aside. He tried to compose his mind, and again to
sleep; but though nothing peculiarly frightful had troubled his
slumber, he trembled from head to foot. In fact, Conscience so long
soothed and stifled, had with a terrible effort freed herself, and
determined to make one more effort for John's soul. She lashed him
unmercifully. She showed him how his soul was growing smaller and
meaner every day--how he was just a plague-spot on God's fair earth.
He saw himself in a mirror that reflected the inmost recesses of his
heart, and he was horrified at sight of the foulness so long
concealed.

As the hours wore slowly on toward the day, John grew to hate himself
more and more, until, almost stifled in-doors, he rose and went out.
Everything wore that unreal look that the first faint twilight gives.
Mysterious and still the mists lay along the foot of the mountain,
while the stars twinkled in the sky that seemed very, very far away.

From force of habit John Lyman strode into the yard where the cattle
were; but they only stared at him sleepily, as they lay tranquilly
chewing the cud; so he wandered out and down the path that led into
the little maple grove, which had been a playground for three
generations. As he passed slowly along under the solemn trees, his
boyhood days came back to him so fresh that the twoscore years of
hard, grinding toil, flew away as by magic. Oh, that happy, careless
boyhood! How had its golden promises been fulfilled! A blush of shame
rose to the man's cheek as he thought how hard and cold his heart had
grown. Hundreds of times he had stood beside the little stream which
he had now reached, without noticing a trace of beauty; but now, as
the sun lighted the distant mountain-top with a glow that crept over
its sides, a gladdening, awakening glow, seen only in the spring, it
seemed as though he had never looked upon the scene before. So new, so
beautiful! And a wonderful sense of God's nearness stole over him,
such as he had not felt before for years, and, at the same time, a new
love for his mother, who had so long been the only Bible he read,
filled his heart, like a fresh revelation from the Father. The lowing
of the cattle recalled him to himself, and he turned homeward, passed
up the lane into the barn, and was soon throwing hay into the mangers
below. Suddenly he stopped, thrust his pitchfork deep into the hay,
and said: "My mother _shall_ have a better room than that if it costs
_five hundred do