JESSIE'S ACQUAINTANCE MADP. 59

steps homeward. Her husband, as she came back,
sat among the little boys in the school just as if
nothing had happened, and heard them read about
Mary Magdalene, in the Bible, that our Lord ‘and
Saviour Jesus Christ himself had mercy on, yet he
never had pity on his own flesh and blood! If I
were to tell you,” continued she, “of the tears,
and the heart-aches, and the prayers of that mother,
all in secret between her Maker and herself, you,
that are young, would maybe not believe me, so I
pass them all over. In a winter or two afterwards,
her husband got a rheumatic fever, and she then
had to wait on him night and day: he was as help-
less as a child, and was cross, and out of humour
with her, and with himself, too. She had a weary
life of it. The parson came to see him, and
preachers of all sorts, from far and near; for he
was reckoned a religious man; and being parish
schoolmaster, and a man of property besides, folks
thought much of him, and his wife got them to talk
to him of his daughter, now that he was sick and
helpless, and turn his heart towards her, if they
could. But he was as hard as iron, and he would
not even have her mentioned in his prayers. Well,
it pleased God to afflict him it many ways, and he
had fits and spasms, and was speechless for months.

“** Stephen,’ said his wife to him, one night,
‘God is punishing you for your hardness to poor
Mary. You deserve it! and I hope he will never
take his hand off you till you’ve forgiven her, and
acted as a Christian should do !’

“< He had not spoken for months and months, and
you may think what was her surprise when he lifts
himself slowly up in bed, and fixing his hollow