w of Him commands love. Does Ailie, even Ailie,
thoroughly know her father? And yet she loves him."

"That I cannot judge; but most true it is, we know as little of God as
Ailie knows of her father--ay, and look up to Heaven with as blindfold
ignorance as Ailie looks up to me.

"Alas! Ailie's is indeed blindfold ignorance!" said Olive, not quite
understanding his half-muttered words, but thinking they offered a good
opportunity for fulfilling her purpose. "Mr. Gwynne, may I speak to you
about something which has long troubled me?"

"Troubled you, Miss Rothesay? Surely that is not my fault? I would not
for the world do aught that would give pain to one so good as you."

He said this very kindly, pressing her arm with a brotherly gentleness,
which passed into her heart; imparting to her not only a quick sense of
pleasure, but likewise courage.

"Thank you, Mr. Gwynne. This does really pain me. It is the subject on
which we talked the first time that ever you and I met, and of which
we have never since spoken--your determination with respect to little
Ailie's religious instruction."

"Ah!" A start, and a dark look. "Well, Miss Rothesay, what have you to
say?"

"That I think you are not quite right--nay, quite wrong," said Olive,
gathering resolution. "You are taking from your child her only strength
in life--her only comfort in death. You keep from her the true faith;
she will soon make to herself a false one."

"Nay, what is more false than the idle traditions taught by ranting
parents to their offspring--the Bible travestied into a nursery
talc--heaven transformed into a pretty pleasure-house--and hell and its
horrors brought as bugbears to frighten children in the dark. Do you
think I would have my child turned into a baby saint, to patter glibly
over parrot prayers, exchange pet sweetmeats for missionary pennies, and
so learn to keep up a debtor and creditor account with Heaven? No, Miss
Rothesay, I would rather see her grow up a heathen."

Olive, awed by his language, which was bitter even to fierceness, at
first made him no answer. At length, however, she ventured, not without
trembling, to touch another chord.

"But--suppose that your child should be taken away, would you have her
die as she lives now, utterly ignorant of all holy things?"

"Would I have her die an infant bigot--prattling blindly of subjects
which in the common course of nature no child can comprehend? Would I
have her chronicled in som