Mary's resolution was not to be shaken. As an act of duty, it was no more than she ought to do to atone for the wrong lie had done James. Though never lacking in filial respect, she was not so blinded by indulgence, as not to sec in its true colors the misery her father had wrought.
The next morning she rose early and looked out at her chamber window, which commanded a romantic view. Hills and vales alternated here and there with a sheet of water which found an inlet from the main stream; manufacturing establishments rose in proud preeminence above the little low-roofed cottages, that seemed to start up wherever there was a convenient spot of ground to erect one; and the children, some half-dressed, were vicing with each other to see who of them would venture nearest the forbidden stream.
Just opposite the window lay the rural cemetery in the bosom of a beautiful grove bordering on the lake. Mary looked at the white gate she had, so often seen swung back to admit the funeral procession, bearing hither some precious treasure that had been the abode of white-robed innocence, torturing disease, or loathesome sin, whose spirit had gone to the bar of its final Judge, freed from the prejudices, the temptations, and the ills of its earthly career, to receive its due reward from the measure of impartial justice; subject only to Him in the light of whose all-seeing eye every secret shall be revealed, and every motive clearly read. She looked beyond the tomb, and felt that life is but a few years, a speck in the balance of eternity, but love is immortal. What-
