would not, she would not allow herself to be played with, to be beaten, to be foiled, to have the cup snatched from her lips just when she was about to drink. No, she would not submit! Though God was the Master, yet there were ways of overcoming Him--yes, there were ways of overcoming. Though He said life, a human creature though so weak, if she had but courage enough, could say death, and He would not be able to prevent it. In the madness of her disappointment and rebellion there came into Letitia’s mind a suggestion, an idea. It did not seem so much in order to have her own will, and her own advantage, as in order to get the better of God, who had shaped things the other way. He thought, perhaps, there was nothing she could do, that she would have to bear it. No, then! she would not! He should see--He was a tyrant. He had the power; but there were ways of baffling Him--there was a way---- Never in all Letitia’s struggles had this thought come into her mind before. Mar had been helpless in her hands for years, but her arm had never armed itself against him. She had never sought to harm him. If she had exaggerated and cultivated his weakness it had been half, as she said, in a kind of scornful precaution, that nothing might happen to him in her house, and half from a grudge, lest he should emulate her own sturdy boys, over whom he had so great and undeserved an advantage. She had never thought of harming him. After, when he was really ill, when Providence itself (for her mind could be pious when this influence which shapes events was on her side) had seemed to arrange for his removal, as she piously said, to a better world, it would have been more than nature had not her mind rushed forward to that evidently approaching conclusion which would make so great a difference. Oh, the difference it would make! enough to deaden the sense of pity, to sharpen every covetous desire. But still she had not thought of doing anything to secure the end she desired. No, no! all the other way--nothing had been neglected, nothing refused that would help him--nothing except her desire, her strong unspoken wish, had been against him. And what had that to do with the issue one way or the other? A woman cannot pray to God that a boy may die. Thus the only unfair advantage which the intensity of her wish might have given her was taken away. On the other side they had this unfair advantage--they could pray, and pray as long as they pleased if that was any good. She had only her strong, persistent, never-suspended wish. Nothing, nothing had she done against him. She had never once thought of assisting or hastening fate.