He could not comprehend, skilled as he was in controlling disease, the torture which that poor girl was undergoing from an accusing conscience. She saw herself at last as in a mirror,—wilful, proud of her outward charms, undutiful to her long-suffering, self-sacrificing mother,—her best friend,—idolizing her boy, but blind to his faults, and not restraining her own temper that she might teach him self-control. Then her thoughts reverted to her absent husband, and conscience, resolved to be heard at last, set before her a catalogue of her offences toward him,—wilful neglect of his wishes, too evident want of affection, etc., which had at last weaned him from her and sent him far away. "Where is he now?" It seemed to her that this question was screamed in her ears. "You drove him wild with your taunts and neglect." At length she remembered the events of the previous night. How long ago that seemed! The whispers of flattery that had sounded so sweetly in her ears, how she loathed them now! How she loathed herself, that they could have pleased her! She seemed to herself to have been suddenly snatched away from the very brink of a precipice, and to be frantically seizing some sure support which would prevent her from falling back into the dreadful abyss. Oh, how dark it looked! And yet how eagerly only last night she had rushed toward it! "Oh, my boy! my boy! If you die your mother is justly punished." Mrs. Cheriton had not lived nineteen years with her mother without understanding that this dearest friend was of late governed by different principles from those which controlled her in earlier life. She acknowledged in this dark hour that when all other help had failed, the poor widow, bearing alone her heavy burden of grief and self-reproach, had found comfort and solace in the truths contained in the sacred book hitherto so little prized. God was no longer to her an angry judge, but a tender, loving father, whose heart yearned over her. Jesus Christ was her sympathizing Saviour, who had voluntarily come to earth, suffered poverty, temptation, and ignominy, that he might know how to succor his children in like sorrow. Many, many times Mrs. Douglass had endeavored to impress these blessed teachings on her daughter; but they only seemed to her like idle tales. Of late, since her acquaintance with Marion Howard, she had been urged to trust in the kind care of One whose eye of love was always watching her; but these faithful words, instead of drawing her heart toward the friend who uttered them, had led her to treat Marion with cold contempt.