professional moralists agreed with his own or not.
At sea, in his young days, he had used profanity freely,
but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, which
he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it
except on the rarest occasions, and then only when
duty commanded. He had been a hard drinker at
sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and
outspoken teetotaler, in order to be an example to
the young, and from that time forth he seldom drank;
never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be a
duty —a condition which sometimes occurred
a couple of times a year, but never as many as five
times.
Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive,
emotional. This one was, and had no gift at hiding
his feelings; or if he had it he took no trouble to
exercise it. He carried his soul’s prevailing
weather in his face, and when he entered a room the
parasols or the umbrellas went up—figuratively
speaking —according to the indications.
When the soft light was in his eye it meant approval,
and delivered a benediction; when he came with a frown
he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was
a well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but
sometimes a dreaded one.
He had a deep affection for the Lester household and
its several members returned this feeling with interest.
They mourned over his kind of Christianity, and he
frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on
loving each other just the same.
He was approaching the house—out of the
distance; the aunts and the culprit were moving toward
the sick-chamber.
The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere,
the transgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned
her head on the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up instantly
with sympathy and passionate mother-love when they
fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and
shelter of her arms.
“Wait!” said Aunt Hannah, and put out
her hand and stayed the girl from leaping into them.
“Helen,” said the other aunt, impressively,
“tell your mother all. Purge your soul;
leave nothing unconfessed.”
Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the
young girl mourned her sorrowful tale through the
end, then in a passion of appeal cried out:
“Oh, mother, can’t you forgive me? won’t
you forgive me?—I am so desolate!”
“Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to
my arms!—there, lay your head upon my breast,
and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies—”
There was a sound—a warning—the
clearing of a throat. The aunts glanced up,
and withered in their clothes—there stood
the doctor, his face a thunder-cloud. Mother
and child knew nothing of his presence; they lay locked
together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable
content, dead to all things else. The physician
stood many moments glaring and glooming upon the scene
before him; studying it, analyzing it, searching out
its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned
to the aunts. They came trembling to him, and
stood humbly before him and waited. He bent down
and whispered:
