ook," and read it aloud to the children; and
this, together with Aunt Victoria's views, operated only too actively
on the child's vivid imagination. A great dread seized upon her--not
on her own account, strange to say; she never thought of herself, but
of her friends, and of the world at large. She was in mortal dread
lest they should be called to judgment and consigned to the flames.
While the sun was out such thoughts did not trouble her; but as the
day declined, and twilight sombrely succeeded the sunset, her heart
sank, and her little being was racked with one great petition, offered
up to the Lord in anguish, that He would spare them all.

The season was beginning, the little place was already full of
visitors, and Beth used to stand at the dining-room window while Mrs.
Caldwell was reading aloud on Sunday evenings, and watch the
congregation stream out of the church at the end of the road, and
suffer agonies because of the torments that awaited them all,
including her mother, brothers and sisters, Harriet in the kitchen,
and Mrs. Davy at Orchard House opposite--everybody, indeed, except
Aunt Victoria--in a future state. Out on the cliffs in the summer
evenings, when great dark masses of cloud tinged with crimson were
piled to the zenith at sundown, and coldly reflected in the dark
waters of the bay, she saw the destination of the world; she heard
cries of torment, too, in the plash of breaking waves and the
unceasing roar of the sea; and as she watched the visitors lounging
about in bright dresses, laughing and talking, careless of their doom,
she could hardly restrain her tears. Night after night when she went
to bed, she put her head under the clothes that Bernadine might not
hear, and her chest was torn with sobs until she fell asleep.

At that time she devised no more tricks, she took no interest in
games, and would not fight even. Bernadine did not know what to make
of her. All day she was recovering from the lassitude caused by the
mental anguish of the previous evening, but regularly at sunset it
began again; and the more she suffered, the less able was she to speak
on the subject. At first she had tried to discuss eternal punishment
with Harriet, Bernadine, and Aunt Victoria, and each had responded
characteristically. Harriet's imagination dwelt on the particular
torments reserved for certain people she knew, which she described
graphically. Bernadine listened to Beth's remarks with interest, then
accus