error of Protestantism. In loving you she would love your creed, and would return to your church as to the friend of her infancy. You could not refuse her right to worship at the same altar, offer up the same prayers with yourself, and train up her children in their father's faith?"
"God forbid that I should attempt it! Though I would not invite her to join me, I could not desire to hinder her."
"Thus the soul of my Margarita would be lost; and how do I know that some terrible accident or wasting disease might not cut her off before my eyes, as the retribution due to the transgression?"
"Allow me to say, madam, that you lived several years in great peace and comfort with the Count, each party following different forms of worship, but both obeying that spirit of Christian charity which is above all forms—if you were not converted by the Count, whom you undoubtedly loved entirely, why should Margarita yield obedience to my more simple code?"
"Because it is more simple, and, in its simplicity, becomes sublime to a mind like her's—in my days of darkness I did not like the ceremonies of the church, but classed them with silly mummeries, hardening my heart against that which I did not understand—now you would have no such feelings to contend with; Margarita could not be disgusted with your inefficient, but interesting worship; on the contrary, she would embrace it with the proviso of aiding it by the adop-
