Yes, she trusts Him,--she knows she trusts Him. Why not? Whom else to trust? No tender motherly care and guidance; the father, by these years of absence, made almost a stranger. The low voice of her native land, that comes to her ear with a charming flow from the lips of her new teacher, never to speak of her doubts or questionings; the constrained love of the Doctor, her New Papa, framing itself, whenever it touches upon the deeper motives of her nature, in stark formulas of speech, that blind and confound her; the spinster sister talking kindly, but commending the tie of her hat-ribbons in the same tone with which she urges adherence to some cumbrous enunciation of doctrine. And Adèle cherishes her little friendships (most of all with Rose); not alive as yet to any tenderer and stronger passion that shall engross her, and make or mar her life; swinging her reticule, as in the days gone by, under the trees that embower the village street; loving the bloom, the verdure, the singing of the birds, but with every month now--as she begins to fathom the abyss of life with her own thought--grown more serious. It is always thus: the girl we toyed with yesterday with our inanities of speech is to-morrow, by some sudden reach of womanly thought, another creature,--out of range, and so alert, that, if we would conquer her, we must bring up our heaviest siege-trains. XXXII. In the summer of 1837, Maverick, who had continued eminently successful, determined to sail for America, and to make good his promise of a visit to the Doctor and Adèle. It may appear somewhat inexplicable that a father should have deferred to so late a day the occasion of meeting and greeting an only child. That his attachment was strong, his letters, full of expressions of affection, had abundantly shown; but the engrossments of business had been unceasing, and he had met them with that American abandonment of other thought, which, while it insures special success, is too apt to make shipwreck of all besides. He was living, moreover, without experience of those tender family ties which ripen a man's domestic affections, and make the absence of a child--most of all, an only child--a daily burden.