“I can’t dispute that,” said my father with a smothered groan.

“’But would turn your attention to the more important considerations of our being.  I would not lean too heavily upon the bruised reed, but your early life was anything but evangelical—­’”

Constance laughed; she could not, wild girl, avoid it.

“‘We must all give an account of our stewardship,’ vide St. Luke, chap. xvi.—­’”

“Stop—­Shakspeare’s right; when the devil quotes Scripture—­but, go on—­let’s have the whole dose.”

“’When can you pay the money in?  And, oh! in you, my dear nephew, may grace yet fructify, and may you be brought, even at the eleventh hour, to a slow conviction that all on this earth is vanity and vexation of spirit—­drums, colors, scarlet and fine linen, hounds running after hares, women whirling round, as they tell me they do, in that invention of the evil one called a waltz, all these are but delusions of the enemy, and designed to lead sinners to destruction.  I transcribe a verse from a most affecting hymn, composed by that gifted man—­’”

“Oh, d——­n the hymn!” roared my father; “on with you, Frank, and my benison light on the composer of it!  Don’t stop to favor us with his name, and pass over the filthy doggerel!”

I proceeded under orders accordingly.

“’Remember, James, you are now sixty-one; repent, and, even in the eleventh hour, you may be plucked like a brand from the fire.  Avoid swearing, mortify the flesh—­that is, don’t take a third tumbler after dinner—­’”

My father could not stand it longer. “Oh, may Cromwell’s curse light upon her!  I wonder how many glasses of brandy-and-water she swallows at evening exercise, as she calls it, over a chapter of Timothy?”

“’I would not recall the past, but for the purpose of wholesome admonition.  The year before you married, and gave up the godless life of soldiering, can you forget that I found you, at one in the morning in Bridget Donovan’s room?  Your reason was, that you had got the colic; if you had, why not come to my chamber, where you knew there was laudanum and lavender?

Poor Constance could not stand the fresh allegation; and, while my mother looked very grave, we laughed, as Scrub says, “consumedly.”  My father muttered something about “cursed nonsense!” but I am inclined to think that aunt Catharine’s colic charge was not without some foundation.

“’I have now, James, discharged my duty:  may my humble attempts to arouse you to a sense of the danger of standing on the brink of the pit of perdition be blessed!  Pay the principal and interest over to La Touche.  Mr. Selby Sly hinted that a foreclosure of the mortgage might expedite matters; and, by saving a term or two in getting in the money, two or three hundred New Zealanders would—­and oh, James! how gratifying would be the reflection!—­be saved from the wrath to come.