Page:A New England Tale.djvu/169

158 CHAPTER XI.

, exhausted by the agitations of the night, contrary to her usual custom, remained in bed much longer than the other members of the family, and did not awake from deep and unquiet slumbers, till the bell called the household to prayers.

Mrs. Wilson was scrupulous in exacting the attendance of every member of her family at her morning and evening devotions. With this requisition Jane punctually and cheerfully complied, as she did with all those that did not require a violation of principle. But still she had often occasion secretly to lament, that where there was so much of the form of worship, there was so little of its spirit and truth; and she sometimes felt an involuntary self reproach, that her body should be in the attitude of devotion, while her mind was following her aunt through earth, sea, and skies,