“Again he essayed to sing, but [his?] voice became choked with emotion, and he ceased, and burst into tears.  Her brother Thomas who had been so hard and cold, and had refused to speak to her, now wept and sobbed like a child, but Lucy smiled as she bade them good bye, and exclaimed, ‘Welcome death, the end of fear.  I am prepared to die.’  A sweet peace settled down on her face, and Lucy had exchanged, I hope, the sorrow and pain of life for the peace and rest of heaven, and left Annette too young to know her loss.  Do you wonder then my child that I feel such an interest in Annette and that knowing as I do her antenatal history that I am ever ready to pity where others condemn, and that I want to do what I can to help round out in beauty and usefulness the character of that sinned against and disinherited child, whose restlessness and sensitiveness I trace back to causes over which she had no control.”

“What became of Frank Miller?  You say that when he returned to A.P. that society opened its doors to him while they were closed to Annette’s mother.  I don’t understand it.  Was he not as guilty as she was?”

“Guiltier, I think.  If poor Lucy failed as a woman, she tried to be faithful as a mother, while he, faithless as a man, left her to bear her burden alone.  She was frail as a woman, but he was base, mean, and selfish as a man.”

“How was it that society received him so readily?”

“All did not receive him so readily, but with some his money, like charity, covered a multitude of sins.  But from the depths of my heart I despised him.  I had not then learned to hate the sin with all my heart, and yet the sinner love.  To me he was the incarnation of social meanness and vice.  And just as I felt I acted.  We young folks had met at a social gathering, and were engaged in a pastime in which we occasionally clasped hands together.  Some of these plays I heartily disliked, especially when there was romping and promiscuous kissing.  During the play Frank Miller’s hand came in contact with mine and he pressed it.  I can hardly describe my feelings.  It seemed as if my very veins were on fire, and that every nerve was thrilling with repulsion and indignation.  Had I seen him murder Lucy and then turn with blood dripping hands to grasp mine, I do not think that I should have felt more loathing than I did when his hand clasped mine.  I felt that his very touch was pollution; I immediately left the play, tore off my glove, and threw it in the fire.”

“Oh, mother, how could you have done so?  You are so good and gentle.”

Mrs. Lasette replied, “I was not always so.  I do not hate his sin any less now than I did then but I think that I have learned a Christian charity which would induce me to pluck such as he out of the fire while I hated the garments spotted by his sins.  I sat down trembling with emotion.  I heard a murmur of disapprobation.  There was a check to the gayety of the evening.  Frank Miller, bold