Chapter 27 - Page 2

religious vitality, while in truth the
soul might only be slumbering in the security of mere moral pretension.

On the present occasion, they who worshipped in secret had bent their
bodies to the humblest posture of devotion. When Ruth Heathcote arose from
her knees, it was with a hand clasped in that of the child whom her recent
devotion was well suited to make her think had been rescued from a
condition far more gloomy than that of the grave. She had used a gentle
violence to force the wondering being at her side to join, so far as
externals could go, in the prayer; and, now it was ended, she sought the
countenance of her daughter, in order to read the impression the scene had
produced, with all the solicitude of a Christian, heightened by the
tenderest maternal love.

Narra-mattah, as we shall continue to call her, in air, expression, and
attitude, resembled one who had a fancied existence in the delusion of
some exciting dream. Her ear remembered sounds which had so often been
repeated in her infancy, and her memory recalled indistinct recollections
of most of the objects and usages that were so suddenly replaced before
her eyes; but the former now conveyed their meaning to a mind that had
gained its strength under a very different system of theology, and the
latter came too late to supplant usages that were rooted in her affections
by the aid of all those wild and seductive habits; that are known to
become nearly unconquerable in those who have long been subject to their
influence. She stood, therefore, in the centre of the grave,
self-restrained group of her nearest kin, like an alien to their blood,
resembling some timid and but half-tamed tenant of the air, that human art
had endeavored to domesticate, by placing it in the society of the more
tranquil and confiding inhabitants of the aviary.

Notwithstanding the strength of her affections, and her devotion to all
the natural duties of her station, Ruth Heathcote was not now to learn the
manner in which she was to subdue any violence in their exhibition. The
first indulgence of joy and gratitude was over, and in its place appeared
the never-tiring, vigilant, engrossing, but regulated watchfulness, which
the events would naturally create. The doubts, misgivings, and even
fearful apprehensions, that beset her, were smothered in an appearance of
satisfaction; and something like gleamings of happiness were again seen
playing about a brow that had so long been clouded with an unobtrusive
but corroding care.

"And thou recallest thine infancy, my Ruth?" asked the mother, when the
respectful period of silence, which ever succeeded prayer in that family,
was passed; "thy thoughts have not been altogether strangers to us, but
nature hath