"'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,'" said Mabel, scarce knowing what she ought to say to comfort her cousin under this new distress. She felt vaguely uneasy herself, for if her cousin had such a sense of sin, because she had unknowingly buried this "true light" all these years, how much greater must her sin be—she who had been so carefully instructed from her earliest infancy. Sometimes lately she had tried to shelter herself under the thought, painful though it might be, that God's special grace had not been given to her yet, but in some future time she might hope to have this, and then her life would be different. But if Mrs. Barker's reading of the parable of the sower was true, she could not shift the responsibility of her failure in this way, for she knew that her life had been a failure lately—God's grace had been given, but she had let the wild weeds and tares almost choke it. She read the parable of the sower for herself over and over again, hoping to detect some corner out of which she could creep, but she found none. There was the plain declaration—the seed was sown in all sorts of soil, leaving her without excuse if she neglected this salvation. Not that she came to this conclusion all at once, or did not try to wriggle out of it at first when she did see it, but Isabel's talk, and what she herself read of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, shut her up to this view of the matter, and she saw that there was no royal road by which self-denial and struggle might be evaded if she would live a truly useful life. But, meanwhile, this was not the only care that oppressed her. The winter passed into spring, and brought with it fresh wants in the way of dress. Her mother was not unmindful of these, for she sent her what she thought would be an ample sum of money to provide all she would require. Now, the bill she owed the dressmaker amounted to about the same sum as her mother had sent for her spring outfit. And this burden of debt had proved so intolerable to Mabel that she went at once and paid it, never thinking of her two brown dresses that would now have to last until midsummer. At first she assumed a stoical indifference when Julia and Isabel donned their pretty spring attire. Her younger cousin had put off doing this as long as she could, in the hope that Mabel would also lay aside her winter garb, which, however comfortable and suitable it might look in winter time, was certainly out of place now. But to all her hints upon the subject, Mabel only gave short snappish answers.