I know that I am not a Catholic. I vaguely remember a
sweet woman who taught me to pray like this: 'Our Father who art
in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.'"
And Alice went on through the beautiful and perfect prayer, which
she repeated in English with infinite sweetness and solemnity, her
eyes uplifted, her hands clasped before her. Beverley could have
sworn that she was a shining saint, and that he saw an aureole.
"I know," she continued, "that sometime, somewhere, to a very dear
person I promised that I never, never, never would pray any prayer
but that. And I remember almost nothing else about that other
life, which is far off back yonder in the past, I don't know
where,--sweet, peaceful, shadowy; a dream that I have all but lost
from my mind."
Beverley's sympathy was deeply moved. He sat for some minutes
looking at her without speaking. She, too, was pensive and silent,
while the fire sputtered and sang, the great logs slowly melting,
the flames tossing wisps of smoke into the chimney still booming
to the wind.
"I know, too, that I am not French," she presently resumed, "but I
don't know just how I know it. My first words must have been
English, for I have always dreamed of talking in that language,
and my dimmest half recollections of the old days are of a large,
white house, and a soft-voiced black woman, who sang to me in that
language the very sweetest songs in the world.
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