not to the real cause--the change of his own manner toward
him. Through the feeble moving of sympathy and kindness in his own
heart, there was the beginning of power over the perverse boy, and
this power might have been exercised, had the father possessed
enough of wisdom and self-denial, until he had gained a complete
control over him. But alas! he did not possess this wisdom and
self-denial. He was a hard man, and believed in no virtue but that
of force. He could drive, but not lead. He could hold with an iron
hand, but not restrain by a voice full of the power of kindness.
Before the close of the second day he spoke harshly to Andrew, and
did, thereby, such violence to the boy's feelings, that he turned
his face from him and wept.

On the third day after the accident Andrew went back to school, and
continued, for a time, to go punctually and to attend diligently
to his studies. But soon the angry reaction of his father, against
little acts of thoughtlessness or disobedience, threw him back into
his old state, and he was as bad as ever.

CHAPTER VII.

THUS the struggle went on, Mr. Howland's power to control his boy
growing less and less every year. Naturally, considering the
relation of the two families of Mr. Howland and Mr. Winters, and the
bad reputation of the son of the former, the intercourse between
Andrew and Emily was more and more restricted. Still their
friendship for each other remained, to a certain extent,
undiminished, and they met as often as favorable circumstances would
permit. To Emily, the kind feelings entertained for the wayward boy
proved sources of frequent unhappiness. Few opportunities for
speaking against him were omitted by her parents, and she never
heard his name coupled with words of censure without feeling pain.
One half that was said of him she did not believe; for she saw more
of the bright side of his character than did any one else.

As before intimated, by the time Emily gained her sixteenth year,
she had developed so far toward womanhood, that Andrew, who still
remained a slender boy in appearance, felt his heart tremble as he
looked upon her, and thought of the distance this earlier
development had placed between them. And even a greater distance was
beginning to exist--the distance that lies between a pure mind and
one that is corrupt. As Andrew grew older, he grew worse, and the
sphere of his spiritual quality began to be felt, oppressively, at
times, by Emily,