The first impressions of a lonely childhood; the first workings of the family history upon his boyish sense, like the faint, perpetual touches of an unseen hand moulding the will and the character; the picture of his patient mother on her sofa, surrounded with her little religious books, twisted and tormented, yet always smiling; his early collisions with his morose and half-educated father--he passed from these to the days of his first Communion, the beginnings of the personal life. "But I had very little fervour then, such as many boys feel. I did not doubt--I would not have shown any disrespect to my religion for the world, mostly, I think, from family pride--but I felt no ardour, and did not pretend any. My mother sometimes shed tears over it, and was comforted by her old confessor--so she told me when she was dying--who used to say to her: 'Feeling is good, but obedience is better. He obeys;' for I did all my religious duties without difficulty. Then at thirteen I was sent to Stonyhurst. And there, after a while, God began His work in me." He paused a moment; and when he resumed, his voice shook: "Among the masters there was a certain Father Lewin. He took an affection for me, and I for him. He was even then a dying man, but he accomplished more, and was more severe to himself, than any man in health I ever knew. So long as he lived, he made the path of religion easy to me. He was the supernatural life before my eyes. I had only to open them and see. The only difference between us was that I began--first out of love for him, I suppose--to have a great wish to become a Jesuit; whereas he was against it--he thought there were too many special claims upon me here. Then, when I was eighteen, he died. I had seen him the day before, when there seemed to be no danger, or they concealed it from me. But in the night I was called, too late to hear him speak; he was already in his agony. The sight terrified me. I had expected something much more consoling--more beautiful. For a long time I could not shake off the impression, the misery of it." He was silent again for a minute. He still held Laura's hands close, as though there was something in their touch that spurred him on.