A Little Protestant in Rome by Eglanton Thorne

Paul Adds a New Petition to his Prayers.

MRS. BERNARD went no more to the convent of the Sacré Cœur. The spell that drew her thither was broken; the gorgeous Roman rites and ceremonies had lost their fascination for her. She felt that she needed that which was at once greater and simpler. She wanted to know that she was forgiven, and the sin of the past blotted out; but she could no longer believe that any earthly priest had power to pronounce her forgiveness, or to make her peace with God.

She was restless and unhappy, and her friends found her moods unaccountable. She talked of leaving Rome, but could not make up her mind where to go. All places were alike distasteful to her. Even while she listened to the most favourable descriptions of places she had not visited, her heart sickened within her. She knew that she would feel heart-sore and weary wherever she went. It is not in the power of beautiful scenery, or the most perfect climate, or the gayest spectacles, to minister to a mind diseased. She was tired of wandering to and fro; her heart craved rest and home; but these were blessings she could never hope for more.

Then she sought relief in the fulfilment of duty. It struck her that she had not sufficiently realised her responsibility as a mother. She would devote herself to teaching and training her boy. Paul was not yet five; it was early to begin regular lessons, but in two years he might be taken from her, and she would no longer be able to do anything for him. Well, her husband should see that she had done her best for their child. Hitherto Janet alone had instructed Paul. She had taken pains to teach him his alphabet, and he was even beginning to read tiny words and to form his "o's" and "pothooks" in a funny quavering hand.

Paul was delighted when his mother became his teacher. She was astonished at the quickness with which he learned. "He will be a clever man," she said to herself, with a throb of mingled pride and pain. Then followed the thought-

"How proud of him his father will be!"

At that moment Clarice Bernard realised how much her husband was missing, how much he had lost of the joy of watching the development of this beautiful child. She no longer thought of her husband as a hard-hearted tyrant. She knew him capable of loving Paul with a love as deep and strong as her own, and there came to her a new sense of the wrong she had done him when she quitted his home. She breathed a heavy sigh, as she thought of "what might have been."

"Why do you sigh, mother? " asked Paul.

"I sigh because I am unhappy, darling," she replied.

"Why are you unhappy? " he said.

"I cannot tell you, Paul; you would not understand," she said gently.

"I do not like you to be unhappy," Paul said, almost with impatience. Children naturally shrink from those who are sad and melancholy, and there was not a more sensitive little mortal in the world than Paul. His mother's sigh checked for a moment his exuberant gladness, and cast a shadow on his loving little heart.

That evening Mrs. Bernard sent Janet out to make some purchases, and she herself put her boy to bed. As Paul knelt at her knee to say his evening prayer, his upturned face and curly head, emerging from the white-frilled nightgown, had the beauty and sweetness of one of the cherub heads which the old painters loved to depict.

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child,-" he repeated. At the close of the familiar lines, he offered a few petitions of his own.

"Please God, bless my mother, and make her not to be unhappy any more. And bless Janet, and please may she not hurt me so much when she combs my hair. And bless Orlando, and the lame boy who sells matches, and Marie and M. Roget, and-" There was a pause. Paul had opened his eyes, and those large blue orbs were looking with their deep earnest gaze into his mother's.

"Mother," he asked, "may I pray for my father?"

For a moment she could not speak; then she said, with breathless haste, "Yes, yes, surely, Paul; it is right that a little boy should pray for his father."

Paul shut his eyes, and continued his prayer.

"God bless my father," he said, "and make him a good man, and please let me see him very, very soon."

Mrs. Bernard's bosom heaved with a sigh as she heard him; she could not say "Amen" to her child's prayer.