It was enough to make any one laugh-and really, Jemima, I must laugh again-how strange you look! Where are you? Why, where should you be but in the Asylum of the Good Shepherd, where I hope you will pass many years." Jemima was quite bewildered when she woke from her vivid dream, and actually for some minutes would not believe that she had been dreaming, but the dull reality of her position by degrees forced itself on her, and after a few minutes of confusion in her mind, she sat up in bed with a full consciousness of everything. How tiresome of little Valerie to laugh so! what was there to laugh at! but Valerie, seeing that Jemima looked cross, checked her merriment, and said, "Mother St. Stanislas would not let me wake you this morning when the bell rang-but only think of the sleep you must have been in, not to hear it and not to hear the children in the dormitory getting up and all passing you; but now the first bell for mass has rung, and you must make haste and dress, and the second bell will ring in a quarter of an hour, and I will come up when it does, to tie on your cap, and show you the way to the chapel. I dare say you

could not put on your own cap, could you?" "To mass!" said Jemima, slowly, "must I go to mass!" "Must you! of course. Why, Jemima, it would be a sin for a Catholic not to go to mass on Sunday! Protestants and Catholics all go here. No one can be absent on a Sunday from mass, except for illness."

(67)

OUR HELP IS IN

THE NAME OF THELORE

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

Nature and Grace.

"My son, when thou enterest upon the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation."

Lines suggested by the " Ecce Homo" of Coreggio.

ALERIE returned as she had said and

conducted the trembling Jemima to the chapel. As they entered, the priest was repeating with bended head the words "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," and they struck upon Jemima's conscience with the force of a reproach from the altar. Poor Jemima! she had

indeed well deserved it; for in the recklessness of her guilt she had neglected the most positive commands of the Church, and feeling deeply the necessity of appearing before God with very different dispositions from those which she had unfortunately given way to, she shrank from offending the sanctuary of all purity, and, since her fall, had never entered a Catholic chapel. Forced, as it were, in the present circumstances to attend divine service, she fell on her knees as far from the altar as she could, and covered her face to hide the burning blush of shame which suffused her very temples. Mass having begun, she was allowed to remain half hidden in the place she had chosen, and, strange to say, though she had shed so many tears the day before, her eyes were quite dry now. She felt oppressed and humbled: there was a something in her heart which she had never felt before; a revolt against every thing that was good: her blushes passed, and she ventured to raise her eyes, but it was to examine every thing about her, and that with no feeling of sorrow or contrition. Opposite to where she knelt there was a painting in oil of St. Mary Magdalen. It hung in the nuns' chapel, which was separated from

the penitents' and at right angles with it, but one altar served for both, the nuns having it in face of them, the penitents having a side view. She fixed her eyes on this picture with a hard look, a sort of stare. No pen can tell what passed in that troubled bosom as she slowly moved her eyes from the priest to the picture, and from St. Magdalen back to the officiating priest. God of Heaven! is that soul given by Thee lost! Is the creature made to Thy image and likeness about to hate Thee! What are these black thoughts which cause a wildness in Jemima's tearless eyes -what devil is tempting her to return to, nay, to plunge yet deeper in her life of sin? God of mercy, touch that heart of stone, nothing is too difficult for Thee! But what unholy thoughts are these which intrude in Thy very presence? Why is Jemima ruminating on the ease with which she could see Lord Henry again, he was only out of town for a short time, she could send a letter to his club, and he would never in real earnest leave her,—it must have been a mistake, his having so long absented himself from their former lodgings, and she had been too proud in not writing to ask him for some explanation. It was not too late, she would leave the Asylum