"As soon as my mother is rested, and when I have gathered some flowers for her," said Evelyn. She then opened a little wicket-gate, which Mabel and her brother had not perceived, and took them into a long sheltered walk, where several plants, still in beautiful blossom, amply compensated for the deficiencies of the flower-garden. They soon returned with a rich bouquet for Mrs. Desmond, who proposed that they should then go to the bees to satisfy Gerald, and afterwards, as she still felt a little tired, return to the house. But Mr. Desmond interposed, and, advising the young people to go to the bees or wherever they liked, recommended Mrs. Desmond's immediate return to the house, and offered an arm to each of his companions. The children and their sister, pleased at the interruption of a formal walk, hurried away; and Mr. Desmond, glad to have an opportunity of talking to Mrs. Manvers about Evelyn, said, "You and she seem to have quite laid aside the painfully cold reserve that I perceived when I was here last; but have you acquired any influence over her?"

"I cannot boast of much," replied Mrs. Manvers. "Now and then she has, I acknowledge, yielded to my arguments against some fancy, but in general she adheres most steadily to her first determination. When the time is past, and she sees her mistake, she is then always ready to confess it candidly."

"I am afraid my poor child is more wilful and obstinate than I had imagined. Perhaps she ought to be placed more decidedly under your control."

66

No, I think not. She says herself that she shall learn best by experience; and I believe she is right. When she finds what difficulties her inconsiderate generosity and her willingness to promise assistance to the poor around her have caused, she will learn to guide herself with more prudence." "Yes; I hope we have not allowed her to go too far, however," said Mr. Desmond, thoughtfully; it may be more difficult to vanquish an acquired habit than to have prevented it."

66

"I understood it to be your wish," said Mrs. Manvers, "that I should not directly interfere with her management,

unless on very urgent occasions; and this I did in one or two instances in regard to expenditure; but had I attempted more I should have teased her into a discontented temper, without having convinced her reason. I was unhappy, however, at the difficulties which I feared she might fall into, and was going to write to you when, fortunately, your present visit saved me from that necessity. She dislikes control, but she would have been indignant if she thought I acted as a spy; therefore I will not enter into any particulars of her conduct. Now that you are here, she will, I am sure, detail to you whatever she has done. She is perfectly open and true, and those invaluable qualities will greatly facilitate your efforts to regulate her conduct."

"You are very right. Pray do not imagine that I was discontented with you; on the contrary, I feel that it was a most happy circumstance for her and me that you were so kind as to consent to take such an anxious charge upon you." "I think," said Mrs. Desmond, "that she is already much improved in many small things; her manners very much indeed. How did she appear at Ardescar Hall? "

"Just what you would have liked-modest but not abashed -at ease but not forward-and as ready to join in conversation with the old as to be amused with the young people. Altogether she enjoyed the visit, and seemed surprised at finding such polished society in this wild country.".

"The dear child," said Mr. Desmond, laughing heartily, "is very amusing between her enthusiastic fondness for Ireland and the silly prejudices that she imbibed from the people among whom she chiefly lived-wholly ignorant as they are of Ireland and its inhabitants."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Traces everywhere of a Deluge

Double Peak of Mount Ararat

Caves and Hills Held Sacred
Arkite and Fire Worship.

SEIZING a convenient opportunity when there was no danger of interruption, Evelyn said to her father, "When you were conversing, papa, with Mr. T and Mr. White about antiquities, I think I heard you say that traces of the deluge, besides those impressed on the surface of the earth, may be found in every country. Will you be so good as to explain what you meant, if it will not be too troublesome ? "

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Why should you think it troublesome? To gratify your inquiring mind is one of the greatest pleasures that I can enjoy."

"Thank you, dear papa. I was afraid also that you would consider it to be too learned a subject for me."

