ct which had so
agitated them was not renewed. She had risen at last from her sick-bed,
as thin and shadowy as a faded moon after sunrise. Candace often shook
her head mournfully, as her eyes followed her about her dally tasks.
Once only, with Mary, she alluded to the conversation which had passed
between them;--it was one day when they were together, spinning, in the
north upper room that looked out upon the sea. It was a glorious day. A
ship was coming in under full sail, with white gleaming wings. Mrs.
Marvyn watched it a few moments,--the gay creature, so full of exultant
life,--and then smothered down an inward groan, and Mary thought she
heard her saying, "Thy will be done!"

"Mary," she said, gently, "I hope you will forget all I said to you that
dreadful day. It had to be said, or I should have died. Mary, I begin to
think that it is not best to stretch our minds with reasonings where we
are so limited, where we can know so little. I am quite sure there must
be dreadful mistakes somewhere.

"It seems to me irreverent and shocking that a child should oppose a
father, or a creature its Creator. I never should have done it, only
that, where direct questions are presented to the judgment, one cannot
help judging. If one is required to praise a being as just and good, one
must judge of his actions by some standard of right,--and we have no
standard but such as our Creator has placed in us. I have been told it
was my duty to attend to these subjects, and I have tried to,--and the
result has been that the facts presented seem wholly irreconcilable with
any notions of justice or mercy that I am able to form. If these be the
facts, I can only say that my nature is made entirely opposed to them.
If I followed the standard of right they present, and acted according to
my small mortal powers on the same principles, I should be a very bad
person. Any father, who should make such use of power over his children
as they say the Deity does with regard to us, would be looked upon as a
monster by our very imperfect moral sense. Yet I cannot say that the
facts are not so. When I heard the Doctor's sermons on 'Sin a Necessary
Means of the Greatest Good,' I could not extricate myself from the
reasoning.

"I have thought, in desperate moments, of giving up the Bible itself.
But what do I gain? Do I not see the same difficulty in Nature? I see
everywhere a Being whose main ends seem to be beneficent, but whose good
purposes are work