A Little Protestant in Rome by Eglanton Thorne

A Remarkable Stranger.

CLARICE BERNARD was by nature both artistic and luxurious, and an ample income made it easy for her to indulge her tastes. The only child of wealthy parents, she had been spoiled from her infancy, and, like most spoiled children, she had suffered when the arms which had so softly sheltered her were withdrawn, and she had to face alone the realities of life. That her troubles were of her own making did not render them more easy to bear. Living, to all appearance, a life of ease and pleasure, she was in truth a most unhappy woman.

A fond mother in her way, she yet found little satisfaction in her love for her child. He was a beautiful boy, with large, earnest blue eyes, before whose direct, searching gaze she sometimes shrank, inwardly feeling as if he could read the secrets of her heart.

She loved to buy Paul pretty clothes and costly toys, and to hear people speak of his beauty and charm; yet there were times when she wished that his eyes were not so deeply, purely blue, and that his fleeting expressions and unconscious gestures did not so constantly remind her of another.

"Paul is like you, and yet not like you," a lady said to her one day, as they sat together in the drawing-room at the hotel. "I fancy the difference will be more marked as he grows older. His eyes are not like yours. I suppose his father had blue eyes?"

"Yes, yes, it was so," said Mrs. Bernard hurriedly, and she turned to the piano and began to strike a few loud chords at random, as if anxious to check further speech.

The lady reflected that Mrs. Bernard must have loved her husband very much, since she could not bear even this slight reference to him.

Paul was so admired and petted at the hotel that he ran considerable danger of being spoiled, and doubtless would have suffered, but for the conscientious efforts of his Scotch nurse to counteract the mischief. She never failed to remind him in moments of elation of his natural depravity.

"Yes, the suit's all right," she would say; "it's bran' new velvet and real lace; but I'm thinking the worst part's in the middle. God keep us humble, for we've little cause to be proud, when we think what our hearts are."

"Is my heart so very bad, do you think, nurse? " Paul would ask, with an air of concern.

"It mayn't be the worst or the best," said his nurse; "but what of that? The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."

"But you said that God would give me a new heart, if I asked Him, and I have asked Him; I am always asking Him," said Paul, with some impatience. "I should think He must have given it to me by now."

"The heart needs to be renewed every day," said his nurse gravely; "but now keep still while I fasten your collar. It is impossible for me to button it while you keep jerking your head about."

In spite of her Scotch birth, Janet found Paul difficult to deal with when he waxed argumentative. She was often both astonished and rebuked by his faith in prayer. When quite a wee boy, he had insisted on saying the Lord's Prayer in a fashion of his own, with the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread and honey and jam."

When Janet reproved him for making this addition, he replied, "But, nurse, you say that we may ask God for whatever we want. Bread alone will not do for me; I must have honey and jam."

And he continued to repeat the prayer in his own way.

Paul and his nurse occupied a large and airy room in the hotel, with a balcony overlooking the Piazza di Spagna. The balcony was a never-failing source of diversion to Paul. From it he could watch all the life of the Piazza-the carriages rolling to and fro, the arrivals at the hotel, the flower-sellers with the beautiful, many-hued flowers massed together on their stalls, the pedlars with the mosaics and tortoise-shells they so seldom seemed to sell, and the artists' models in their picturesque costumes. Sometimes his nurse would bring her needle-work, and sit just within the window, that she might be at hand to answer as best she could Paul's innumerable questions.

One evening about sunset, as Paul, after returning from his walk, was amusing himself in the balcony, a carriage drove up to the door of the hotel bringing a young lady, who had evidently come from a journey, since a quantity of luggage was piled up in the front of the conveyance.

She was quite young-too young, one might have thought, to be travelling alone-and very smartly dressed. Masses of red-golden hair were visible beneath her black velvet hat; her cheeks had a delicate bloom, and her eyes were large and bright, with finely-pencilled brows.

Paul looked at her and admired her with a child's ready appreciation of surface prettiness. Then his eyes were caught by the knowing-looking pug which sat on the seat beside his mistress.