestness of her nature would always
have made any religious form a reality to her. In her case I was glad to
remember that the Romish Church, amid many corruptions, preserves all
the essential beliefs necessary for our salvation, and that many holy
souls have gone to heaven through its doors. I therefore was only
careful to direct her principal attention to the more spiritual parts of
her own faith, and to dwell on the great themes which all Christian
people hold in common.

Many of my persuasion would not have felt free to do this, but my
liberty of conscience in this respect was perfect. I have seen that if
you break the cup out of which a soul has been used to take the wine of
the gospel, you often spill the very wine itself. And after all, these
forms are but shadows of which the substance is Christ.

I am free to say, therefore, that the thought that your poor mother was
devoting herself earnestly to religion, although after the forms of a
church with which I differ, was to me a source of great consolation,
because I knew that in that way alone could a soul like hers find peace.

I have never rested from my efforts to obtain more information. A short
time before the incident which cast you upon our shore, I conversed with
a sea-captain who had returned from Cuba. He stated that there had been
an attempt at insurrection among the slaves of Don Guzman, in which a
large part of the buildings and out-houses of the estate had been
consumed by fire. On subsequent inquiry I learned that Don Guzman had
sold his estates and embarked for Boston with his wife and family, and
that nothing had subsequently been heard of him.

Thus, my young friend, I have told you all that I know of those singular
circumstances which have cast your lot on our shores. I do not expect at
your time of life you will take the same view of this event that I do.
You may possibly--very probably will--consider it a loss not to have
been brought up as you might have been in the splendid establishment of
Don Guzman, and found yourself heir to wealth and pleasure without
labor or exertion. Yet I am quite sure in that case that your value as a
human being would have been immeasurably le