ut Mary
seemed actually to bear her down by the candid clearness of the large,
blue eye which she turned on her, as she stood perfectly collected,
with her deadly pale face and a brilliant spot burning on each cheek.

"James came to say good-bye. He complained that he had not had a chance
to see me alone since he came home."

"And what should he want to see you alone for?" said Mrs. Scudder, in a
dry, disturbed tone.

"Mother,--everybody has things at times which they would like to say to
some one person alone," said Mary.

"Well, tell me what he said."

"I will try. In the first place, he said that he always had been free,
all his life, to run in and out of our house, and to wait on me like a
brother."

"Hum!" said Mrs. Scudder; "but he isn't your brother, for all that."

"Well, then, he wanted to know why you were so cold to him, and why you
never let him walk with me from meetings or see me alone, as we often
used to. And I told him why,--that we were not children now, and that
you thought it was not best; and then I talked with him about religion,
and tried to persuade him to attend to the concerns of his soul; and I
never felt so much hope for him as I do now."

Aunt Katy looked skeptical, and remarked,--"If he really felt a
disposition for religious instruction, Dr. H. could guide him much
better than you could."

"Yes,--so I told him, and I tried to persuade him to talk with Dr. H.;
but he was very unwilling. He said, I could have more influence over
him than anybody else,--that nobody could do him any good but me."

"Yes, yes,--I understand all that," said Aunt Katy,--"I have heard
young men say _that_ before, and I know just what it amounts to."

"But, mother, I do think James was moved very much, this afternoon. I
never heard him speak so seriously; he seemed really in earnest, and he
asked me to give him my Bible."

"Couldn't he read any Bible but yours?"

"Why, naturally, you know, mother, he would like my Bible better,
because it would put him in mind of me. He promised faithfully to read
it all through."

"And then, it seems, he wrote you a letter."

"Yes, mother."

Mary shrank from showing this letter, from the natural sense of honor
which makes us feel it indelicate to expose to an unsympathizing eye
the confidential outpourings of another heart; and then she felt quite
sure that there was no such intercessor for James in her mother's heart
as in her own. But over all this reluctance