Love you, my child! O, yes! A thousand times more than I can tell." And she kissed her fervently.

"And the angels in heaven love Lillian, don't they?" "Yes, love," Mrs Hartley replied in a husky whisper, struggling to keep the tears from gushing from her eyes. "I know the good angels will love her, and take care of her just as well as you did, mother."

"O yes; and a great deal better."

"Then we won't cry any more because she is gone." "Not if we can help it, love. But we miss her very much."

"Yes. I want to see her all the time. But I know she is in heaven, and I won't cry for her to come back." The words of Fanny were near effecting the entire overthrow of Mrs Hartley's feelings; but by a vigorous struggle with herself, she remained calm, and continued for some time to talk with the child about Lillian in heaven.

From this period, the mother's love for her children flowed on again in its wonted channels, and her care for them was as assiduous as ever, In fact, the loss of one caused her to draw her arms more closely about the rest. But she was changed; and no one who looked upon her could help noting the change. The quiet thoughtfulness of her countenance had given place to a musing expression, as if she were, in spirit, far away with some dearly loved object. Although her love for her children, and her anxiety for their welfare, was increased, if there was any change, yet that love was more brooding than active in its nature. The creative energy of her mind appeared to have suffered a slight paralysis. The bow was unbent.

Marien was quick to perceive this, and by the intuition of love, to glide almost insensibly into her mother's place, so far as Henry and Fanny were concerned. The groundwork of home-education had been so well laid by the mother, that the sister's task was not a difficult one. She became Henry's confidant and counsellor, and led Fanny gently on in the acquirement of good habits and good principles.

If to no one else, this change was good for Marien. It gave her objects to love intensely, because their wellbeing depended on her conduct towards them, at an age when the heart needs something upon which to lavish the pure waters of affection that begin to flow forth in gushing profusion.

Another effect was, to make more distant the period when Marien should appear upon the stage of life as a woman; and this was no wrong to the sweet maiden. When she did enter society as a woman, she was a woman fully qualified to act her part with wisdom and prudence.

CHAPTER XIII.-AN IMPORTANT ERA IN LIFE.

WHEN Clarence returned from college, unscathed in the ordeal through which he had passed, he entered upon a course of legal studies. Law was the profession he chose. It most frequently happens that brothers, as they approach manhood, do not become intimate as companions. But it was not so in the case of Clarence and Henry. They were drawn together as soon as the former returned home. This again tended to lessen the care of

Mrs Hartley, for Clarence had become, in one sense, his brother's guardian. Instead, now, of the constant and often intense exercise of mind to which she had been subjected for years, in the determination of what course was best to take with her children, in order to secure their greatest good, she was more their pleasant companion than their mentor. Her aim now was to secure their unlimited confidence, and this she was able to do. Their mistakes were never treated with even playful ridicule : but she sympathised earnestly with them in everything that interested their minds. This led them to talk to her with the utmost freedom, and gave her a knowledge of the exact state of their feelings in regard to all the circumstances that transpired around them.

The completion of Clarence's twenty-first year was a period to which both the son and mother had looked with no ordinary interest-but with very different feelings. So important an era Mrs Hartley could not let pass without a long and serious conversation with her son, or rather repeated conversations with him.

"From this time, my son," she said to him, "you are no longer bound to your parents by the law of obedience. You are a man, and must act in freedom, according to reason. Our precepts are not to be observed because we give them, but are to be observed because you see them to be true. Heretofore, your parents have been responsible for your conduct to society. But now, you alone are responsible. Upon the way in which you exercise the freedom you now enjoy will depend your usefulness as a man, and your eternal state hereafter. Choose, my son, with wisdom -let your paths be those of peace and pleasantness."

"Don't say your work is ended my mother," Clarence said with much feeling, and an expression of deep concern upon his face. "It cannot be. As before, your advice and counsel must be good. I will not believe that I am no longer to obey you-O no! no!"

"In a supreme sense, Clarence, the Lord is your father, and to him alone are you now required to give supreme obedience, and to love with your highest, purest, and best affections. But that need not cause you to love your natural father and mother the less. You say truly, that our work is not yet done. Our counsel will still be given, but you must not follow it because we have given it, but because, in the light of your own mind, you perceive that it accords with the truth; for you must never forget, that according to your own deeds will you be justified or condemned. We shall not love you the less, nor be less anxious for your welfare; but, being a man, you must act as a man, in freedom according to reason."

The recollection of this conversation often made Cla

rence sigh. "Ah!" he would sometimes say to himself, -"man's estate is not, after all, so desirable a thing to attain. It was much easier to lie upon my mother's bosom, than it is to fight my way through life, amid its thousand temptations."

The formal and serious manner in which Mrs Hartley had conversed with Clarence, caused all that she said to be deeply impressed upon his mind. He pondered over it for weeks. The effect was good, for it saved him from the thoughtless tendency of mere pleasure-seeking into which young men are too apt to fall, on finding them

Q

selves entirely free from the shackles of minority.

He

saw clearly and felt strongly the responsibility of his position. But, accompanying this perception, was an earnestly-formed resolution to overcome in every temptation that might assail him.

"I can conquer, and I will," he said, in the confidence that he felt in the more than human strength that those receive who fight against evil.

It was not long before life's conflicts began in earnest with him; but it is not our business to speak of them, further than to say, that he was subjected to strong trials, to severe temptations, to cares and anxieties of no ordinary kind, and that the remains of good and truth stored up in his mind by his mother saved him. As a child, his predominant evil qualities were a strong self-will and extreme selfishness. In manhood, they reappeared, and long and intense was the struggle against them, before they yielded themselves subject to more heavenly principles.

CHAPTER XIV.-HAPPY CONSUMMATIONS.

MARIEN HARTLEY was twenty-two years of age when

she first began to attract attention in society.

pression she made was a decided one. about her for a time as a new wonder.

The imPeople talked

Her grace, her

intelligence, her accomplishments, and, not least, her beauty, won universal admiration. She was quickly surrounded by the butterflies of fashion, but they found themselves at a loss how to be truly agreeable.

If they