y; and the father could not
force from his mind the painful conviction that he was, mainly,
responsible for these consequences.

Another year went by, but during all the time, no further tidings
came of Andrew. To his first letter, Mrs. Howland had immediately
replied, urging him, by every tender consideration, to return to his
home. But she had no means of knowing whether it had ever been
received. Upon her the effect of his absence had been, for a time,
of the most serious character. For a few weeks after he went away,
both body and mind were prostrated; to this succeeded a state of
mental depression, which continued so long that her friends began to
fear for her reason. Not until after the lapse of a year, when she
received the above-mentioned letter from her son, did her mind
attain to anything like its former state. The knowledge that he was
yet, alive, that he thought of her, and still cherished her memory,
gave a new impulse to her fainting spirit, and a quicker motion to
the circle of life. There was yet room to hope for him. But, as time
went on, there came not back even a faint echo to the voice she had
sent after him, her heart failed her again. Yet time, which imparts
strength to all in trouble, had done its work for her also. The care
and labor that ever attend the mother's position among her children,
had bent her thoughts so much away from Andrew, that, while his
absence left a constant weight upon her feelings, it did not crush
them down as before, into a waveless depression.

The second year of Andrew's absence came to a close; but nothing
further was heard from him. And it was the same with the third,
fourth, and fifth years. In the meantime, there had been many
changes in Mr. Howland's family. Mary had married against her
father's wishes, and both herself and husband had been so unkindly
treated by him on the occasion and afterward, that neither of them
visited at his house.

Henry Markland, the husband of Mary, had been rather a gay young
man, and this, with some other things which had come to his ears,
created a prejudice in the mind of Mr. Howland against him. As to
what was good in Markland, and likely to overbalance defects, he did
not inquire. The hue of his prejudice colored everything. Men like
Mr. Howland, who seek to bend everything into forms suited to their
own narrow range of ideas, are rarely successful in attaining their
ends. The principle of freedom is too deeply interwoven with a