a drunkard----"

"John Nixey," she interrupted; "ay, but he caught at your father's sin
as an excuse for his own. He was always a drinking man. No man is forced
into sin. Nothing can harm them who are the followers of God. Don't lay
on your father's shoulders more than his own wrong-doing. Sin spreads
misery around it only when there is ground ready for the bad seed. Your
father's sin opened my soul to deeper influences from God; I did not
love him less because he had fallen, but I learned to trust God more,
and walk more closely with Him. You, too, will be drawn nearer to God by
this sorrow."

"Phebe," he said, "can I speak to Mr. Clifford about it? It would be
impossible to speak to my mother."

"Quite impossible," she answered emphatically. "Yes, go down to
Riversborough, and hear what Mr. Clifford can tell you. Your father
repented of his sin bitterly, and paid a heavy price for it; but he was
forgiven. If my poor old father could not withhold his forgiveness,
would our heavenly Father fall short of it? You, too, must forgive him,
my Felix."

CHAPTER VII.

AN OLD MAN'S PARDON.

To forgive his father--that was a strange inversion of the attitude of
Felix's mind in regard to his father's memory. He had been taught to
think of him with reverence, and admiration, and deep filial love. As
Felicita looked back on the long line of her distinguished ancestry with
an exaltation of feeling which, if it was pride, was a legitimate pride,
so had Felix looked back upon the line of good men from whom his own
being had sprung. He had felt himself pledged to a Christian life by the
eminently Christian lives of his forefathers.

Now, suddenly, with no warning, he was called upon to forgive his father
for a crime which had made him amenable to the penal laws of his
country; a mean, treacherous, cowardly crime. Like Judas, he had borne
the bag, and his fellow-pilgrims had trusted him with their money; and,
like Judas, he had been a thief. Felix could not understand how a
Christian man could be tempted by money. To attempt to serve Mammon as
well as God seemed utterly comtemptible and incredible to him.

His heart was very heavy as he rode slowly down the lanes and along the
highway to Riversborough, which his father had so often traversed before
him. When he had come this way in the freshness and stillness of the
early morning there had been more hope in his soul than he had been
aware of, that Phebe would be able t