visiting Bruges and Ghent on their
way to Brussels and the Rhine. It is not our purpose to describe this
oft-travelled tour, or Laura's delight at the tranquil and ancient
cities which she saw for the first time, or Helen's wonder and interest
at the Beguine convents which they visited, or the almost terror with
which she saw the black-veiled nuns with outstretched arms kneeling
before the illuminated altars, and beheld the strange pomps and
ceremonials of the Catholic worship. Barefooted friars in the streets;
crowned images of Saints and Virgins in the churches before which people
were bowing down and worshipping, in direct defiance, as she held,
of the written law; priests in gorgeous robes, or lurking in dark
confessionals; theatres opened, and people dancing on Sundays,--all
these new sights and manners shocked and bewildered the simple country
lady; and when the young men after their evening drive or walk returned
to the widow and her adopted daughter, they found their books of
devotion on the table, and at their entrance Laura would commonly cease
reading some of the psalms or the sacred pages which, of all others,
Helen loved. The late events connected with her son had cruelly shaken
her; Laura watched with intense, though hidden anxiety, every movement
of her dearest friend; and poor Pen was most constant and affectionate
in waiting upon his mother, whose wounded bosom yearned with love
towards him, though there was a secret between them, and an anguish or
rage almost on the mother's part, to think that she was dispossessed
somehow of her son's heart, or that there were recesses in it which she
must not or dared not enter. She sickened as she thought of the sacred
days of boyhood when it had not been so--when her Arthur's heart had
no secrets, and she was his all in all: when he poured his hopes and
pleasures, his childish griefs, vanities, triumphs into her willing
and tender embrace; when her home was his nest still; and before fate,
selfishness, nature, had driven him forth on wayward wings--to range his
own flight--to sing his own song--and to seek his own home and his own
mate. Watching this devouring care and racking disappointment in her
friend, Laura once said to Helen, "If Pen had loved me as you wished,
I should have gained him, but I should have lost you, mamma, I know I
should; and I like you to love me best. Men do not know what it is to
love as we do, I think,"--and Helen, sighing, agreed to this p