wrote again and I did not reply. Then she wrote to Mary with the same object. Of course, I need hardly tell you that the children remained with me. Poor dear Mary loved her mother dearly, and sent her all her own pocket money. I found it out, and forbade it for the future. Two more years passed by. From time to time I heard of my miserable wife; she was sinking lower and lower. At last, in the twilight of an autumn evening, as Mary was returning home alone, a wild-looking, ragged woman crept towards her with a strange, undecided step: it was her mother. She flung herself at her child's feet, imploring her, if she still had any love for her, to find her the means of gratifying her insatiable thirst. She must die, she said, if she refused her. Poor Mary, poor Mary! Terror-stricken, heart-broken, she spoke words of love, of entreaty, to that miserable creature; she urged her to break off her sin; she pointed her to Jesus for strength; she told her that she dared not supply her regularly with money, as she had promised me that she would not, and it would do her no good. The wretched woman slunk away without another word. Next day her body was found floating on the river; she had destroyed herself. Poor, dear Mary never looked up after that. She connected her mother's awful end with her own refusal to give her money for the drink, though there could be no blame to her: and so she faded away, my lovely child, and left me, ere another spring came round, for the land of eternal summers. I was heart-sick, hopeless; life seemed objectless; I gave way to despondency, and forgot my duty as a man and a Christian. I felt that I was no proper guide nor companion for poor John; so I sent him first to France, where he gained his skill as an artist and musician; and since then he has, by his own desire, been a traveller in distant lands. I let my house, and came over to Hopeworth, to be out of the way of everything and everybody that could remind me of the past. Yet, I could not forget. You noticed the vacant space in my sitting-room, where a picture should have been; that empty space reminded me of what might have been, had my wife, whose portrait should have been there, been a different wife to me. But light came at last. When I saw _you_, Mary my child, for the first time, I scarce knew what to say or think. You were, and are, the very image of my own loved and lost one, my Mary my beloved child; the portrait behind the panel is hers. I longed to have you for my own. I determined, however, to see what you were; I went to the juvenile party merely for that end. And then, when John came home unexpectedly, I resolved in my heart that, if I could bring it about, you _should_ be my own dear child. So John and I talked it over; and John, who is a true branch from the old tree, a little crotchety or so, was resolved to win you in his own fashion; and, having learnt a little colonial independence, he wished to look at