Whether there had been design or not might possibly afford scope for consideration. But that the grace was there was a matter which required no consideration, and admitted of no doubt. As Marion Fay will have much to do with our story, it will be well that some further description should be given here of herself and of her condition in life. Zachary Fay, her father, with whom she lived, was a widower with no other living child. There had been many others, who had all died, as had also their mother. She had been a prey to consumption, but had lived long enough to know that she had bequeathed the fatal legacy to her offspring,--to all of them except to Marion, who, when her mother died, had seemed to be exempted from the terrible curse of the family. She had then been old enough to receive her mother's last instructions as to her father, who was then a broken-hearted man struggling with difficulty against the cruelty of Providence. Why should it have been that God should thus afflict him,--him who had no other pleasure in the world, no delights, but those which were afforded to him by the love of his wife and children? It was to be her duty to comfort him, to make up as best she might by her tenderness for all that he had lost and was losing. It was to be especially her duty to soften his heart in all worldly matters, and to turn him as far as possible to the love of heavenly things. It was now two years since her mother's death, and in all things she had endeavoured to perform the duties which her mother had exacted from her.