The golden arrows of the setting sun were shooting hither and thither through the pine woods, glorifying whatever they touched with a life not its own. A chorus of birds were pouring out an evening melody, when a little company stood around an open grave. With instinctive care for the feeling of the scene, Nina had arrayed herself in a black silk dress, and plain straw bonnet with black ribbon—a mark of respect to the deceased remembered and narrated by Tiff for many a year after.

Cripps stood by the head of the grave, with that hopeless, imbecile expression with which a nature wholly gross and animal often contemplates the symbols of the close of mortal existence. Tiff stood by the side of the grave, his white hat conspicuously draped with black crape, and a deep weed of black upon his arm. The baby, wrapped in an old black shawl, was closely fondled in his bosom, while the two children stood weeping bitterly at his side. The other side of the grave stood Mr. Carson and Mr. Clayton, while Milly, Harry, and several plantation slaves, were in a group behind.

The coffin had been opened, that all might take that last look, so coveted, yet so hopeless, which the human heart will claim on the very verge of the grave. It was but a moment since the coffin had been closed; and the burst of grief which shook the children was caused by that last farewell. As Clayton, in a musical voice, pronounced the words, "I am the resurrection and the life," Nina wept and sobbed as if the grief had been her own; nor did she cease to weep during the whole touching service. It was the same impulsive nature which made her so gay in other scenes that made her so sympathetic here. When the whole was over, she kissed the children, and, shaking hands with old Tiff, promised to come and see them on the morrow. After which, Clayton led her to the carriage, into which he and Carson followed her.

"Upon my word," said Carson, briskly, "this has been quite solemn! Really, a very interesting funeral, indeed! I was delighted with the effect of our church service; in such a romantic place, too! 'Twas really very interesting. It pleases me, also, to see young ladies in your station, Nina, interest themselves in the humble concerns of the poor. If young ladies knew how much more attractive it made them to show a charitable spirit, they would cultivate it more. Singular-looking person, that old negro! Seems to be a good creature. Interesting children, too! I should think the woman must have been pretty when she was young. Seen a great deal of trouble, no doubt, poor thing! It's a comfort to hope she is better off now."

Nina was filled with indignation at this monologue; not considering that the man was giving the very best he had in him, and laboring assiduously at what he considered his vocation, the prevention of half an hour of silence in any spot of earth where he could possibly make himself heard. The same excitement which made Nina cry made him talk. But he was not content with talking, but insisted upon asking Nina, every moment, if she didn't think it an interesting occasion, and if she had not been much impressed.

"I don't feel like talking, Mr. Carson," said Nina.

"Oh—ah—yes, indeed! You've been so deeply affected—yes. Naturally does incline one to silence. Understand your feelings perfectly. Very gratifying to me to see you take such a deep interest in your fellow-creatures."

Nina could have pushed him out of the carriage.

"For my part," continued Carson, "I think we don't reflect enough about this kind of thing—I positively don't. It really is useful sometimes to have one's thoughts turned in this direction. It does us good."

Thus glibly did Carson proceed to talk away the impression of the whole scene they had witnessed. Long before the carriage reached home, Nina had forgotten all her sympathy in a tumult of vexation. She discovered an increasing difficulty in making Carson understand, by any degree of coolness, that he was not acceptable; and saw nothing before her but explanations in the very plainest terms, mortifying and humiliating as that might be. His perfect self-complacent ease, and the air with which he constantly seemed to appropriate her as something which of right belonged to himself, filled her with vexation. But yet her conscience told her that she had brought it upon herself.

"I won't bear this another hour!" she said to herself, as she ascended the steps toward the parlor. "All this before Clayton too! What must he think of me?" But they found tea upon the table and Aunt Nesbit waiting.

"It's a pity, madam, you were not with us. Such an interesting time!" said Mr. Carson, launching, with great volubility, into the tide of discourse.

"It wouldn't have done for me at all," said Mrs. Nesbit. "Being out when the dew falls, always brings on hoarseness. I have been troubled in that way these two or three years. Now I have to be very careful. Then I'm timid about riding in a carriage with John's driving."

