he
considers parsons as a peculiar species.'

'If people would only believe the good of not compromising!'

'They must often wait a good while to see the good!'

'But, oh! the fruit is worth waiting for! Robin,' she added, after a
pause, 'you have been in correspondence with my boy.'

'Yes,' said Robert; 'and there, indeed, you may be satisfied. The seed
you sowed in the morning is bearing its increase!'

'_I_ sowed! Ah, Robert! what I sowed was a false crop, that had almost
caused the good seed to be rooted up together with it!'

'Not altogether, said Robert. 'If you made any mistakes that led to a
confusion of real and unreal in his mind, still, the real good you did to
him is incalculable.'

'So he tells me, dear boy! But when I think what he was as a child, and
what he has been as a youth, I cannot but charge it on myself.'

'Then think what he is, and will be, I trust, as a man,' said Robert.
'Even at the worst, the higher, purer standard that had been impressed on
him saved him from lower depths; and when "he came to himself," it was
not as if he had neither known his Father's house nor the way to it. Oh,
Miss Charlecote! you must not come to me to assure you that your training
of him was in vain! I, who am always feeling the difference between
trying to pull him and poor Mervyn upwards! There may be more excuse for
Mervyn, but Owen knows where he is going, and springs towards it; while
Mervyn wonders at himself at every stage, and always fancies the next
some delusion of my strait-laced imagination.'

'Ah! once I spurned, and afterwards grieved over, the saying that very
religious little boys either die or belie their promise.'

'There is some truth in it,' said Robert. 'Precocious piety is so
beautiful that it is apt to be fostered so as to make it insensibly
imitative and unreal, or depend upon some individual personal influence;
and there is a certain reaction at one stage of growth against what has
been overworked.'

'Then what could you do with such a child as my Owen if it were all to
come over again? His aspirations were often so beautiful that I could
not but reverence them greatly; and I cannot now believe that they were
prompted by aught but innocence and baptismal grace!'

'Looking back,' said Robert, 'I believe they were genuine, and came from
his heart. No; such a devotional turn should be treated with deep
reverence and tenderness; but the expression had better be almost
re