Matilda, who was ever
violent, even in her better feelings, could not, for a long time, listen to
the kind voice of her consoler--she could only repeat her own faults,
recapitulate all the crimes she had been guilty of, and display, in
all their native hideousness, such traits of ill-humour, petulance,
ungovernable fury, outrageous passion, and vile revenge, as are the
natural offspring of the human heart, when its bad propensities are matured
by indulgence, particularly in those warm countries, where the mind
partakes the nature of the soil, and slavery in one race of beings gives
power to all the bad passions of another.

At length the storm of anguish so far gave way, that Mrs. Harewood was able
to command her attention, and she seized this precious season of penitence
and humility to imprint the leading truths of Christianity, and those plain
and invaluable doctrines which are deducible from them, and evident to the
capacity of any sensible child, without leading from the more immediate
object of her anxiety; as Mrs. Harewood very justly concluded, that if she
saw her error as a child, and could be brought to conquer her faults as
such, it would include every virtue to be expected at her time of life, and
would lay the foundation of all those which we estimate in the female
character.

"Oh," cried Matilda, sobbing, "if I could kneel at her feet, if I could
humble myself lower than the lowest negro to my dear mamma, and once hear
her say she forgave me, I could be comforted; but I do not like to be
comforted without this; I am angry at myself, and I ought to be angry."

"But, my dear little girl," replied Mrs. Harewood, "though you cannot thus
humble yourself in your body, yet you are conscious that you are humbled in
your mind, and that your penitence will render you guarded for the time to
come; and let it be your consolation to know, though your mother is absent,
the ears of your heavenly Father are ever open to your sorrows; and that,
if you lament your sins to him, he will assuredly accept your repentance,
and dispose the heart of your dear mother to accept it also. I sincerely
pity you, not as heretofore, for your folly, but for your sorrow; and in
order to enable you to comprehend what I mean by repenting before God, I
will compose you a short prayer, which will both express your feelings,
and remind you of your duty towards yourself and your mother."

Matilda received this act of kindness from her good frie