"I was amused enough," said Nina, "with Old Hundred's indignation at having to get out the carriage and horses to go over to what he called a 'cracker funeral.' I really believe, if he could have upset us without hurting himself, he would have done it."

"For my part," said Aunt Nesbit, "I hope that family will move off before long. It's very disagreeable having such people round."

"The children look very pretty and bright," said Nina.

"Oh, there's no hope for them! They'll grow up and be just like their parents. I've seen that sort of people all through and through. I don't wish them any evil; only I don't want to have anything to do with them!"

"For my part," said Nina, "I'm sorry for them. I wonder why the legislature, or somebody, don't have schools, as they do up in New York State? There isn't anywhere there where children can't go to school, if they wish to. Besides, aunt, these children really came from an old family in Virginia. Their old servant-man says that their mother was a Peyton."

"I don't believe a word of it! They'll lie—all of them. They always do."

"Well," said Nina, "I shall do something for these children, at any rate."

"I quite agree with you, Nina. It shows a very excellent spirit in you," said Mr. Carson. "You'll always find me ready to encourage everything of that sort."

Nina frowned, and looked indignant. But to no purpose. Mr. Carson went on remorselessly with his really good-hearted rattle, till Nina, at last, could bear it no longer.

"How dreadfully warm this room is!" said she, springing up. "Come, let's go back into the parlor."

Nina was as much annoyed at Clayton's silence, and his quiet, observant reserve, as with Carson's forth-putting. Rising from table, she passed on before the company, with a half-flying trip, into the hall, which lay now cool, calm, and breezy, in the twilight, with the odor of the pillar-roses floating in at the window. The pale white moon, set in the rosy belt of the evening sky, looked in at the open door. Nina would have given all the world to be still; but, well aware that stillness was out of the question, she determined to select her own noise; and, sitting down at the piano, began playing very fast, in a rapid, restless, disconnected manner. Clayton threw himself on a lounge by the open door; while Carson busied himself fluttering the music, opening and shutting music-books, and interspersing running commentaries and notes of admiration on the playing.

At last, as if she could bear it no longer, she rose, with a very decided air, from the piano, and, facing about towards Mr. Carson, said:—

"It looks very beautifully out doors. Don't you want to come out? There's a point of view at the end of one of the paths, where the moon looks on the water, that I should like to show you."

"Won't you catch cold, Nina?" said Aunt Nesbit.

"No, indeed! I never catch cold," said Nina, springing into the porch, and taking the delighted Mr. Carson's arm. And away she went with him, with almost a skip and a jump, leaving Clayton tête-à-tête with Aunt Nesbit.

Nina went so fast that her attendant was almost out of breath. They reached a little knoll, and there Nina stopped suddenly, and said, "Look here, Mr. Carson; I have something to say to you."

"I should be delighted, my dear Nina! I'm perfectly charmed!"

"No—no—if you please—don't!" said Nina, putting up her hand to stop him. "Just wait till you hear what I have to say. I believe you did not get a letter which I wrote you a few days ago, did you?"

"A letter! no, indeed. How unfortunate!"

"Very unfortunate for me!" said Nina; "and for you, too. Because, if you had, it would have saved you and me the trouble of this interview. I wrote that letter to tell you, Mr. Carson, that I cannot think of such a thing as an engagement with you! That I've acted very wrong and very foolishly; but that I cannot do it. In New York, where everybody and everything seemed to be trifling, and where the girls all trifled with these things, I was engaged—just for frolic—nothing more. I had no idea what it would amount to; no idea what I was saying, nor how I should feel afterwards. But every hour since I've been home, here, since I've been so much alone, has made me feel how wrong it is. Now, I'm very sorry, I'm sure. But I must speak the truth, this time. But it is—I can't tell you how—disagreeable to me to have you treat me as you have since you've been here!"

"Miss Gordon!" said Mr. Carson, "I am positively astonished! I—I don't know what to think!"

