he yet careth for thee. I am sent to comfort thee. As thou didst disobey the commands of God, death has been brought, indeed, upon thy posterity, but thy children may not curse thee. Thy daughters shall imitate thy penitence, and so secure the favor of Heaven. To each one shall be given a spirit, capable of resisting temptation, and assimilating to that holiness from which thou hast departed. Though sin and death have entered the world by thy means, thy children will still have only their own sins to answer for, and may not justly reproach thee for their errors." "True, Lord," responded Eve, "but the altered sky, the hard earth that scarcely yields its treasures to the labor of Adam, and the changed natures of the animals that once meekly and kindly sported together, all tell of my disobedience, and my daughter will turn her eyes upon me when suffering and trial come, and that look will reproach me as the cause. I am told that our children shall equal in number the leaves of the green wood, and the earth shall hereafter be peopled with beings like ourselves. I shrink to think on the mass of sorrow I have brought upon my daughters." She looked fondly on her babe, and timidly raised it towards the beneficent being who paused at her bower. "When men shall become numerous, and there shall be many beings like these, fair and frail, may not their beauty--" She paused and looked anxiously up. "Speak, Eve," said the messenger, "thy request shall be granted. I am sent to bestow upon thee whatever thou shalt ask, for this thy first born daughter." "I scarcely know," resumed Eve, thus encouraged, "but I would ask for this first daughter of an erring mother, _something_, to warn her of even the approach of sin, something, that will whisper caution, and speak of innocence and purity. Something, Lord, that will remind us of Paradise." "Hast thou not all that, Eve, in the voice within, the voice of conscience?" Eve dropped her head upon her bosom. "But that monitor may be disregarded, my daughters may, like their unhappy parent, stifle its voice and heedlessly neglect its warnings. I would have something, that when flattery would mislead, beauty bewilder, or passion lead astray, would outwardly as it were bid them take heed, warn them to shrink from the very trail of the serpent whose insidious poison may corrupt and destroy. Hast thou nothing that will be to the innocent, the virtuous, like a second conscience, to cause them to shrink even from the _appearance_ of evil?" The angel smiled, and answered our mother with kindness, and a look of heavenly satisfaction. "Most wisely hast thou petitioned, O Eve. Thou hast asked blessings for thy posterity, not for thyself. Thy daughters shall bless thee for the gift thy prayer has obtained." The spirit departed. The gift he bestowed may be seen on the face of the maiden when she shrinks from the too admiring gaze, when her ear is listening to the tale of love, or flattery, when in the solitude