point. I was once reading on London Bridge a book which an ancient
gentlewoman, who kept the bridge, was in the habit of lending me; and
there I found written, 'Each one carries in his breast the recollection
of some sin which presses heavy upon him. O! if men could but look into
each other's hearts, what blackness would they find there!'"

"That's true," said Peter. "What is the name of the book?"

"_The Life of Blessed Mary Flanders_."

"Some popish saint, I suppose," said Peter.

"As much of a saint, I dare say," said I, "as most popish ones; but you
interrupted me. One part of your narrative brought the passage which I
have quoted into my mind. You said that after you had committed this
same sin of yours you were in the habit, at school, of looking upon your
schoolfellows with a kind of gloomy superiority, considering yourself a
lone, monstrous being who had committed a sin far above the daring of any
of them. Are you sure that many others of your schoolfellows were not
looking upon you and the others with much the same eyes with which you
were looking upon them?"

"How!" said Peter, "dost thou think that they had divined my secret?"

"Not they," said I; "they were, I dare say, thinking too much of
themselves and of their own concerns to have divined any secrets of
yours. All I mean to say is, they had probably secrets of their own, and
who knows that the secret sin of more than one of them was not the very
sin which caused you so much misery?"

"Dost thou then imagine," said Peter, "the sin against the Holy Ghost to
be so common an occurrence?"

"As you have described it," said I, "of very common occurrence,
especially amongst children, who are, indeed, the only beings likely to
commit it."

"Truly," said Winifred, "the young man talks wisely."

Peter was silent for some moments, and appeared to be reflecting; at
last, suddenly raising his head, he looked me full in the face, and,
grasping my hand with vehemence, he said: "Tell me, young man, only one
thing, hast thou, too, committed the sin against the Holy Ghost?"

"I am neither Papist nor Methodist," said I, "but of the Church, and,
being so, confess myself to no one, but keep my own counsel; I will tell
thee, however, had I committed, at the same age, twenty such sins as that
which you committed, I should feel no uneasiness at these years--but I am
sleepy, and must go to rest."

"God bless thee, young man," said Winifred.

CHAPTER LX