d
mother kissed me. Home, sweet home, how musical those words were to
me! how often I had dreamed of nestling at father's side, your hand
locked in mine, and mother's smile upon us both. It was not long
before I was awakened from the dream I had cherished so long. I
thought my heart would break when the reality that I was unloved,
came upon me. Then I learned how deep were the fountains of
tenderness within me. My heart overflowed with an intense desire for
affection, when I saw that I did not possess it. Oh! how often I
looked upon mother's face, unobserved, and felt that my love for her
was but a wasted shower. At that time of bitterness, how sad was the
revelation that came up from the very depths of my soul, teaching me
a truth fraught with suffering--that affection is life itself! I
felt that it was my destiny never to be cheered by its blessed light
and warmth. Months passed away, and I closed up my heart; a
coldness, a stoic apathy came over me, which was sometimes broken by
a slight thing; the flood-gates of feeling gave way, and I wept with
a passionate sorrow--over my own sinfulness--over my own lonely
heart, without one joy to shed a glow on its rude desolation. Oh!
then, when I was softened, when I could pray, and feel that the Lord
listened to me, I would have been a different being, if mother's
hand had been laid fondly upon my head, if her eyes had filled with
tears, and I could have leaned upon her bosom and wept. But I was
unloved, and my heart grew hard again."

"Don't say that you are unloved," interrupted Ann, pressing
Christine to her heart, and sobbing with an abandonment of feeling.
"Forgive me, dear, dear sister! my heart shall be your home--we will
love each other always; I will never again be as I have been. Don't
weep so, Christine, can't you believe me? I am selfish, I am
heartless sometimes, but a change has come over me to-night; to
_you_ I can never be heartless again!"

At that moment, few would have recognised the haughty Miss Lambert
in the tearful girl, whose head drooped on Christine's shoulder,
while her white hand was clasped and held in meek affection to her
lips. If we could read the private history of many an apparently
cold, heartless being, we would be more charitable in our opinions
of others. We would see that there are times when the better
feelings, which God has given as a pure inheritance, are touched. We
would see the inner life from Him, flowing down from its home in