She began about the liking Miss Kathleen showed to be with me, and how she was very glad Miss Kathleen should—only—and there she stopped, and began afresh. Miss Kathleen was such a good truthful child always, she said, and so simple, and with no nonsense in her head. Then there came another stop. "Kitty," says she, "you have not always been truthful, and you have had a great deal of nonsense in your head. I know so much, you see. Can I depend upon you with my little girl?" says she. "You have had a sharp lesson, and I think you cannot be the same after it that you were before. If I let the child be in and out with you as much as she likes, can I be sure that she will gain no harm—will learn no deceit nor folly from you?" says she. It did go to my heart to think I wasn't counted fit to be trusted with that child; and yet what else was to be expected, after the way I'd let myself be drawn into evil? I don't half know what I said, except that I had had a sharp lesson, and I would be very very careful, and never speak a word to Miss Kathleen which I wouldn't wish her mother to hear. "Yes, that will be right—that will do," said she. Then I gave way and cried bitterly, and how good, to be sure, she was! She took one seat, and made me take another, and she said such comforting words. Somehow I hadn't felt till then so fully how I had sinned against God first and most of all, and how first and most of all I needed His forgiveness. I had wronged my father, and before he died he had forgiven me; and I had wronged my mother, and she wasn't in a state to know how to pardon. But far, far beyond these I had wronged my Father in Heaven, and that had been only a second sort of thought with me. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned!" Mrs. Withers said once or twice; and I began to say the words in my heart, meaning them. Not "only" in one sense, because I had wronged others; but "only" in another sense, because the wrong against others was nothing at all seen beside the wrong done to my God. I kept thinking of that wrong and sin all the rest of the day. I tried to pray for pardon, but no comfort came. When Miss Kathleen came to me, and wanted to talk about all sorts of things, I didn't find it easy to listen nor answer. "Against Thee—Thee only" —was running through my head. Next day was Sunday; and it was a day I shan't soon forget, though it passed by quiet enough to all outward seeming, and nobody could have guessed it was anything out of the common to me. The morning service wasn't. I went to Church, and knelt and stood and sat just as usual; and I couldn't listen much, nor take it all in. And the afternoon dragged by in a like fashion. Then came the evening service. I had a seat in a dark corner, half behind a pillar, where I couldn't be seen. I was glad of this—soon. For in the very first words, the opening sentences, there came a message straight to my heart.—