Mattie worked a change--a great one. The instinct that assured her she possessed that power had not deceived her; and Sidney, though he became never again his former self, altered for the better. This change strengthened Mattie in her resolves, and made amends for her father's silence. She had written to Mr. Gray a long letter a few days after she had left his home, explaining her conduct more fully, entering more completely into the details of her former relations to the Hinchfords and the friends she had found in them; trusting that her father would believe that she loved him none the less for the step which she had taken--she who would have been more happy had he consented thereto--and hoping for the better days when she could return and take once more her place beside him. She had also asked in her letter that her box might be sent her, and he had considered that request as the one object of her writing, and responded to it by the transmission of the box and its contents, keeping back all evidence of his own trouble and anger. She had chosen her lot in life, he thought; she had preferred a stranger's home to her own flesh and blood; in the face of the world's opinion she had gone to nurse a man of three and twenty years of age. After all, she had never loved her father; he had come too late in life before her, and it was his fate never to gain affection from those on whose kind feelings he had a claim. He had been unlucky in his loves, and he must think no more of them. His troubles were earthly, and on earthly affections he must not dwell too much--he must teach himself to soar above them all. He read the Bible more frequently than ever, attended less to his work, and more to his district society and local preaching; by all the means in his power he turned his thoughts away from Mattie. When the thought was too strong for him, he connected her with the wrong that she had done him, and so thought uncharitably of her, as good men have done before and since his time--good people being fallible and liable to err. Mattie knew nothing of her father's trouble, and judged him as she had seen him last--angry and uncharitable and jealous! That is a bad habit of connecting friends whom we have given up with the stormy scene which cut the friendship adrift; of stereotyping the last impression--generally the false one--and connecting _that_ with him and her for ever afterwards. Think of the virtues that first drew us towards them, and not of the angry frown and the bitter word that set us apart; in the long run we shall find it answered, and have less wherewith to accuse ourselves.