tten rose and went softly but quickly out of the room that she
might relieve her bursting heart without distressing her husband, but he
knew her too well to doubt the reason of her sudden movement, and a
faint smile was on his lips for a moment as he said to Oliver,--"She's
gone to weep a bit, sur, and pray. It will do her good, dear lass."

"Your loss is a heavy one--very heavy," said Oliver, with hesitation in
his tone, for he felt some difficulty in attempting to comfort one in so
hopeless a condition.

"True, sur, true," replied the man in a tone of cheerful resignation
that surprised the doctor, "but it might have been worse; `the Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!'"

Mrs Batten returned in a few minutes, and Oliver left them, after
administering as much comfort as he could in the circumstances, but to
say truth, although well skilled in alleviating bodily pains, he was
incapable of doing much in the way of ministering to the mind diseased.
Oliver Trembath was not a medical missionary. His mother, though a
good, amiable woman, had been a weak, easy-going creature--one of those
good-tempered, listless ladies who may be regarded as human vegetables,
who float through life as comfortably as they can, giving as little
trouble as possible, and doing as little good as is compatible with the
presence of even nominal Christianity. She performed the duties of life
in the smallest possible circle, the centre of which was herself, and
the extremity of the radii extending to the walls of her garden. She
went to church at the regulation hours; "said her prayers" in the
regulation tone of voice; gave her charities in the stated way, at
stated periods, with a hazy perception as to the objects for which they
were given, and an easy indifference as to the success of these
objects--the whole end and aim of her wishes being attained in, and her
conscience satisfied by, the act of giving. Hence her son Oliver was
not much impressed in youth with the power or value of religion, and
hence he found himself rather put out when his common sense told him, as
it not unfrequently did, that it was his duty sometimes to administer a
dose to the mind as well as to the body.

But Oliver was not like his mother in any respect. His fire, his
energy, his intellectual activity, and his impulsive generosity he
inherited from his father. Amiability alone descended to him from his
mother--an inheritance,