ult committed in early youth. Ah! my
friends, it is hopeless to do evil, and expect to escape the
consequences."

"The evil _you_ have done, my good mother," returned Marble, endeavouring
to console the poor creature, down whose cheeks the tears now fairly began
to run; "the evil you have done, my good mother, can be no great matter.
If it was a question about a rough tar like myself, or even of Miles
there, who's a sort of sea-saint, something might be made of it, I make no
doubt; but your account must be pretty much all credit, and no debtor."

"That is a state that befalls none of earth, my young friend,"--Marble
_was_ young, compared to his companion, though a plump fifty,--"My sin was
no less than to break one of God's commandments."

I could see that my mate was a good deal confounded at this ingenuous
admission; for, in his eyes, breaking the commandments was either killing,
stealing, or blaspheming. The other sins of the decalogue he had come by
habit to regard as peccadilloes.

"I think this must be a mistake, mother," he said, in a sort of consoling
tone. "You may have fallen into some oversights, or mistakes; but this
breaking of the commandments is rather serious sort of work."

"Yet I broke the fifth; I forgot to honour my father and mother.
Nevertheless, the Lord has been gracious; for my days have already reached
threescore-and-ten. But this is His goodness--not any merit of my own!"

"Is it not a proof that the error has been forgiven?" I ventured to
remark. "If penitence can purchase peace, I feel certain you have earned
that relief."

"One never knows! I think this calamity of the mortgage, and the danger I
run of dying without a roof to cover my head, may be all traced up to that
one act of disobedience, I have been a mother myself--may say I am a
mother now, for my grand-daughter is as dear to me as was her blessed
mother--and it is when we look _down_, rather than when we look _up_, as
it might be, that we get to understand the true virtue of this
commandment."

"If it were impertinent curiosity that instigates the question, my old
friend," I added, "it would not be in my power to look you in the face, as
I do now, while begging you to let me know your difficulties. Tell them in
your own manner, but tell them with confidence; for, I repeat, we have the
power to assist you, and can command the best legal advice of
the country."

Again the old woman looked at me intently through her spectacl