The
colors and the gilding, the flowers and the emblems, pleased her,
and she took the texts sandwiched between as the jalap in the jam. At
first she thought it impious to have them there at all, because they
were in the Bible, and mamma used to say that good Christians never
read the Bible. It was a holy book which only priests might use, and
when those pigs of Protestants looked into it and read it, just as
they would read the newspaper, they profaned it. But by force of habit
she reconciled herself to the profanity, and by frequent looking at
the art got the literature into her head. And when it was there she
did not find anything in it to be afraid of or to condemn as too
mysteriously holy for her knowledge. All of which was so much to the
good; and Mr. Dundas had no words strong enough whereby to express his
gratitude to the fair woman who had saved his child from destruction
by giving her the Ten Commandments made pretty by adjuncts of bastard
art.
But had it not been for Alick Corfield, Madame la Marquise de Montfort
would not have made quite so much way.
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