“But, mother, does not God use the love we have to each other as a means of doing us good?  Did you not say that it was by your love to father that you first were led to think seriously?”

“That is true, my child,” said Mrs. Scudder, who, like many of the rest of the world, was surprised to meet her own words walking out on a track where she had not expected them, but was yet too true of soul to cut their acquaintance because they were not going the way of her wishes.  “Yes, all that is true; but yet, Mary, when one has but one little ewe lamb in the world, one is jealous of it.  I would give all the world, if you had never seen James.  It is dreadful enough for a woman to love anybody as you can, but it is more to love a man of unsettled character and no religion.  But then the Lord appoints all our goings; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps;—­I leave you, my child, in His hands.”  And, with one solemn and long embrace, the mother and daughter parted for the night.

It is impossible to write a story of New England life and manners for a thoughtless, shallow-minded person.  If we represent things as they are, their intensity, their depth, their unworldly gravity and earnestness, must inevitably repel lighter spirits, as the reverse pole of the magnet drives off sticks and straws.

In no other country were the soul and the spiritual life ever such intense realities, and everything contemplated so much (to use a current New England phrase) “in reference to eternity.”  Mrs. Scudder was a strong, clear-headed, practical woman.  No one had a clearer estimate of the material and outward life, or could more minutely manage its smallest item; but then a tremendous, eternal future had so weighed down and compacted the fibres of her very soul, that all earthly things were but as dust in comparison to it.  That her child should be one elected to walk in white, to reign with Christ when earth was a forgotten dream, was her one absorbing wish; and she looked on all the events of life only with reference to this.  The way of life was narrow, the chances in favor of any child of Adam infinitely small; the best, the most seemingly pure and fair, was by nature a child of wrath, and could be saved only by a sovereign decree, by which it should be plucked as a brand from the burning.  Therefore it was, that, weighing all things in one balance, there was the sincerity of her whole being in the dread which she felt at the thought of her daughter’s marriage with an unbeliever.

Mrs. Scudder, after retiring to her room, took her Bible, in preparation for her habitual nightly exercise of devotion, before going to rest.  She read and reread a chapter, scarce thinking what she was reading,—­aroused herself,—­and then sat with the book in her hand in deep thought.  James Marvyn was her cousin’s son, and she had a strong feeling of respect and family attachment for his father.  She had, too, a real kindness for the young man, whom she regarded as a well-meaning, wilful youngster; but that he should touch her saint, her Mary, that he should take from her the daughter who was her all, really embittered her heart towards him.