"It was an unexpected calamity, Hester," said the father, with one natural look of sorrow; "but we cannot always escape trouble in this world." "I feel as if we had not done our duty by him!" said the poor mother. "Why not?-he was very handsomely set up in business," remonstrated Mt. Taylor. "I was not thinking of money," replied his wife, shaking her head. "But it seems as if we only took him away from my brother's, in the country, just to throw him in the way of temptation as he was growing up, and let him run wild, and do everything he took a fancy to." "We did no more than other parents, in taking him home with us, to give him a better education than he could have got at your brother's." "Husband, husband!--it is but a poor education that don't teach a child to do what is right! I feel as if we had never taught him what we ought to. I did not know he had got so many bad ways until lately; and now that I do know it, my heart is broken!" "Tallman was not so bad as you make him out. He was no worse than a dozen other young gentlemen I could name at this very minute." "Oh; I would give everything we are worth to bring him back!--but it is too late--too late!" "No use in talking now, Hester." "We ought to have taken more pains with him. He didn't know the danger he was in, and we did, or we ought to have known it. Taking a young man of a sudden, from a quiet, minister's family in the country, like my brother's, and giving him all the money he wanted, and turning him out into temptation.--Oh, it's dreadful!" "All the pains in the world, Hester, won't help a young man, unless he chooses himself. What could I do, or you either? Didn't we send him to school and to college?--didn't we give him an opportunity of beginning life with a fine property, and married to one of the handsomest girls in the country, daughter of one of the best families, too? What more can you do for a young man? He must do the rest himself; you can't expect to keep him tied to your apron-string all his life." "Oh, no; but husband, while he was young we ought to have taken more pains to teach him not to think so much about the ways of the world. There are other things besides getting money and spending money, to do; it seems to me now as if money had only helped my poor boy to his ruin!" "Your notions are too gloomy, Mrs. Taylor. Such calamities will happen, and we should not let them weigh us down too much." "If I was to live a hundred years longer, I never could feel as I did before our son's death. Oh, to think what a beautiful, innocent child he was twenty years ago, this time!" "You shouldn't let your mind run so much on him that's gone. It's unjust to the living." The poor woman made no answer, but wept bitterly for some time.