nce awaking within. It
has been remarked that he was, in every way, a handsome boy, even when
his face was wont to be more expressive of evil than of good. But with
the great inward changes his whole nature had undergone, an outward
change had taken place, which amounted almost to transfiguration--so
spiritually beautiful now was his appearance. His words, however
fantastic and incoherent they may have seemed to the others present,
came burdened with a deep significance to his father, and to his mother,
also; for, by this time, Jervis had told Elster of his singular
interview with Nick of the Woods. A significance the deeper, since every
word struck home to hearts, conscience-stricken and full of
self-upbraiding.

Long before the period of our first acquaintance with them had Jervis
and Elster begun to feel and acknowledge to each other the grievous
mistake they had made in the training of their son, bestowing upon him
their abundant affection, untempered by that judicious and habitual
exercise of controlling will, without which, parental love but
forestalls the very ends it has nearest at heart--the good and the
happiness of the offspring. Gold can not be too rich, where only
ornament is the object in view; but it needs to be alloyed with silver
to be made firm and consistent enough to meet the ends of uses. Their
love, from very richness, had been of too soft and yielding a nature to
fashion the character of their child into the thing of beauty for which
its maker had designed it. Now, had he returned, as it were, from the
dead, to upbraid them with the wrong they had done him. All unwittingly
had he ministered the rebuke; perhaps, on being restored to his normal
self, should never remember what he had done. Yet, for that very reason,
all the more bitter was the reflection, since it showed how deep the
wrong was, if his innermost soul could be cognizant of it and speak out
in his vindication, while his more external nature was as yet incapable
of knowing or comprehending it. What remorse they felt at the thought of
the sore affliction, which, by their folly, they had brought upon his
young life; what good resolutions they formed, looking to atonement and
recompense; what prayers they offered up for forgiveness of the past,
and for guidance in the future--must be left to the heart and conscience
of every judicious parent to conceive.

After some minutes the boy resumed, still with his eyes closed, the
windows of the