Moodie looked
askance at the saint, who was bestowing a benediction on those before
him, and grumbled out, "Better to eat in the dark, than by the light
of Satan's lantern."
"You are over scrupulous," said Mrs. Shortridge: "if these illuminated
saints be one of Satan's devices, I think it meritorious to turn them
to a useful purpose, as was successfully done by a friend of mine
residing in Lisbon. Finding the lamp he had put before his door
repeatedly broken--for the Lisbon rabble love darkness better than
light--he bought a little image of St. Antony, and put it up behind
it, and the saint's presence seemed to paralyze the arms of the evil
doers."
"There is an inward and an outward light," said Moodie, sententiously:
"your friend, wanting that inward light, chose, for a little personal
convenience, to countenance a shining idolatry." Their host, gathering
from their looks and gestures that they wanted more light, now brought
in another lamp, which the ladies soon used to light them to the
chamber allotted to them. The girls went with them; and Lady Mabel,
finding them loiter there, full of curiosity, and examining every
article of dress and baggage with prying eyes, deliberately unpacked
every thing she had with her, and induced Mrs.
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