Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/361

 heard their compositions in prose and verse. Nearly all the teachers were from the Northern States; mostly from New England, and mostly also young, pretty, and agreeable girls. All were assembled at the house of the bishop in the evening of the concluding day of the examination. I was not well that day, partly from the heat, and partly from the fear I have of company, and the duties which it imposes upon me; but in the midst of the heat and the company I was roused by my Scandinavian spirit, and proposed the game of “lend me your fire-stick,” into which all the, hitherto stiff, young girls entered merrily, and there was a deal of laughter, and the good bishop himself became so amused that he laughed heartily; and when we rested from that game, he himself began another—a quiet and intellectual game, in which his clever little wife distinguished herself, as did he also. Thus passed the evening, amid games and merriment, and I forgot the heat and weariness and indisposition, and went lightly and cheerfully to rest, glad in particular that I had seen the good bishop cheerful.

The next morning I was to set off with Bishop Eliott, and two of the young girls. We assembled, the bishop's family and I, to morning prayers. But how deeply was I affected this morning, when after the customary prayers (the bishop and we all, as usual, kneeling), I heard him utter for the stranger who was now visiting in his family, a prayer as warm, as beautiful, as appropriate, as if he had read the depths of my heart and knew its secret combats, its strivings, its object,—my own soul's inmost infinite prayer. I could merely, with tears in my eyes, press his hand between mine.

Accompanied by him and the two young ladies, I found myself once more on the paths of the wilderness between Montpellier and Maçon, where I was received under the roof of his curate, young Mr. S., and his handsome young wife; for the bishop would not permit me to return to