“Security!” said his father, who had at length found time to come out and inquire into the afflictions of his niece and her family. “It is the notion of young people, who have not seen God’s ways in his works, to talk of security. Of what use is the watchman’s waking, unless the Lord keeps the city?” “Indeed, uncle,” said Effie, “we want no teaching to-day about change and danger. Yesterday at this time we were looking for my father home from work, and now I much fear——” “Fear nothing, child. Fear is sinful.” “O, but, uncle, do you think you yourself could help it if Walter was gone, and you did not know where? Would not you fancy him shut down in that horrible tender? And could you help being afraid that he was miserable, being afraid that he would be ill, being afraid that you would be unhappy for many a long year, for want of him?” “I dare say you think,” said uncle Christopher, seeing that Effie bit her lip to repress her tears,—“I dare say you think that I am a cruel old man, who has no compassion for what other people are feeling. Worldly people would say——” “O, never mind what people would say who do not see and hear us: but I do not think you cruel, uncle. Only——” “Only what?” inquired uncle Christopher, setting his lips in a prim form, as he always did when he expected to hear something unacceptable about himself. “Only,—very pious people expect other people to feel exactly as they do, and make out that every difference is a difference of trust in God. Now, I trust in God that my father will be supported, and my poor mother——” She was obliged to stop a moment, and then went on, “But all this trust does not make me the less afraid that they will have to be unhappy first.” Uncle Christopher shook his head with a condescending smile and sigh. This was what he called trust with a reservation; but prayed that the true faith might grow out of it in time. He could suggest nothing to be done, Eldred’s recovery being quite hopeless, he considered, if he was on board the tender. All that uncle Christopher could promise, was to go and pray with the widowed wife, on the Sabbath morning;—the day that he could not conscientiously give to his own engrossing pursuit,—the invention for which he hoped to take out a patent.