Devereux
wore his surplice, although, as in the morning, his friend read the
service. After the Second Lesson there was a pause, and then Mr.
Devereux left the chair by the altar, walked along the aisle, and
took his stand on the step of the font. Lily's heart beat high as
she saw who were gathering round him--Mrs. Eden, Andrew Grey, James
Harrington, and Mrs. Naylor, who held in her arms a healthy, rosy-
checked boy of a year old.
She could not have described the feelings which made her eyes
overflow with tears, as she saw Mr. Devereux's thin hand sprinkle the
drops over the brow of the child, and heard him say, 'Robert, I
baptize thee'--words which she had heard in dreams, and then awakened
to remember that the parish was at enmity with the pastor, the child
unbaptized, and herself, in part, the cause.
The name of the little boy was an additional pledge of
reconciliation, and at the same time it made her feel again what had
been the price of his baptism. When she looked back upon the dreary
feelings which she had so lately experienced, it seemed to her as if
she might believe that this christening was, as it were, a pledge of
pardon, and an earnest of better things.
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