d their God, walk through a more terribly
destructive furnace--the furnace of temptation--in the same faith, and
"upon their bodies the fire hath no power, neither is a hair of the head
singed."

In what tears, in what prayers, in what anguished hope, what fervent
aspiration, this sole treasure of a widowed mother, steeped in poverty
to the very lips, had been reared, it would be long to tell; but she had
committed him to one _never_ found faithless, and under that blessing
she had found in her pure and disinterested love for the being intrusted
to her charge, that which had given her an eloquence, and a power, and a
strength, which had told upon the boy.

He proved one of those rare creatures who pass through every stage of
existence, as child, as schoolboy, as youth; through nursery, school,
college, marked as some bright peculiar being--peculiar only in this one
thing, sincere unaffected goodness. His religion had been, indeed, with
him a thing little professed, and rarely talked about, but it had been a
holy panoply about his heart--a bright shield, which had quenched all
the darts of evil: it shone around him like something of the radiance
from a higher world. There was a sort of a glory round the young saint's
head.

Such being the man, you will not be surprised to hear that his practice
called forth most serious reflections--most melancholy and sad
thoughts--and in no sick room where he had ever attended more than in
the present one.

He could not frequent the house as much as his attendance rendered
necessary without being pretty well aware of the spirit of the place;
and while he grieved over the ruinous waste of health to which these
young creatures were exposed, he was struck to the heart with horror at
the idea of their moral ruin.

Mrs. Saunders talked openly and unreservedly, and betrayed the state of
mind she was in: so completely, so entirely devoted to, wrapt up in,
buried fathoms and fathoms deep in the things of this world: so totally
lost to--so entirely to seek in every thing connected with another: that
the large, mournful, serious eye, as it turned to the sweet young
creature sitting beside her, and passing her daily life in an element
such as this, gazed with an expression of sad and tender pity such as
the minister of heaven might cast upon a perishing soul.

She did not quite understand all this. Those looks of interest, so
inexpressibly sweet to her, she thought were excited by the view