"Yet if there be bad news, why shouldn't I know it?" said she. "I must know it some day." "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" said the Doctor, gravely. "And if bad news should ever come to you, my dear Adaly,--though I have none to tell you now,--may you have strength to bear it like a Christian!" "I will! I can!" said she, with a great glow upon her face. Never more than in that moment had the heart of the old gentleman warmed toward Adele. Not by any possibility could he make himself the willing instrument of punishing the sin of the father through this trustful and confiding girl. Nay, he felt, as he looked upon her, that he could gladly make of himself a shelter for her against such contempt or neglect as the world might have in store. When Reuben came presently to summon Adele to their evening engagement at the Elderkins', the Doctor followed their retreating figures, as they strolled out of the parsonage-gate, with a new and strange interest. Most inscrutable and perplexing was the fact, that this outcast child, whom scarce one in his parish would have been willing to admit to the familiarities of home,--this daughter of infidel France, about whose mind the traditions of the Babylonish harlot had so long lingered,--who had never known motherly counsel or a father's reproof,--that she, with the stain of heathenism upon her skirts, should have grown into the possession of such a holy, placid, and joyous trust. And there was his poor son beside her, the child of so many hopes, reared, as it were, under the very droppings of the altar, still wandering befogged in the mazes of error, if, indeed, he were not in his secret heart a scoffer. Now that such a result was wholly impracticable and impossible, it did occur to him that perhaps no helpmeet for Reuben could so surely guide him in the way of truth. But of any perplexity of judgment on this score he was now wholly relieved. If his own worldly pride had not stood in the way, (and he was dimly conscious of a weakness of this kind,) the wish of Maverick was authoritative and final. The good man had not the slightest conception of how matters might really stand between the two young parties; he had discovered the anxieties of Miss Eliza in regard to them, and had often queried with himself if too large a taint of worldliness were not coloring the manoeuvres of his good sister. For himself he chose rather to leave the formation of all such ties in the hands of Providence, and entertained singularly old-fashioned notions in regard to the sacredness of the marriage-bond and the mystery of its establishment.