by these or the gentle teachings and lofty morality of the New Testament. He read the Bible as he did the works of other great authors, to please his fancy, his imagination, but not as the Book in which choice of life and death, the mode of attaining the one and avoiding the other, is offered to mankind. Maria, like most women, possessed deeply religious sensibilities. The Bible was not to her a sealed book, and she was unconsciously most probably to herself, much influenced in her actions by its teachings. But her mode of life and that of her husband had not been such as to allow it to make any very deep impression on her. Had one charged her with being deficient in religious feeling she would have shrunk back from it with horror. But, in very truth, though the germs may have been planted in her heart, the requisite sun and rain had not yet reached them to mature them. With such views, they had not hastened their motions churchward, and, since their removal, were under some feeling of embarrassment at a first meeting with a congregation all strangers to them. CHAPTER V. On the Sunday succeeding the tea-party at Mrs. Holmes’, our hero and heroine solved the problem in regard to their church-going by appearing in the Episcopal church at Euston. Thus it was settled that they did intend to go to church, and also where they intended to go; two very important points for the gossips of the neighborhood. Mr. Dawson had called on the church-warden to obtain a pew a day or two before; the fact was duly communicated to his wife, and by her to some of the ladies of the congregation, so that when the Sunday morning arrived the new comers were duly expected. She would of course be dressed in her best silk dress, made in newest fashion; and her hat of the same material, would also be a glass in which the ladies of Euston could mould their own. Great was the surprise of sundry good ladies, who cast furtive glances over their shoulder, when a young lady of graceful mien and carriage, and who could be no other than the expected one, followed the warden, who politely pointed out their seats to the strangers, up the aisle. Attired in a simple, white muslin dress, with a plain straw hat, slightly trimmed with green ribbon, Maria, holding her little boy by the hand, disappointed expedition. There was no time for criticism, for immediately after the clergyman entered the desk, and as there was no grand preliminary flourish by the organ of some favorite aria from Rossini or Bellini, the services commenced.