“Yes! I recollect it as freshly as yesterday, and see before me now the bright, fearless creature, as with an impatient toss of her glossy ringlets she said half-pettishly—‘Pleasant as my home, indeed! I wish I was there now, at any-rate, for I feel here as a cat _must_ feel in a strange garret.’ And a smile parted her saucy lips, as we broke into hearty laughter at this _compliment_ from the new girl. “That quaint phrase of Florence Walton’s introduced her at once, and frolick and fun finished the evening. Many, and many were the scrapes that her wit and laughter-loving propensity has brought upon her, but through all her affairs beamed forth the evidence of a noble, generous, bold, but quick temper, impossible to daunt, but, like the generality of impulsive temperaments, led child-like and trusting through the affections. I have seen Florence in after-years, for we were school-mates a long, long time, throw herself in a perfect abandonment of tears on her bed, after answering saucily and with light laughter, some friend whom she dearly prized—and yet, after remonstrances from me and advice for the future would reply—‘In vain, dear Mary, all your good advice, and so would be my promises of amendment, were I foolish enough to make them. I know, dear friend, my besetting sin—know it, and I assure you, I most deeply deplore my weakness, which would prevent me from making good any promise I might make you or myself for the future. As well ask the bird not to fly, or the fish not to swim, as to make me promise when irritated, not to use my only weapon—ay! sharper, I will admit, than a two-edged sword. Mary, it is my misfortune more than my fault. I have felt—keenly, bitterly felt—how wrong I am in acting thus. In casting from me by ridicule and foolish jests, friends whose affection I dearly prize. Oh! you cannot tell how I have struggled—how in my own heart-communings I have determined to be more guarded for the future. But the future was ever as the _past_. My sin is too strong, and I too weak.’ “Many such conversations have we held together and I, Cora, was a wicked sinner myself, then, and knew not God, nor the efficacy of prayer, therefore I could not tell the erring, but warm-hearted girl, to cast her burthen at the foot of the Cross; and that from the knowledge of her _weakness_ would come her _strength_, for that He, the Mighty One, loved to help the weak ones, who come as suppliants to his throne. Ah! yes, we were wicked, and only thought of such things not being _respectable_, instead of their sinfulness!