discovery. But for the wise course which the Minister had decided
on taking, the poor child's life might have been darkened by
the horror of the mother's crime, and the infamy of the mother's
death.

Having quieted my friend's needless scruples by this perfectly
sincere expression of opinion, I ventured to approach the central
figure in his domestic circle, by means of a question relating
to his wife. How had that lady received the unfortunate little
creature, for whose appearance on the home-scene she must have
been entirely unprepared?

The Minister's manner showed some embarrassment; he prefaced what
he had to tell me with praises of his wife, equally creditable no
doubt to both of them. The beauty of the child, the pretty ways
of the child, he said, fascinated the admirable woman at first
sight. It was not to be denied that she had felt, and had
expressed, misgivings, on being informed of the circumstances
under which the Minister's act of mercy had been performed.
But her mind was too well balanced to incline to this state of
feeling, when her husband had addressed her in defense of his
conduct. She then understood that the true merit of a good action
consisted in patiently facing the sacrifices involved. Her
interest in the new daughter being, in this way, ennobled by
a sense of Christian duty, there had been no further difference
of opinion between the married pair.

I listened to this plausible explanation with interest, but, at
the same time, with doubts of the lasting nature of the lady's
submission to circumstances; suggested, perhaps, by the