make a quarrel
among you, and I hope you'll help to keep him out of bad ways, Paul. I
look to you for it. Good-night.'

Perhaps the darkness and her own warm feeling made her forget the
condition of that hand; at any rate, as she said Good-night she took it
in her own and shook it heartily, and then she went in.

Paul did not say Good-night in answer; but when she had turned away, his
head went down between his two crossed arms upon the top of the gate, and
he did not move for many many minutes, except that his shoulders shook
and shook again, for he was sobbing as he had never sobbed since Granny
Moll died. If home and home love were not matters of course to you, you
might guess what strange new fountains of feeling were stirred in the
wild but not untaught boy, by that face, that voice, that touch.

And Mrs. King, as she walked to her own door in the twilight, with bitter
pain in her heart, could not help thinking of those from the highways and
hedges who flocked to the feast set at naught by such as were bidden.

A sad and mournful Sunday evening was that to the mother and daughter, as
each sat over her Bible. Mrs. King would not talk to Ellen, for fear of
awakening Alfred; not that low voices would have done so, but Ellen was
already much upset by what she had heard and seen, and to talk it over
would have brought on a fit of violent crying; so her mother thought it
safest to say nothing. They would have read their Bible to one another,
but each had her voice so choked with tears, that it would not do.

That Alfred was sinking away into the grave, was no news to Mrs. King;
but perhaps it had never been so plainly spoken to her before, and his
own knowledge of it seemed to make it more sure; but broken-hearted as
she felt, she had been learning to submit to this, and it might be better
and safer for him, she thought, to be aware of his state, and more ready
to do his best with the time left to him. That was not the freshest
sorrow, or more truly a darker cloud had come over, namely, the feeling,
so terrible to a good careful mother, that her son is breaking out of the
courses to which she has endeavoured and prayed to bring him up--that he
is casting off restraint, and running into evil that may be the beginning
of ruin, and with no father's hand to hold him in.

O Harold, had you but seen the thick tears dropping on the walnut table
behind the arm that hid her face from Ellen, you would not have thought
y