ment--death!

In one house, and one house only, nobody has gone to rest. Every living
thing there is wakeful, from the master of the house to the watch-dog.
It is the squire's house. All its windows are lit up and all its doors
are locked.

In the room looking out upon the garden, the mother is alone with the
sick child.

The child is delirious, he is gabbling terrible things, his features
wear a different expression every instant.

And his mother understands every word of that mortal fever-born
nightmare; she guesses at every thought which underlies all those
varying expressions of countenance, the sight of whose horrible
contortions are enough to make even the heart of a strong man break
down.

How she must suffer!

He who takes poison dies a terrible death, his veins burst asunder one
by one; his nerves and muscles strain and crack, his very marrow seems
to be on fire. But, oh! what is all that compared to the death of a
poisoned soul! A remedy may be found perhaps for bodily venom, but there
is no remedy against spiritual venom. The grave may close upon the
former, but never upon the latter. Both here and hereafter recollection
and reprobation wait upon it.

God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the fourth
generation. They graft the evil qualities of their blood upon their
sons; one generation passes on its wickedness to the next; man is
vitiated when he is born; he sins as soon as he is conscious of his
existence and he dies accursed.

The sweat streamed from the child's temples; for the last three days he
has had the mark of death upon him.

The doctors say he may live, but if he lives he will be weak-witted.

What a future for a four-year-old child! A burden to the world, a burden
to himself, to live on for years after the mind is dead! To be an idiot
for ever! It would be good for him if he could be made away with,
surely.

Will God take him? Or is it the Divine Will that he should live on as an
example of a living curse, as a witness of the Almighty's chastising
arm?

Does he bear so much suffering by way of ransom for the sins of his
father, his mother, and his grandfather?--or must the years of
punishment be as many as the years of sin?

Who will be merciful enough to put an end to his sufferings?

His mother sits silent and watchful at the head of the bed.

No, she cannot do it!

After all she is his mother. The roots of that young flower are still
but half detac