but wholesome experience to know
herself."

These last few words, uttered with deep feeling, made it necessary for
Clara to pause once more. So Thomas Bradly, seeing that her strength
was well-nigh exhausted, simply expressed his hearty readiness to comply
with her requests, and was rising to take his leave, when she signed him
to remain.

"Just one thing more, dear friend," she added, as soon as she was
sufficiently recovered.--"Nay, dearest mother, you must let me finish
what I have to say. I shall be happier and calmer when I have told
all.--O Thomas! I have been on the very edge of a dreadful precipice;
nay, I almost fear that I have scarcely avoided beginning the terrible
fall. Finding myself unequal to the full strain which my studies
imposed upon me, I began to have recourse to intoxicating stimulants,
first a little, and then a little more, till at last I got to crave
them, oh, how terribly! And, alas! alas! worse still. As I was ashamed
to bring such things openly into my father's house, I have employed a
servant once or twice to fetch them for me, but simply as a medicine,
and I have found myself scheming how I might do this to a still greater
extent without detection. Oh, to what a depth have I fallen! But I see
it all now; the Lord has opened my eyes. What I wanted was rest, not
stimulants. And surely nothing could justify me in putting such a
strain upon my mind as to make it needful to fly to such a restorative.

"I don't ask you to mention this to my girls, nor to any one else, for
it might not do good, and might be a hindrance, in a measure, to my dear
father in his work; but I tell it you to ease my own heart, and that you
may pray for me, and that you may hear me now, in the presence of my
beloved father and mother, declare that from this time forward I
renounce all such study, if God spare me, as shall unfit me for a loving
service of Jesus, in my home and out of it, and that I have done with
all intoxicating stimulants, the Lord helping me, now and for ever."

"Bless the Lord!" said Bradly to himself, as, after a silent pressure of
Clara Maltby's hand, he stole out of the room. "All's working for good,
I'm sure," he added, as he walked homewards. "We shall do grandly now.
One great stone has just been struck out of our good vicar's path.
Satan's a queer, knowing customer, but he often outwits himself; and
there's One wiser and stronger than him."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A MYSTERIOUS