No wonder the good Doctor is disheartened, and trusts more and more, in respect to his boy, to the silent influences of the Spirit. Adele has no open quarrels with Miss Johns; she is obedient; she, too, has fallen under the influence of that magnetic voice, and accepts the orders and the commendations conveyed by it as if they were utterances of Fate. Yet, with her childish instincts, she has formed a very fair estimate of the character of Miss Eliza; it is doubtful even if she has not fathomed it in certain directions more correctly and profoundly than the grave Doctor. She sees clearly that the spinster's unvarying solicitude in regard to the dress and appearance of "dear Adele" is due more to that hard pride of character which she nurses every day of her life than to any tenderness for the little stranger. For at the hands of her old godmother and of her father Adele has known what real tenderness was. It is a lesson children never unlearn. "Adele, my dear, you look charmingly to-day, with that pink bow in your hair. Do you know, I think pink is becoming to you, my child?" And Adele listens with a composed smile, not unwilling to be admired. What girl of--any age is? But the admiration of Miss Johns does not touch her; it never calls a tear to her eye. In the bright belt-buckle, in the big leg-of-mutton sleeves, in the glittering brooch containing coils of the Johns' hair, in the jaunty walk and authoritative air of the spinster, the quick, keen eye of Adele sees something more than the meek Christian teacher and friend. It is a sin in her to see it, perhaps; but she cannot help it. Miss Johns has not succeeded in exciting the jealousy of Reuben,--at least, not in the manner she had hoped. Her influence over him is clearly on the wane. He sees, indeed, her exaggerated devotion to the little stranger,--which serves, in her presence, at least, to call out all his indifference. Yet even this, Adele, with her girlish instinct, seems to understand, too, and bears the boy no grudge in consequence of it. Nay, when he has received some special administration of the parson's discipline, she allows her sympathy to find play in a tender word or two that touch Reuben more than he dares to show. And when they meet down the orchard, away from the lynx eye of Aunt Eliza, there are rare apples far out upon overhanging limbs that he can pluck, by dint of venturous climbing, for her; and as he sees through the boughs her delicate figure tripping through the grass, and lingers to watch it, there comes a thought that _she_ must be the Amanda of the story, and not Rose,--and he, perched in the apple-tree, a glowing Mortimer. XXIII.