"Well, I only want you to think that I am in earnest; and that, though I can like you very well as an acquaintance, and shall always wish you well, yet anything else is just as far out of the question as that moon there is from us. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I've made you all this trouble. I really am," said she, good-naturedly; "but please now to understand how we stand." She turned, and tripped away.

"There!" said she, to herself, "at any rate, I've done one thing!"

Mr. Carson stood still, gradually recovering from the stupor into which this communication had thrown him. He stretched himself, rubbed his eyes, took out his watch and looked at it, and then began walking off with a very sober pace in the opposite direction from Nina. Happily-constituted mortal that he was, nothing ever could be subtracted from his sum of complacence that could not be easily balanced by about a quarter of an hour's consideration. The walk through the shrubbery in which he was engaged was an extremely pretty one, and wound along on the banks of the river through many picturesque points of view, and finally led again to the house by another approach. During the course of this walk Mr. Carson had settled the whole question for himself. In the first place, he repeated the comfortable old proverb, that there were as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. In the second place, as Mr. Carson was a shrewd business-man, it occurred to him, in this connection, that the plantation was rather run down, and not a profitable acquisition. And, in the third place, contemplating Nina as the fox of old did his bunch of sour grapes, he began to remember that, after all, she was dressy, expensive, and extravagant. Then, as he did not want that imperturbable good-nature which belongs to a very shallow capability of feeling, he said to himself that he shouldn't like the girl a bit the less. In fact, when he thought of his own fine fortune, his house in New York, and all the accessories which went to make up himself, he considered her, on the whole, as an object of pity; and, by the time that he ascended the balcony steps again, he was in as charitable and Christian a frame as any rejected suitor could desire.

He entered the drawing-room. Aunt Nesbit had ordered candles, and was sitting up with her gloves on, alone. What had transpired during his walk, he did not know; but we will take our readers into confidence.

Nina returned to the house with the same decided air with which she went out, and awakened Mr. Clayton from a reverie with a brisk little tap of her fan on his shoulder.

"Come up here with me," she said, "and look out of the library window, and see this moonlight."

And up she went, over the old oaken staircase, stopping on each landing; and, beckoning to Clayton, with a whimsically authoritative gesture, threw open the door of a large, black-wainscoted room, and ushered him in. The room lay just above the one where they had been sitting, and, like that, opened on to the veranda by long-sashed windows, through which, at the present moment, a flood of moonlight was pouring. A large, mahogany writing-table, covered with papers, stood in the middle of the room, and the moon shone in so brightly that the pattern of the bronze inkstand, and the color of the wafers and sealing-wax, were plainly revealed. The window commanded a splendid view of the river over the distant tree-tops, as it lay shimmering and glittering in the moonlight.

"Isn't that a beautiful sight?" said Nina, in a hurried voice.

"Very beautiful!" said Clayton, sitting down in the large lounging-chair before the window, and looking out with the abstracted air which was habitual with him.

After a moment's thought, Nina added, with a sudden effort,—

"But, after all, that was not what I wanted to speak to you about. I wanted to see you somewhere, and say a few words which it seems to me it is due to you that I should say. I got your last letter, and I'm sure I am very much obliged to your sister for all the kind things she says; but I think you must have been astonished at what you have seen since you have been here."

"Astonished at what?" said Clayton, quietly.

"At Mr. Carson's manners towards me."

"I have not been astonished at all," replied Clayton, quietly.

"I think, at all events," said Nina, "I think it is no more than honorable that I should tell you exactly how things have stood. Mr. Carson has thought that he had a right to me and mine; and I was so foolish as to give him reason to think so. The fact is, that I have been making a game of life, and saying and doing anything and everything that came into my head, just for frolic. It don't seem to me that there has been anything serious or real about me, until very lately. Somehow, my acquaintance with you has made things seem more real to me than they ever did before; and it seems to me now perfectly incredible, the way we girls used to play and trifle with everything in the world. Just for sport, I was engaged to that man; just for sport, too, I have been engaged to another one."

"And," said Clayton, breaking the silence, "just for sport, have you been engaged to me?"

