The Doctor ran his eye over it, and its effigy of Shakspeare upon the niche in the wall, as Gabriel might have looked upon the armor of Beelzebub. "I hope, Reuben, you never enter those doors?" "Well, father, since Kean and Mathews are gone, there's really nothing worth the seeing." "Kean! Mathews!" said the Doctor, stopping in his walk and confronting Reuben with a stern brow,--"is it possible, my son, that I hear you talking in this familiar way of play-actors? You don't tell me that you have been a participant in such orgies of Satan?" "Why, father," says Reuben, a little startled by the Doctor's earnestness, "the truth is, Aunt Mabel goes occasionally, like 'most all the ladies; but we go, you know, to see the moral pieces, generally." "Moral pieces! moral pieces!" says the Doctor, with a withering scowl. "Reuben! those who go thither take hold on the door-posts of hell!" "That's the Tract Society building yonder," said Reuben, wishing to divert the Doctor, if possible, from the special object of his reflections. "Rachel's voice!--always Rachel's voice!"--said the Doctor to himself. "Would you like to go in, father?" "No, my son, we have no time; and yet"--meditating, and thrusting his hand in his pocket--"there is a tract or two I would like to buy for you, Reuben." "Go in, then," says Reuben. "Let me tell them who you are, father, and you can get them at wholesale prices. It's the merest song." "No, my son, no," said the Doctor, disheartened by the blithe air of Reuben. "I fear it would be wasted effort. Yet I trust that you do not wholly neglect the opportunities for religious instruction on the Sabbath?" "Oh, no," says Reuben, gayly. "I see Dr. Mowry off and on, pretty often. He's a clever old gentleman,--Dr. Mowry." Clever old gentleman! The Doctor walked on oppressed with grief,--silent, but with lips moving in prayer,--beseeching God to take away the stony heart from this poor child of his, and to give him a heart of flesh.