was consistent. She would be true to her
principles even at the expense of all her natural yearnings. Of what use
to her would be her religious convictions if she were to give them up
just because her heart-strings were torn and agonised? The man was a
goat though he were ten times told her child's husband. So she looked
again away into the garden and resolved that she would not yield in a
single point.

'Good-bye, mamma,' said Hester, rising from her chair, and coming up to
her mother.

'Good-bye, Hester. God bless you, my child!'

'You will not come to me to Folking?'

'No. I will not go to Folking.'

'I may come to you here?'

'Oh yes;--as often as you will, and for as long as you will.'

'I cannot stay away from home without him, you know,' said the young
wife.

'As often as you will, and for as long as you will,' the mother said
again, repeating the words with emphasis. 'Would I could have you here
as I used to do, so as to look after every want and administer to every
wish. My fingers shall work for your baby, and my prayers shall be said
for him and for you, morning and night. I am not changed, Hester. I am
still and ever shall be, while I am spared, your own loving mother.' So
they parted, and Hester was driven back to Folking.

In forming our opinion as to others we are daily brought into
difficulty by doubting how much we should allow to their convictions,
and how far we are justified in condemning those who do not accede to
our own. Mrs. Bolton believed every word that she said. There was no
touch of hypocrisy about her. Could she without sting of conscience have
gone off to Folking and ate of her son-in-law's bread and drank of his
cup, and sat in his presence, no mother living would have enjoyed more
thoroughly the delight of waiting upon and caressing and bending over
her child. She denied herself all this with an agony of spirit, groaning
not only over their earthly separation, thinking not only of her
daughter's present dangers, but tormented also by reflections as to
dangers and possible separations in another world. But she knew she was
right. She knew at least that were she to act otherwise there would be
upon her conscience the weight of sin. She did not know that the
convictions on which she rested with such confidence had come in truth
from her injured pride,--had settled themselves in her mind because
she had been beaten in her endeavours to prevent her daughter's
marriage. She was not