"No," said Nina, after a few moments' silence, "not in sport, certainly; but, yet, not enough in earnest. I think I am about half waked up. I don't know myself. I don't know where or what I am, and I want to go back into that thoughtless dream. I do really think it's too hard to take up the responsibility of living in good earnest. Now, it seems to me just this,—that I cannot be bound to anybody. I want to be free. I have positively broken all connection with Mr. Carson; I have broken with another one, and I wish"—

"To break with me?" said Clayton.

"I don't really know as I can say what I do wish. It is a very different thing from any of the others, but there's a feeling of dread, and responsibility, and constraint, about it; and, though I think I should feel very lonesome now without you, and though I like to get your letters, yet it seems to me that I cannot be engaged,—that is a most dreadful feeling to me."

"My dear friend," said Clayton, "if that is all, make yourself easy. There's no occasion for our being engaged. If you can enjoy being with me and writing to me, why, do it in the freest way, and to-morrow shall take care for the things of itself. You shall say what you please, do what you please, write when you please, and not write when you please, and have as many or as few letters as you like. There can be no true love without liberty."

"Oh, I'm sure I'm much obliged to you!" said Nina, with a sigh of relief. "And, now, do you know, I like your sister's postscript very much; but I can't tell what it is in it, for the language is as kind as can be, that would give me the impression that she is one of those very proper kind of people, that would be dreadfully shocked if she knew of all my goings on in New York."

Clayton could hardly help laughing at the instinctive sagacity of this remark.

"I'm sure I don't know," said he, "where you could have seen that,—in so short a postscript, too."

"Do you know, I never take anybody's handwriting into my hand, that I don't feel an idea of them come over me, just as you have when you see people? And that idea came over me when I read your sister's letter."

"Well, Nina, to tell you the truth, sister Anne is a little bit conventional—a little set in her ways; but, after all, a large-hearted, warm-hearted woman. You would like each other, I know."

"I don't know about that," said Nina. "I am very apt to shock proper people. Somehow or other, they have a faculty of making me contrary."

"Well, but, you see, Anne isn't merely a conventional person; there's only the slightest crust of conventionality, and a real warm heart under it."

"Whereas," said Nina, "most conventional people are like a shallow river, frozen to the bottom. But, now, really, I should like very much to have your sister come and visit us, if I could think that she would come as any other friend; but, you know, it isn't very agreeable to have anybody come to look one over to see if one will do."

Clayton laughed at the naïve, undisguised frankness of this speech.

"You see," said Nina, "though I'm nothing but an ignorant school-girl, I'm as proud as if I had everything to be proud of. Now, do you know, I don't much like writing to your sister, because I don't think I write very good letters! I never could sit still long enough to write."

"Write exactly as you talk," said Clayton. "Say just what comes into your head, just as you would talk it. I hope you will do that much, for it will be very dull writing all on one side."

"Well," said Nina, rising, with animation, "now, Mr. Edward Clayton, if we have settled about this moonlight, we may as well go down into the parlor, where Aunt Nesbit and Mr. Carson are tête-à-tête."

"Poor Carson!" said Clayton.

"Oh, don't pity him! Good soul! he's a man that one night's rest would bring round from anything in creation. He's so thoroughly good-natured! Besides, I shall like him better, now. He did not use to seem to me so intrusive and disagreeable. We girls used to like him very well, he was such a comfortable, easy-tempered, agreeable creature, always brisk and in spirits, and knowing everything that went on. But he is one of those men that I think would be really insufferable, if anything serious were the matter with me. Now, you heard how he talked coming from that funeral! Do you know, that if he had been coming from my funeral, it would have been just so?"

"Oh, no, not quite so bad," said Clayton.

"Indeed he is," said Nina. "That man! why, he just puts me in mind of one of these brisk blue-flies, whirring and whisking about, marching over pages of books, and alighting on all sorts of things. When he puts on that grave look, and begins to talk about serious things, he actually looks to me just as a fly does when he stands brushing his wings on a Bible! But, come, let's go down to the good soul."

