Читать книгу Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs онлайн

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“The time is at length come, my dear child,” she said, “which has long been the subject of my earnest prayer, which I have yearned for in the exuberance of maternal love. Eagerly have I watched in thee the opening germ of each Christian virtue, and thanked God as it appeared. I have noted thy docility, thy gentleness, thy diligence, thy piety, and thy love of God and man. I have seen with joy thy lively faith, and thy indifference to worldly things, and thy tenderness to the poor. But I have been waiting with anxiety for the hour which should decisively show me whether thou wouldst be content with the poor legacy of thy mother’s weakly virtue, or art the true inheritor of thy martyred father’s nobler gifts. That hour, thank God, has come to-day!”

“What have I done, then, that should thus have changed or raised thy opinion of me?” asked Pancratius.

“Listen to me, my son. This day, which was to be the last of thy school education, methinks that our merciful Lord has been pleased to give thee a lesson worth it all; and to prove that thou hast put off the things of a child, and must be treated henceforth as a man; for thou canst think and speak, yea, and act as one.”