For several days the boy had been ill in his chamber, but at his earnest request, his mother had allowed him to come down to the parlor, where, wrapped in a loose dressing gown, he was awaiting the exercise. "How do you find yourself to-night, my boy?" asked his father, placing his fingers upon his son's pulse. "Helen says you don't wish to be brought into the catechising. Do you mean that you feel too ill to recite with the others?" "O, no, sir!" responded the boy, a slight flush overspreading his pale countenance. "I meant that I don't like to have you speak about my temper and such things; I'd rather hear about that some other time." Mr. Dermott smiled, and told Isabelle it was her turn to repeat the answer, and then asked her, "What was Adam's first sin?" "Eating the apple, papa." "Do you remember what I told you about Edward?" "O, yes, papa," cried Helen. "I think perhaps you will understand this question better, if I illustrate it by a continuation of the story of Edward. When we left him, he had somewhat recovered from the occasioned by his wound, but was still far from well. He gradually recovered, so as to be able to attend school, and then went into his father's store as clerk. But the wound in his side had caused a pulmonary complaint which often confined him to the house for weeks together. "At the age of twenty-four he was married, and resided with his wife in his father's family. In a course of years, five children were born to them, each of whom, after a few months, began to show certain signs of the disease which they had inherited from their father. The symptoms of these were indeed slight at first, but just sufficient to show that the seeds of consumption were implanted, and would at some time cause their death. They were, however, an interesting family; and Edward loved them with all a father's fondness. "On a certain occasion, he perceived in one of his boys some symptoms of that unbounded curiosity which had caused him the loss of health and of independence; and he determined to relate his own story as a warning to his children. With a bleeding heart and tear-dimmed eyes, he did so. "When, with a burst of grief, his oldest daughter cried out, 'O, father! How sorry I am you touched the box. If you had not, you would never have been sick; and mother would not have looked so pale and frightened as she does now, when you raise blood from your lungs.' "'No, and we should have been rich too,' added the youngest boy; 'and now we are so poor, I hardly ever have any new clothes, and I can't have a sled, like all the other little boys.'