Down they went, and Nina seemed like a person enfranchised. Never had she seemed more universally gracious. She was chatty and conversable with Carson, and sang over for him all her old opera-songs, with the better grace that she saw that Clayton was listening intently.

As they were sitting and conversing together, the sound of a horse's heels was heard coming up the avenue.

"Who can that be, this time of night?" said Nina, springing to the door, and looking out.

She saw Harry hastening in advance to meet her, and ran down the veranda steps to speak to him.

"Harry, who is coming?"

"Miss Nina, it's Master Tom," said Harry, in a low voice.

"Tom! Oh, mercy!" said Nina, in a voice of apprehension. "What sent him here, now?"

"What sends him anywhere?" said Harry.

Nina reascended the steps, and stood looking apprehensively towards the horseman, who approached every moment nearer. Harry came up on the veranda, and stood a little behind her. In a few moments the horse was up before the steps.

"Hallo, there!" said the rider. "Come, take my horse, you rascal!"

Harry remained perfectly still, put his arms by his side, and stood with a frowning expression on his forehead.

"Don't you hear?" said the horseman, throwing himself off, with an oath. "Come here, boy, and take my horse!"

"For pity's sake," said Nina, turning and looking in Harry's face, "don't have a scene here! Do take his horse, quick! Anything to keep him quiet!"

With a sudden start, Harry went down the steps, and took the bridle from the hand of the newly-arrived in silence.

The horseman sprang up the steps.

"Hallo, Nin, is this you?" And Nina felt herself roughly seized in the arms of a shaggy great-coat, and kissed by lips smelling of brandy and tobacco. She faintly said, as she disengaged herself,—

"Tom, is it you?"

"Yes, to be sure! Who did you think it was? Devilish glad to see me, an't you? Suppose you was in hopes I wouldn't come!"

"Hush, Tom, do! I am glad to see you. There are gentlemen in there; don't speak so loud!"

"Some of your beaux, hey? Well, I am as good a fellow as any of 'em! Free country, I hope! No, I an't going to whisper, for any of them. So now, Nin— If there isn't old Starchy, to be sure!" said he, as Aunt Nesbit came to the door. "Hallo, old girl, how are you?"

"Thomas!" said Mrs. Nesbit, softly, "Thomas!"

"None of your Thomasing me, you old pussy-cat! Don't you be telling me, neither, to hush! I won't hush, neither! I know what I am about, I guess! It's my house, as much as it is Nin's, and I'm going to do as I have a mind to here! I an't going to have my mouth shut on account of her beaux! So, clear out, I tell you, and let me come in!" and Aunt Nesbit gave back. He pushed his way into the apartment.

He was a young man, about twenty-five years old, who evidently had once possessed advantages of face and figure; but every outline in the face was bloated and rendered unmeaning by habits of constant intemperance. His dark eyes had that muddy and troubled expression which in a young man too surely indicates the habitual consciousness of inward impurity. His broad, high forehead was flushed and pimpled, his lips swollen and tumid, and his whole air and manner gave painful evidence that he was at present too far under the influence of stimulus justly to apprehend what he was about.

Nina followed him, and Clayton was absolutely shocked at the ghastly paleness of her face. She made an uncertain motion towards him, as if she would have gone to him for protection. Clayton rose; Carson, also; and all stood for a moment in silent embarrassment.

"Well, this is a pretty business, to be sure! Nina," said he, turning to her, with a tremendous oath, "why don't you introduce me? Pretty way to meet a brother you haven't seen for three or four years! You act as if you were ashamed of me! Confound it all! introduce me, I say!"

"Tom, don't speak so!" said Nina, laying her hand on his arm, in a soothing tone. "This gentleman is Mr. Clayton; and, Mr. Clayton," she said, lifting her eyes to him, and speaking in a trembling voice, "this is my brother."

Mr. Clayton offered his hand, with the ordinary expressions of civility.

"Mr. Carson," said Nina, "my brother."

There was something inexpressibly touching and affecting in the manner in which this was said. One other person noticed it. Harry, who had given the horse to a servant, stood leaning against the doorway, looking on. A fiery gleam, like that of a steel blade, seemed to shoot from his blue eyes; and each time that Nina said "my brother," he drew in his breath, as one who seeks to restrain himself in some violent inward emotion.

