She was a most excellent and devout woman, and when Emily, who in youthful _gaieté de cœur_ had got a little tired of her, exclaimed at his taste, and asked if she made him read nothing but Pike’s Early _Piety_, he replied gravely, ‘She showed me where to lay my burthen down,’ and turned to the two last verses of the poem for ‘Good Friday’ in the _Christian Year_, as well as to the one we had just read on the Holy Communion. My father’s kindness had seemed to him the pledge of the Heavenly Father’s forgiveness; and he added, perhaps a little childishly, that it had been his impulse to promise never to touch a card again, but that he dreaded the only too familiar reply, ‘What availed his promises?’ ‘Do promise, Clarry!’ cried Emily, ‘and then you won’t have to play with that tiresome old Mrs. Sophia.’ ‘That would rather deter me,’ said Clarence good-humouredly. ‘A card-playing old age is despicable,’ pronounced Miss Emily, much to our amusement. After that we got into a bewilderment. We knew nothing of the future question of temperance _versus_ total abstinence; but after it had been extracted that Miss Newton regarded cards as the devil’s books, the inconsistent little sister changed sides, and declared it narrow and evangelical to renounce what was innocent. Clarence argued that what might be harmless for others might be dangerous for such as himself, and that his real difficulty in making even a mental vow was that, if broken, there was an additional sin. ‘It is not oneself that one trusts,’ I said. ‘No,’ said Clarence emphatically; ‘and setting up a vow seems as if it might be sticking up the reed of one’s own word, and leaning on _that_—when it breaks, at least mine does. If I could always get the grasp of Him that I felt to-day, there would be no more bewildered heart and failing spirit, which are worse than the actual falls they cause.’ And as Emily said she did not understand, he replied in words I wrote down and thought over, ‘What we _are_ is the point, more than even what we _do_. We _do_ as we _are_; and yet we form ourselves by what we _do_.’ ‘And,’ I put in, ‘I know somebody who won a victory last night over himself and his two brothers. Surely _doing_ that is a sign that he _is_ more than he used to be.’ ‘If he were, it would not have been an effort at all,’ said Clarence, but with his rare sweet smile. Just then Griff called him away, and Emily sat pondering and impressed. ‘It did seem so odd,’ she said, ‘that Clarry should be so much the best, and yet so much the worst of us.’ I agreed. His insight into spiritual things, and his enjoyment of them, always humiliated us both, yet he fell so much lower in practice,—‘But then we had not his temptations.’ ‘Yes,’ said Emily; ‘but look at Griff! He goes about like other young men, and keeps all right, and yet he doesn’t care about religious things a bit more than he can help.’