Mrs. Conran closed the door after them and came slowly back to the parlor, I, meantime, wishing there had been some excuse for me to slip away, so that she need not have the embarrassment of meeting me. There was a weary attempt at a smile on her face, which had grown pale again, and she said apologetically: “Poor Angie! she is the victim of her own strong will. I sometimes feel very sorry that she matured in some things so early; she has an idea that her mother does not know what is suitable for young people to wear, and is growing a little too fond of dress, I am afraid. She has been put forward so much in her music that it has injured her. It seems strange that a sweet voice should lead one into temptation, doesn’t it?” I murmured something about girls being fond of their own way and about their having to learn by experience, the more to give the mother a chance to recover herself than because I felt that I had anything worth saying. I do not think she heard all I said, but the words “learn by experience” caught her attention. “Yes,” she said, after a moment, speaking with a long-drawn sigh, “that is it. Poor child! she must learn by experience, and experience is a bitter teacher sometimes. Often, when I hear her sweet voice roll out on those solemn words: “‘Nearer, my God, to thee, . . . . . . E’en though it be a cross That leadeth me,’ I wonder what the ‘cross’ will be that will lead Angie to think less of her own will and more of Christ. She is so strong-willed, so passionate, and has such a way of giving vent to the thoughts that come into her mind at the moment, without stopping to realize how they will sound. “In some way the child must be taught. It seems to me I have tried hard to teach her, but I have failed. I do not often speak in this way of her,” she added, with a sad smile; “I do not like to talk about her faults before any one, but to-night you heard all the talk, and I want you to understand that her words do not mean all they seem to. She would be startled and frightened at herself if she could have them photographed in some way and spread out before her. “But every exhibition of this kind only proves to me more clearly that she is in need of a solemn lesson, and I do not know how it is coming. “‘Though like a wanderer, Daylight all gone, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone.’ “It makes my heart ache sometimes to hear her sing those words, because I cannot help wondering if she must have the ‘darkness’ and the ‘stone’ to bring her to the true Light.” I did not know what to say to the pale mother, so I said nothing; but as I thought of her unnatural pallor, in sharp contrast with the two burning spots on her wasted cheeks, and remembered how constantly that little cough annoyed her, I felt sorry for Angie. I thought I could see the way in which the “cross” must come.