A SAD STORY. 93

you; you are too proud to do this, and so the breach
between you is not filled up, but grows wider and
wider."
 "That it does, Mr. Lane, I feel that-but do you
know I often am going to ask father to forgive me,
and I would do it, if he would look a little kinder.
He is so harsh to me that"-
 "Not one word in blame of your father," said Mr.
 Lane suddenly, and more determinedly than Jack
 had ever heard him speak. "The duty of a son is
 plain-you have no business to question for one
 moment what your father ought to be, or to do.
 Little you know how bitterly in after days your heart
 may reproach you for unfilial words or acts. Jack,
 the wisest thing a boy or man ever can do is to mind
 his own duties and not meddle with those of others.
 To take care to mend his own faults and shortcom-
 ings instead of other people's. But I am wandering
 into preaching at you, which I never intended doing.
 What I want to tell you is about myself.
 "As I have said, my greatest faults were those of
 pride and reserve. These I did not try to check or
 uproot, until they grew so strong that they separated
 me from my father more and more. Often I trans-
 gressed that father's will and wish, and although I
 was afterwards invariably sorry for my disobedience,
 yet I could never bear to lay my pride low enough