"Doubtless," said Euphrasie, "there are ordinary modes of acting upon mind, both by the action of matter and by the action of other minds; but as the special object of this life is to reunite, to re-bind man to his Creator, supernatural means are ever at work to effect this object, and of these we can predicate nothing certain." "Supernatural nonsense, child--who put this precious style of reasoning into your head?" "Does not religion mean re-binding, madam? Was not man severed from God by disobedience? Was not the whole spirit of religion, both before and since our Lord's advent, founded on the fact that the mercy of God wished to provide a remedy for that fatal act of Adam and Eve? And has not insentient nature ever been made to depart from her ordinary rules, when such departure could forward the cause for which Christ died?" Mrs. Godfrey was silenced. She did not wish to avow her scepticism and infidelity, but in secret she rejoiced that her own children were free from such a bar to improvement. The arrival of a box of books as a present to Euphrasie from M. de Villeneuve, who, in a note addressed to the countess, asked her permission "to be allowed to present to the daughter of his departed friend a few works which, he believed, would suit her taste, and which she would be scarcely likely to find in Mr. Godfrey's library, valuable as that library was in many respects," came to help the enemy's {36} cause in Mrs. Godfrey's view of the case, for among the works were selections from St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, from Bede, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others of the fathers of the church. "I did not know you read Latin, cousin," said the girls in surprise. "Nor do I, except church Latin," said Euphrasie. "I learnt church Latin on purpose to study these books, which my father had promised me as soon as I could read them. M. de Villeneuve must have heard of this promise from M. Bertolot. It was very kind in him to send them to me." "I wonder you did not say 'it was a special providence'," bantered Annie; but Eugene looked at her beseechingly and reprovingly, so she said no more. In spite of the new attraction, Euphrasie continued to study the course appointed by Mrs. Godfrey, but in learning thus there was so evidently a want of appreciation of the importance of the study--science seemed to her so very little higher than a game of ball with a little child--that her instructors were fairly discomfited, and inclined to turn her over to the musty old fathers she had the bad taste to prefer to their intelligent elucidations. The young people, too, were annoyed, for they could not attribute to stupidity the indifference she manifested, and that indifference seemed felt as a tacit reproach of their own eagerness.