est and agonizing prayer."

Bud stood up and looked at her with eyes that flamed with anger.
Unfortunately Bud, like Martha, was entirely lacking in humour;
otherwise his heart would have been saved many a cruel hurt. "I don't
want your prayers," he said, when he could control himself.

Something in the boy's face touched Mrs. Burrell's heart with pity.
"Perhaps I've been wrong," she said. "I do make mistakes sometimes. I
may have made one now."

"You certainly have," he said, as he took his hat and left the house.

Mrs. Burrell watched him going down the path with his long, swinging
stride, and her heart was strangely troubled. She had a conviction
that she had done no good, and perhaps had done a great deal of harm.
"When I try to do good, evil comes of it," she said sorrowfully, and
then she went to her own room and prayed; and it was an earnest and
agonizing prayer, too; though very different from the prayer she had
in mind when she spoke to Bud, for the burden of it all was this,
that God would in some way overrule all her mistakes for good, and
not let the boy suffer because of any word of hers.

She continued to plead until her heart found peace in the thought
that has comforted so many of us in our sore need, that perhaps when
He sees the faulty, crooked lines we are drawing, the Great Surveyor
will, in His mercy, put in for us, here and there, the correction
lines.

* * *

When Bud drove home that night his thoughts were far too bitter for a
boy of eighteen. A sense of injustice was poisoning the fountains of
his heart, and so, when he met Mr. Burrell, he felt he could stand no
more. The whole world was against him now, he thought, and he would
let them see he didn't care. He would never tell any one now about
the wheat. He would never give away his father; but he would leave
Millford right straight, leave it for ever, so when Mr. Burrell drew
in his horse to speak to him, Bud turned his head and drove rapidly
away. Mr. Burrell went home very sad about it all, wondering if Bud
were really guilty, but determined to stand by him just the same.

When he got home Mrs. Burrell told him about her interview with Bud.
She was thoroughly repentant now, and tearfully declared that she
knew now she had been very unwise.

Mr. Burrell drove back that night to see Bud, but he was too late,
for Bud had gone.

* * *

Arriving at his home, Bud stabled his horses, and then went into the
house. His father was filli