Juliette had thus a double incentive to read her Bible. She wished to find in the sacred pages strength for daily duties; and she also read for the instruction of her boy. Marion came in one day and found Geenie dressed in a wrapper, sitting in his mother's lap. In her hand she held the Good Book, and they were talking eagerly of the story she had read. Marion wrote afterwards, in her letter to Mr. Angus, that she seldom had seen a prettier picture,—the beauty of both so softened by the subjects on which they were talking. Marion bent over and pressed her lips to the fair forehead of the young mother, and Eugene made them laugh by imitating her example. "She's nicer than she was," he exclaimed, patting her cheek. "She doesn't tell lies any more. She tells me when the medicine is going to taste badly,—but I take it all the same." After talking for a few minutes with Mrs. Douglass, Marion hurried away, saying to herself,— "What a glorious change! What a purifier and refiner Christianity is! How Mr. Angus will rejoice that Juliette has accepted her Saviour!" Before I close this chapter I must tell the reader that Marion showed Mr. Alford's card to Mr. Lambert the very day Mrs. Douglass had given it to her, only asking whether he knew the man. He did not, but soon found a man of his description was a frequenter of gambling-saloons and other disreputable places of resort, that the name Alford was one of several aliases, and that he was a man wholly unfit to be trusted. To neither Mrs. Douglass nor her daughter did she repeat this information, the change in Juliette rendering it unnecessary. CHAPTER V. HOME IN THE STABLE LOFT. "THIS is only a stable, Miss Marion." "The place must be here, Hepsey: the number three hundred and sixty is plainly marked." The young lady reverted to her paper again. "'Esther Cole, three hundred sixty.' Three hundred fifty-eight, the last house is marked. I must inquire." One of the hostlers came forward to the door of the stable. "Do you want a carriage, lady?" "I am looking for a number which ought to be here." "Is it a tenement house you're after, ma'am?" "Yes, and a family by the name of Cole." "It's aloft their house is. Walk right through ma'am, to the ladder beyont." "Thank you," replied Marion, giving him a smile which quite won him. "How very clear your floor is! I was never in a stable before. Look, Hepsey! See how nicely the carriages are covered; and really there is quite a pretty parlor,—and such a row of whips hanging up." "That room is for ladies and gentlemen to wait while their horses are harnessed, ma'am." The hostler was doing the honors in his best style. They had now reached the ladder, as he called it by which they were to ascend to the room "aloft," and he said, "It's a poor place, ma'am, for a lady the likes of yees." "It's a heathenish place," retorted Hepsey "Not fit for Christians to live in. Are you sure, young man, that the steps are safe?"