professional moralists agreed with his own or not.  At sea, in his young days, he had used profanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, which he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it except on the rarest occasions, and then only when duty commanded.  He had been a hard drinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and outspoken teetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from that time forth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be a duty —­a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year, but never as many as five times.

Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional.  This one was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he took no trouble to exercise it.  He carried his soul’s prevailing weather in his face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas went up—­figuratively speaking —­according to the indications.  When the soft light was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction; when he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees.  He was a well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded one.

He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members returned this feeling with interest.  They mourned over his kind of Christianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on loving each other just the same.

He was approaching the house—­out of the distance; the aunts and the culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.

CHAPTER III

The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the transgressor softly sobbing.  The mother turned her head on the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate mother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.

“Wait!” said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from leaping into them.

“Helen,” said the other aunt, impressively, “tell your mother all.  Purge your soul; leave nothing unconfessed.”

Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned her sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried out: 

“Oh, mother, can’t you forgive me? won’t you forgive me?—­I am so desolate!”

“Forgive you, my darling?  Oh, come to my arms!—­there, lay your head upon my breast, and be at peace.  If you had told a thousand lies—­”

There was a sound—­a warning—­the clearing of a throat.  The aunts glanced up, and withered in their clothes—­there stood the doctor, his face a thunder-cloud.  Mother and child knew nothing of his presence; they lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable content, dead to all things else.  The physician stood many moments glaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing it, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned to the aunts.  They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and waited.  He bent down and whispered: