had been thrust into tormenting but undestroying flames. Better that
he had never been born. Better that he had been strangled in the hour
of his birth.

With thoughts like these, this unhappy man, whose heart was the seat
of all the virtues, tormented himself. It seemed sometimes strange
that people did not point their fingers at him: that he was not
arrested for the murder: that he was permitted to walk abroad in the
sunshine. His mind, unknown to those about him, unknown to himself,
was hovering on the confines of insanity. Only a spark, perhaps, was
necessary to light a conflagration. Alas! that one so good, so noble,
should be a victim of destiny. But we forbear to intrude further into
reflections alike miserable and insane.

Mr. Armstrong felt more composed the next day, and in the afternoon,
accompanied by Faith, went to the dwelling of the widow. They found
her engaged in ordinary family affairs. The duties to the living must
be respected. To neither rich nor poor does sorrow furnish an excuse
for their neglect. Let the mind find something to occupy it, the
hand something to do. Thus do we become sooner reconciled to those
dispensations of Providence at which our weakness, and ignorance, and
presumption rebel.

The poor woman received them kindly, and offered chairs. Faith took
into her lap the younger child from the floor on which it was sitting,
gnawing a crust of brown bread, and began to talk to him. The round
eyes of the boy expressed his astonishment, but as he looked into the
loving face and heard more of the sweet voice, the alarm he at first
felt at the approach of the stranger subsided, and he smiled with the
confiding innocence which children return to the caresses of those who