"I suppose you don't any of you want to see me much," said the new-comer, taking a chair, and sitting down doggedly in the centre of the group, with his hat on his head.

"Well, I have as good a right as anybody to be here!" he continued, spitting a quid of tobacco at Aunt Nesbit's feet.

"For my part, I think relations ought to have natural affection, and be glad to see one another. Well, now, you can see, gentlemen, with your own eyes, just how it is here! There's my sister, there. You better believe me, she hasn't seen me for three years! Instead of appearing glad, or anything, there she sits, all curled up in a corner! Won't come near me, more than if I had the plague! Come here, now, you little kit, and sit in my lap!"

He made a movement to pull Nina towards him, which she resisted with an air of terror, looking at her aunt, who, more terrified still, sat with her feet drawn up on the sofa, as if he had been a mad dog. There was reason enough for the terror which seemed to possess them both. Both had too vivid recollections of furious domestic hurricanes that had swept over the family when Tom Gordon came home. Nina remembered the storms of oaths and curses that had terrified her when a child; the times that she had seen her father looking like death, leaning his head on his hand, and sighing as only those sigh who have an only son worse than dead.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Nina, generally courageous and fearless as she was, should have become fearful and embarrassed at his sudden return.

"Tom," she said, softly, coming up to him, "you haven't been to supper. Hadn't you better come out?"

"No you don't!" said he, catching her round the waist, and drawing her on his knee. "You won't get me out of the room, now! I know what I am about! Tell me," continued he, still holding her on his knee, "which of them is it, Nin?—which is the favored one?"

Clayton rose and went out on the veranda, and Mr. Carson asked Harry to show him into his room.

"Hallo! shelling out there, are they? Well, Nin, to tell the truth, I am deuced hungry. For my part, I don't see what the thunder keeps my Jim out so long. I sent him across to the post-office. He ought to have been back certainly as soon as I was. Oh, here he comes! Hallo! you dog, there!" said he, going to the door, where a very black negro was dismounting. "Any letters?"

"No, mas'r. I spect de mails have gin up. Der an't been no letters dere, for no one, for a month. It is some 'quatic disorganization of dese yer creeks, I s'pose. So de letter-bags goes anywhere 'cept der right place."

"Confound it all! I say, you Nin," turning round, "why don't you offer a fellow some supper? Coming home, here, in my own father's house, everybody acts as if they were scared to death! No supper!"

"Why, Tom, I've been asking you, these three or four times."

"Bless us!" said Jim, whispering to Harry. "De mischief is, he an't more than half-primed! Tell her to give him a little more brandy, and after a little we will get him into bed as easy as can be!"

And the event proved so; for, on sitting down to supper, Tom Gordon passed regularly through all the stages of drunkenness; became as outrageously affectionate as he had been before surly, kissed Nina and Aunt Nesbit, cried over his sins and confessed his iniquities, laughed and cried feebly, till at last he sank in his chair asleep.

"Dar, he is done for, now!" said Jim, who had been watching the gradual process. "Now, just you and I, let's tote him off," said he to Harry.

Nina, on her part, retired to a troubled pillow. She foresaw nothing before her but mortification and embarrassment, and realized more than ever the peculiar loneliness of her situation.

For all purposes of consultation and aid, Aunt Nesbit was nobody in her esteem, and Nina was always excited and vexed by every new attempt that she made to confide in her.

"Now, to-morrow," she said to herself, as she lay down, "no one knows what will turn up. He will go round as usual, interfering with everything—threatening and frightening my servants, and getting up some difficulty with Harry. Dear me! it seems to me life is coming over me hard enough, and all at once, too!"

As Nina said this, she saw some one standing by her bed. It was Milly, who stooped tenderly over her, smoothing and arranging the bed-clothes in a motherly way.

