much latterly, that the old serenity and
gayety are gone. But is it not a chafing under the fetters of sin? Is it
not that she begins to see more clearly the fiery judgments of God which
will certainly overwhelm the wrongdoers, whatever may be the
unsubstantial and evanescent graces of their mortal life?

Yet, with all the rigidity of his doctrine, which he cannot in
conscience mollify, even for the tender ears of Adele, it disturbs him
strangely to hear that she has qualified his regimen as harsh or severe.
Has he not taught, in season and out of season, the fulness of God's
promises? Has he not labored and prayed? Is it not the ungodly heart in
her that finds his teaching a burden? Is not his conscience safe? Yet,
for all this, it touches him to the quick to think that her childlike,
trustful confidence is at last alienated from him,--that her affection
for him is so distempered by dread and weariness. For, unconsciously, he
has grown to love her as he loves no one save his boy Reuben;
unconsciously his heart has mellowed under her influence. Through her
winning, playful talk, he has taken up that old trail of worldly
affections which he had thought buried forever in Rachel's grave. That
tender touch of her little fingers upon his cheek has seemed to say,
"Life has its joys, old man!" The patter of her feet along the house has
kindled the memories of other gentle steps that tread now silently in
the courts of air. Those songs of hers,--how he has loved them! Never
confessing even to Miss Eliza, still less to himself, how much his heart
is bound up in this little winsome stranger, who has shone upon his
solitary parsonage like a sunbeam.

And the good man, with such thoughts thronging on him, falls upon his
knees, beseeching God to "be over the sick child, to comfort her, to
heal her, to pour down His divine grace upon her, to open her blind eyes
to the richness of His truth, to keep her from all the machinations and
devices of Satan, to arm her with true holiness, to make her a golden
light in the household, to give her a heart of love toward all, and most
of all toward Him who so loved her that He gave His only begotten Son."

And the Doctor, rising from his attitude of prayer, and going toward the
little window of his study to arrange it for the night, sees a slight
figure in black pacing up and down upon the opposite side of the way,
and looking up from time to time to the light that is burning in the
window of