"Oh no! I think knowledge of that kind should be much more generally cultivated than it is. I was saying that in every region of the world that has been visited, travellers have found that a universal deluge may be distinctly traced, not alone in its effects on the physical state of the globe, but also in the traditions which that stupendous event seems to have everywhere left among the inhabitants, and which are apparent in many of their customs and monuments. They appear to have been originally founded on the ceremonies instituted by Noah and his family in commemoration of their deliverance from the ark; and though afterwards mixed up with fabulous tales and degraded by superstitious and disgusting rites, they are still perceptible in every country."

"Is it not extraordinary that any customs should yet exist which began in such very remote times?"

"Not so surprising as you seem to think; for when you

consider the gratitude that their miraculous preservation must have produced in the survivors of that dreadful convulsion, and the indelible impression it must have made on their minds, you will not wonder that the simple worship by which they endeavoured to express those feelings should have been handed down from father to son for many generations, nor that some vestiges of that worship should be traced in those superstitions which still exist. It is a well-known fact that religious belief, though, like all earthly things, liable to corruption, is yet that which takes the deepest root in the heart of man.'

"But how could idolatrous customs have first begun? Noah himself worshipped the true God; and surely, papa, it was unlikely that true religion could ever lead to idolatry."

"You can easily imagine, Evelyn, with what heartfelt gratitude Noah and his family found themselves once more on dry ground, and that the first impulse would be to return thanks solemnly for their deliverance. Accordingly, we find in the eighth chapter of Genesis that Noah 'builded an altar unto the Lord.' As the ark had rested from the waters on 'the mountains of Ararat,' his altar was most probably erected near the scene of his release, the place where his hopes had revived, and where his trust in the Lord was proved. It was natural that he should select some appropriate spot there, and consecrate it to the name of the Lord."

66 But, papa, do you think that was wrong or superstitious?" "No, my dear, far from it. I have just said that it was most natural that the spot on which they were restored to the enjoyment of life and liberty, after twelve months of such awful imprisonment, should become hallowed, and should excite the most pious and grateful emotions in the hearts of those who had witnessed those fearful events, and on whose minds the remembrance of a catastrophe so tremendous, and a deliverance so wonderful, must have been deeply imprinted.”

"Yes, papa, I perceive how deeply their descendants must have been interested in all the details of that time which they heard from those who had witnessed such events. Every memorial of the place must have been precious to them!"

"Yes, certainly; that lofty range of mountains, and every

thing connected with their escape and previous imprisonment, was probably sanctified in their eyes-even the olive-branch has ever since been the symbol of peace and prosperity; and it has been supposed that from similar associations caverns became sacred, as representations of the interior of the ark. But though at first venerated merely as commemorative of the gloomy chambers of their floating house, yet afterwards, when the pure and simple patriarchal religion grew corrupt, they became the scene of idolatrous rites, and consequently caves may be found in all parts of the world, but more particularly in the East, which are to this day held sacred."

"But in many countries," Evelyn remarked, "it would have been difficult to find caverns suited to their purposes."

"And there," replied Mr. Desmond, " buildings were constructed as substitutes-small and rude at first, but afterwards expanding into the stately temple, the outer chamber of which, in the buildings of remote times, in some degree resembling a cavern, was by the Greeks called naos, from naus, a ship; and from thence, or rather from navis, the Latin for ship, has been derived the term nave, with which you are acquainted, as applied to one of the divisions of a church."

"Is it not that part of the church which lies between the western door and the entrance into the choir ?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Well, papa, having so nicely traced the naves of our churches up to the interior of the ark, you must now tell me, when Noah's descendants spread over the earth, and could no longer visit Mount Ararat, how they kept up their veneration for those hills, which, as you said, had been so strongly interwoven with their gratitude."

"The connexion is so obvious, my dear daughter, between those feelings and the obstinacy with which the Israelites persisted in sacrificing in high places,' that it is scarcely necessary to point out to you that those high places were emblems of that sacred hill."

"But, papa, in some countries there are no hills. How, then, could they preserve their customs and their worship in high places?"

"We may readily suppose," said her father, "that those