"I think, Charles, that the pious nature of your mother, awakened as it has of late been, must by this time be so sufficiently known to you all, as to prevent the possibility of your mistaking her motives for marrying the second father, in whose presence you are now placed. Her motives have been of the holiest kind, and never, probably, did any person perform a more acceptable service than she did when, placing her hand within mine before his altar, she resigned that power over her children, which maternal weakness rendered almost nugatory, to one who is too strong in the Lord to permit any human feelings or motives ever to make him swerve from that course which he is taught to believe the best. It would be a very shining pleasure to me if your thankfulness for this most merciful dispensation were at this very moment to impel you to kneel down on one of these cushions;--of such there are always sufficient, and to spare, in the dwellings of the chosen:--I wish, I say, that even now I could see you fall down before me to give thanks for having sent to you and to your sisters one of his own, as your guide and protector through the pitfalls of this life, and to usher you with favour into his presence in the life to come. I would willingly see you thus grateful for manifest mercies,--but I shall not insist upon it at this moment, for I know, Charles, how different have been the paths in which your teachers have hitherto led you." The vicar here paused; but as there was no point in his harangue to which Mowbray could have replied in the spirit which his friend had recommended to him, he resolutely kept silence.