nsequences of a single false step in
life?"

From a small hanging shelf she took a Bible, and opening to a marked
page, read over three or four verses with earnest attention.

"I can see no other meaning," she said with a painful sigh, closing
the book and restoring it to its place on the shelf. It was all in
vain that Jessie Loring sought for light and comfort in this
direction. They were not found. When she joined her aunt, some hours
afterwards, her face had not regained its former placidity.

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Loring, speaking in what sounded to the ear
of her niece a light tone, "have you got it all right with
yourself?"

Jessie smiled faintly, and merely answered--

"It will take time. But I trust that all will come out truly
adjusted in the end."

She had never ventured to bring to her aunt's very external judgment
the real questions that troubled her. Mrs. Loring's prompt way of
sweeping aside these cobwebs of the brain, as she called the finer
scruples of conscience, could not satisfy her yearning desire for
light.

"Yes; time works wonders. He is the great restorer. But why not see
clearly at once; and not wait in suffering for time's slow
movements? I am a wiser philosopher than you are, Jessie; and try to
gain from the present all that it has to give."

"Some hearts require a severer discipline than others," said Jessie.
"And mine, I think, is one of them."

"All that is sickly sentiment, my dear child! as I have said to you
a hundred times. It is not shadow, but sunshine that your heart
wants--not discipline, but consolation--not doubt, but hope. You are
as untrue to yourself as the old anchorites. These self-inflicted
stripes are horrible to think of, for the pain is not salutary, but
only increases the morbid states of mind that ever demand new
flagellations."

"We are differently made, Aunt Phoebe," was the quiet answer.

"No, we are not, but we make ourselves different," replied Mrs.
Loring a little hastily.

"The world would be a very dead-level affair, if we were all made
alike," said Jessie, forcing a smile, and assuming a lighter air, in
order to lead her aunt's mind away from the thought of her as too
painfully disturbed by the announcement of Mr. Dexter's marriage.
And she was successful. The subject was changed to one of a less
embarrassing character. And this was all of the inner life of Jessie
Loring that showed itself on the surface.

CHAPTER XXV.

AND what o