H.;
but he was very unwilling. He said, I could have more influence over
him than anybody else,--that nobody could do him any good but me."
"Yes, yes,--I understand all that," said Aunt Katy,--"I have heard
young men say _that_ before, and I know just what it amounts to."
"But, mother, I do think James was moved very much, this afternoon. I
never heard him speak so seriously; he seemed really in earnest, and he
asked me to give him my Bible."
"Couldn't he read any Bible but yours?"
"Why, naturally, you know, mother, he would like my Bible better,
because it would put him in mind of me. He promised faithfully to read
it all through."
"And then, it seems, he wrote you a letter."
"Yes, mother."
Mary shrank from showing this letter, from the natural sense of honor
which makes us feel it indelicate to expose to an unsympathizing eye
the confidential outpourings of another heart; and then she felt quite
sure that there was no such intercessor for James in her mother's heart
as in her own. But over all this reluctance rose the determined force
of duty; and she handed the letter in silence to her mother.
Mrs. Scudder took it, laid it deliberately in her lap, and then began
searching in the pocket of her chintz petticoat for her spectacles.
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