"Talk to me so every day, and read me good cool
verses out of that beautiful Book, and perhaps by-and-by I shall grow
still and quiet like you."
Thus Mary soothed her friend; but every few days this soothing had to
be done over, as long as Burr remained in Newport. When he was finally
gone, she grew more calm. The simple, homely ways of the cottage, the
healthful routine of daily domestic toils, into which she delighted to
enter, brought refreshment to her spirit. That fine tact and exquisite
social sympathy, which distinguish the French above other nations,
caused her at once to enter into the spirit of the life in which she
moved; so that she no longer shocked any one's religious feelings by
acts forbidden by the Puritan idea of Sunday, or failed in any of the
exterior proprieties of religious life. She also read and studied with
avidity the English Bible, which came to her with the novelty of a
wholly new book in a new language; nor was she without a certain
artistic appreciation of the austere precision and gravity of the
religious life by which she was surrounded.
"It is sublime, but a little _glaciale_, like the Alps," she sometimes
said to Mary and Mrs. Marvyn, when speaking of it; "but then," she
added, playfully, "there are the flowers,--_les roses des Alpes_,--and
the air is very strengthening, and it is near to heaven,--_faut
avouer_.
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