The three travellers felt the tranquillising influence of the scene. To Amos it was one of unmitigated pleasure. The others, no doubt, would naturally have preferred a livelier spot, but now the consciousness that they were there to aid in bringing about a great and noble object made them content and happy for the time. So, after a long stroll on the beach, they returned, when the great glowing ball of the sun had withdrawn the extreme edge of his fiery rim below the horizon, to their cottage. Having finished their evening meal, a consultation was held as to the best way of carrying out the purpose which had brought them from home. The obvious thing seemed to be that Amos should go over alone to the house where his mother now lived, which was distant some eight or nine miles from their lodgings, and see what the physician in whose keeping she was might advise or suggest. So, early the next morning, he rode forth with a beating heart, and at the same time a happy trust, on his errand of love, his brother and sister having arranged to pay a visit for the day to a fashionable watering-place about five miles distant along the coast. When Amos Huntingdon had reached his mother's retreat and told his errand, he confided to the good physician under whose charge Mrs Huntingdon was placed his great purpose, and the hope that it might now be accomplished, since his sister had returned to her home. The kind- hearted friend at once entered into his plans, and gave him every encouragement to hope that he would meet with good success. But care and judgment and tact must be used, lest, in endeavouring to bring back the mind to its old balance, anything should be done which might rather throw it further out. Nothing sudden or exciting must be attempted; for the delicate structure, which care and sorrow had disarranged, must be brought into a right adjustment by gentle and cautious treatment. The jarring chords could not be made to vibrate in tune by sweeping them with a rough and unsympathising stroke; all could be reduced to harmony only by some loving and judicious action which would draw up or slacken the discordant strings with a force which would be felt only in its results. It was therefore arranged that on the morrow the physician should bring his patient to the sea-side at noon, and that, while he and she were seated in view of the waves, and were listening to their soothing plashing, Amos and his brother and sister should pass near, and be guided in what they should do as circumstances might suggest. "Your mother," said the physician, "simply wants her mind clearing; all is more or less confused at present. She grasps nothing distinctly; and yet she is often very near a clear perception. But it is with her mind as with a telescope: it is near the right focus for seeing things clearly, but simply it wants the adjustment which would bring it to the point of unclouded vision, and then, when that adjustment has been