the bedside. As she bent over to kiss
the white-faced sufferer, the child sobbed out--

"Oh mother!--dear mother!"

The mother's frame quivered under the pressure of intense feeling,
and she was on the eve of losing all self-control, when the
physician whispered in her ear.

"Be calm, madam--the life of your child may depend on it!"

Instantly the mother was calm in all that met the eye. Close to her
child she bent, and with a hand laid gently on his clammy forehead,
she spoke to him words of comfort and encouragement, while the
physician proceeded in the work of bandaging his broken and injured
limbs.

As for Mr. Howland, he walked the floor with compressed and silent
lips, until the physician's work was done. He pitied the suffering
boy, yet there was nothing of what he called weakness in his pity.
The idea that Andrew was suffering a just retribution for his wrong
conduct, was distinctly present to his mind. And he even went so far
as to put up a prayer that the pain he was enduring, and must for a
long time endure, might work in him a salutary change--might lead to
his reformation.

In due time the poor boy was made as comfortable as the nature of
his injuries would permit, and quiet and order restored to the
agitated family.

"You see, my son, that punishment always follows evil conduct."
These were the first words spoken by Mr. Howland to his suffering
boy, as soon as he found himself alone with him. And then he
lectured him on disobedience until the poor child grew faint.

CHAPTER V.

THE boy recovered, in due time, from his injuries, but there was no
manifest change in his character, nor was there any relaxing of the
iron hand of authority with which his father sought to hold him back
from evil. It is no matter of wonder that he grew hardened and
reckless as he grew older; nor that, to avoid punishment, he sought
refuge in lying, secretiveness, and deceit.

The other children--there were three beside Andrew--being different
in character, were more easily subdued under the imperious will of
their father, whom they feared more than they loved. Assuming, in
his own mind, that Andrew's will had been permitted to gain strength
ere an effort had been made to control it, Mr. Howland resolved not
to fall into this error in the case of the children who followed;
and, assuredly, he did not. Through the rigors of unfailing
punishment for every act of wrong-doing, they were forced into the
way he wou