otten sort of world as ours. What remained
for her, but to train her children in her own views and sentiments?
Well, after all you say about training, children will grow up
substantially what they _are_ by nature, and only that. From the cradle,
Alfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, all his
sympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and all mother's
exhortations went to the winds. As to me, they sunk deep into me. She
never contradicted, in form, anything my father said, or seemed directly
to differ from him; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, with all
the force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the dignity and worth
of the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn awe,
when she would point up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, 'See
there, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living,
when all these stars are gone forever,--will live as long as God lives!'

"She had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of Jesus healing
a blind man. They were very fine, and used to impress me strongly. 'See
there, Auguste,' she would say; 'the blind man was a beggar, poor and
loathsome; therefore, he would not heal him _afar off!_ He called him to
him, and put _his hands on him!_ Remember this, my boy.' If I had lived
to grow up under her care, she might have stimulated me to I know not
what of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint, reformer, martyr,--but,
alas! alas! I went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never saw
her again!"

St. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak for some
minutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on:

"What poor, mean trash this whole business of human virtue is! A mere
matter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographical
position, acting with natural temperament. The greater part is nothing
but an accident! Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a town
where all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church member
and deacon, and in due time joins an Abolition society, and thinks
us all little better than heathens. Yet he is, for all the world, in
constitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see it leaking
out in fifty different ways,--just the same strong, overbearing,
dominant spirit. You know very well how impossible it is to persuade
some of the folks in your village that Squire Sinclair does not feel
above them. The fact is, though h