ling, not with any sense that she was making
a bargain with God, as more rigid minds might suppose, but with all the
remorseful loving consciousness of a child which feels that it has not
made the return it ought for the good things showered upon it, and
confronts for the first time the awful possibility that these tender
privileges might be taken away. There was a trembling all over her, body
and soul. She was shaken by the ordeal through which she had come--the
ordeal which was not hers but another's: and with the artlessness of the
child was mingled that supreme human instinct which struggles to disarm
Fate by immediate prostration and submission. She laid herself down at
the feet of the Sovereign greatness which could mar all her happiness in
a moment, with a feeling that was not much more than half Christian.
Lucy tried to remind herself that He to whom she knelt was love as well
as power. But nature, which still "trembles like a guilty thing
surprised" in that great Presence, made her heart beat once more with
passion and sickening terror. God knew, if no one else did, that she had
abandoned her father's trust and neglected her duty. "Sell all thou hast
and give to the poor." Lucy rose from her knees with anxious haste,
feeling as if she must do this, come what might and whoever should
oppose; or at least since it was not needful for her to sell all she
had, that she must hurry forth, and forestall any further discipline by
beginning at once to fulfil the duty she had neglected. She could not
yet divest herself of the thought that the baby who was dead was a
little warning messenger to recall her to a sense of the punishments
that might be hanging over her. A messenger to her of mercy, for what,
oh! what would she have done if the blow had fallen upon little Tom?

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

After this it may perhaps be surprising to hear that Lucy did nothing to
carry out that great trust with which she had been charged. She had
felt, and did feel at intervals, for a long time afterwards, as if God
Himself had warned her what might come upon her if she neglected her
duty. But if you will reflect how very difficult that duty was, and how
far she was from any opportunity of being able to discharge it! In early
days, when she was fresh from her father's teaching, and deeply
impressed with the instant necessity of carrying it out, Providence
itself had sent the Russell family, poor and helpless peo