"Methinks, dear Mother," said Thekla, more quietly, "that Mr Carter readeth his Bible upside down. He seemeth to read Saint Paul to say that no chastening for the present is grievous, but joyous. An unmortified will is one thing; an unfeeling heart an other. God loveth us not to try to shake off His rod like a wayward and froward child; but He forbiddeth us not to moan thereunder when the pain wringeth it from us. And it may be the moan soundeth unto other at times that which it is not. He knoweth. He shall not put our tears into the wrong bottle, nor set down the sum of our groans in the wrong column of His book. Hezekiah should scantly be told `I have seen thy tears,' if he did very evil in shedding them; nor Moses twice over, `I have seen, I have seen the affliction of My people, and am come down to deliver them,' if they had sinned in being afflicted. When God wipeth away all tears from our eyes, shall He do it as some do with childre--roughly, shaking the child, and bidding it have done? `Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord' cometh before `faint not when thou art rebuked of Him.'" "Of a truth, I never could abide to see any so use a child," said Isoult, innocently; "but, Thekla, sweet heart, it should as little serve to run unto the further extremity, and give all that a babe should cry for." "Were that love at all?" said Thekla; "unless it were the mother's love for herself, and her own ease." Isoult saw that Mrs Rose seemed comforted, and Thekla was well able to comfort, so she gently withdrew. But when she came down-stairs, John having now returned, she asked him and Dr Thorpe to tell her their opinions. "My thought is," replied Dr Thorpe, "that the fellow knoweth not his business. He must have cold blood in his veins, as a worm hath. I might search the Decalogue a great while ere I came to his two commandments--`Thou shalt not sorrow,' and `Thou shalt not love thy neighbour any better than thyself.'"