“‘There are subjects which are not fit food for merriment;’ I said once in an embarrassed manner.  ’If I do wrong, it is not deliberately done.’  Theodore was silent a moment, and he looked at me as if he hardly knew how to understand me—­then smiling, he turned the conversation, and was as gay as ever.  When they had taken their leave, I entered the parlour again, and threw myself in a seat by the open window.  I turned the blind, and looked out after them.  Eleanor had caught the fringe of her mantilla in the railing of the area.  I was about to speak with her on the little accident, when Theodore laughed, and said to his sister, ’Alice is as fond of taking characters, as an actress.  She attempted to reprove me, for the very thing she had laughed at a little while before.  Rather inconsistent in our favourite, Nelly, don’t you think so?’ Eleanor laughed, and said good-naturedly, ’Alice is impulsive, she don’t measure what she says, before it comes out.’

“I rose, and left the window.  I felt sad, and peculiarly discomposed and dissatisfied with myself.  I knew that I had tried to do right in some degree, and it grated on my feelings that my effort should be called ‘a taking of character.’  Oh! if I could only live with good people altogether, who would bear with me, and trust my motives!  You have my story, Aunt Mary, it amounts to nothing, but I am so sad.”

“Life is made up of trifles,” said Miss Clinton.  “Few circumstances are so trivial that we may not draw a lesson from them.  Do not feel sad, Alice, because you are misunderstood.  Do not repine on account of your position; no one could fill it but yourself, or you would not be placed in it.  Be resigned to meet those who call out unpleasant feelings; they teach you better your own nature than ever the angels could.  They bring forth what is evil in you, that it may be conquered.  Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek those who may harm you.  But a day can hardly pass over our heads, that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we so labour after.  It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better life as you are.  You need strength, and then you will be calm and even.  Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must bring your soul to order, then you will bear upon the spirits of others with a still, purifying power which will soothe and soften like far-off music.  You have it in your power to do much good; your Creator has blessed you with that inexpressible sympathy which may glide gently into another human heart and open its secret springs almost unconsciously to the possessor.  I have watched you, child of my love, and perhaps I know you better than you know yourself.  There are many latent germs within your being; Oh!  Alice, pray God to expand them to heavenly life.  Bear on—­and live for something worthy a creature God has made.”  Mary Clinton paused in an unusual emotion; her cheek glowed deeply, and the burning softness of her eyes chained Alice’s