childhood, and worshipped openly ever since. And had he not been given fair encouragement too? When he returned from Edinburgh for his college vacations, had he not always met a special welcome there, and received invitations to come and stay as frequently as even he could desire? And since then, had he not become in every respect what this most fickle of mothers the most approved? Had he not cast aside the offer of a good manse and stipend, and come forth with the faithful to suffer tribulation for righteousness' sake? Had he not been zealous, and showed his desire to spend and be spent in the cause of truth? True, he had obeyed the command of conscience, and not of Mrs. Sangster in all this; but his line of conduct had been the one she belauded as most noble and holy, and she had already, in the earlier time, let him clearly see that personally she approved him, and had given him every facility for becoming intimate with her girl. And now without the pretence of falling out or complaint against him, she was deliberately contemplating to marry her to another man. Was ever such treachery, fickleness, worldly-mindedness, and all that is worst? Poor young man! It _was_ bad treatment looked at from _his_ point of view,--it was black, and deserving of all the hard names he applied to it; but then there are more points of view than one, and who shall decide which is to prevail over the others? His was the suitor's point of view, but there is also that of the sought, and likewise that of her family. A family can wed its flower and pride but once, and it is neither unnatural nor improper that it should try to do its best, which, speaking in the general, means to secure a rich husband for the girl. The most mercenary will admit that riches do not necessarily bring happiness, but the moral point is whether happiness is possible without them. Many have doubted whether happiness is compatible with poverty, but no one has ventured to assert that the poverty is an element in the happiness.