"Is that you, Milly? Oh, sit down here a minute! I am so troubled! It seems to me I've had so much trouble to-day! Do you know Tom came home to-night so drunk! Oh, dear Milly, it was horrid! Do you know he took me in his arms and kissed me; and, though he is my only brother, it's perfectly dreadful to me! And I feel so worried, and so anxious!"

"Yes, lamb, I knows all about dese yer things," said Milly. "I's seen him many and many times."

"The worst of it is," said Nina, "that I don't know what he will do to-morrow—and before Mr. Clayton, too! It makes me feel so helpless, ashamed, and mortifies me so!"

"Yes, yes, chile," said Milly, gently stroking her head.

"I stand so much alone!" said Nina. "Other girls have some friend or relation to lean on; but I have nobody!"

"Why don't you ask your Father to help you?" said Milly to Nina, in a gentle tone.

"Ask who?" said Nina, lifting up her head from the pillow.

"Your Father!" said Milly, with a voice of solemnity. "Don't you know 'Our Father who art in Heaven'? You haven't forgot your prayers, I hope, honey."

Nina looked at her with surprise. And Milly continued, "Now, if I was you, lamb, I would tell my Father all about it. Why, chile, He loves you! He wouldn't like nothing better, now, than to have you just come to Him and tell Him all about your troubles, and He'll make 'em all straight. That's the way I does, and I's found it come out right, many and many a time."

"Why, Milly, you wouldn't have me go to God about my little foolish affairs?"

"Laws, chile, what should you go to Him 'bout, den? Sure dese are all de 'fairs you's got."

"Well, but, Milly," said Nina, apprehensively, "you know I've been a very bad girl about religion. It's years and years since I've said any prayers. At school, the girls used to laugh at anybody who said prayers; and so I never did. And, since I've neglected my heavenly Father when things went well with me, it wouldn't be fair to call on Him now, just because I've got into trouble. I don't think it would be honorable."

"De Lord bless dis yer chile! Do hear her talk! Just as if de heavenly Father didn't know all about you, and hadn't been a loving and watching you de whole time! Why, chile, He knows what poor foolish creatures we be; and He an't noways surprised, nor put out. Why, laws, don't you know He's de good shepherd? And what you suppose dey has shepherds fur, 'cept de sheeps are all de time running away, and getting into trouble? Why, honey, dat's what dey's fur."

"Well, but it is so long since I prayed, that I don't know anything how to pray, Milly."

"Bless you, chile, who wanted you to pray? I never prays myself. Used to try, but I made such drefful poor work on it that I gin it up. Now, I just goes and talks to de Father, and tells Him anything and everything; and I think He likes it a great deal better. Why, He is just as willing to hear me now, as if I was the greatest lady in the land. And he takes such an interest in all my poor 'fairs! Why, sometimes I go to Him when my heart is so heavy; and, when I tells Him all about it, I comes away as light as a feather!"

"Well, but, after I've forgotten Him so many years!"

"Why, honey, now just look yere! I 'member once, when you was a little weety thing, that you toddles down dem steps dere, and you slips away from dem dat was watching you, and you toddles away off into de grove, yonder, and dere you got picking flowers, and one thing and another, mighty tickled and peart. You was down dere 'joying yourself, till, by and by, your pa missed you; and den such another hunt as dere was! Dere was a hurrying here, and a looking dere; and finally your pa run down in de woods, and dere you'd got stuck fast in de mud! both your shoes off, and well scratched with briers; and dere you stood a crying, and calling your pa. I tell you he said dat ar was de sweetest music he ever heard in his life. I 'member he picked you up, and came up to de house kissing you. Now, dere 'twas, honey! You didn't call on your pa till you got into trouble. And laws, laws, chile, dat's de way with us all. We never does call on de Father till we gets into trouble; and it takes heaps and heaps of trouble, sometimes, to bring us round. Some time, chile, I'll tell you my sperence. I's got a sperence on this point. But, now, honey, don't trouble yourself no more; but just ask your Father to take care of your 'fairs, and turn over and go to sleep. And He'll do it. Now you mind."

So saying, Milly smoothed the pillow with anxious care, and, kissing Nina on the forehead, departed.