Take it, Anna; this reward for a sum of long division will do to hang on a chain when it is earned by a lesson of music; until you have done something else to earn a garnet cross, which will sparkle more brilliantly than the eyes of this picture.

She dropped her head in confusion; while Maria gazed at her with intense earnestness, and Mrs. Aston whispered, O friend, spare her.

My dear Mrs. Aston, I replied, it is a moment worth more than a world: follow it up; from this time cease to offer bribes to your child, and wait until she will find the delight of duty to be its own reward. You are all wrong. Human, selfish, idolatrous motives rule: and no love of God in Christ is set before your children, as the spring, and motive, and end of love and obedience.

Ah! my dear friend, I begin to catch a glimpse of my error, and thankful shall I be to see my child well directed, and to be myself instructed.

Mrs. Bennet said, I really do not know what to think; for my own part, I have always thought love the best principle to inculcate; I have found it answer my purpose so far, and can desire nothing better than the effect produced.

Love is the best principle; so far you are right: but

on what that love is to be supremely fixed, and whence derived, would take us further, my dear Mrs. Bennet, than you are perhaps prepared to go.

I do not understand you.

You would understand when you had to experience that you must, in important circumstances, perhaps have to give place,-to be second only, in your child's estimation, provided an imperious claim were put upon her by a superior affection.

You speak with a kind of mystery: perhaps I may comprehend you better after a few of our weekly meetings. At present, I confess, my aim and my ambition are, that my husband and myself may be the first and principal object of regard in the hearts of my beloved children; for this end we devote ourselves to them, and adapt ourselves in every possible way to be their friends, companions, and even playfellows. They are satisfied with us alone, and never appear to have been so happy anywhere as with us; always returning, from any little visit, to their parents and their home as to their joy.

CHAPTER III.

I NOW found myself embarked on an important duty, through which I felt it would require the aid of the Holy Spirit to guide me with discretion, integrity, affection, and success. The extensive power and influence of this holy will of God, in the relative duties of parent and child, filled me with contemplation; and in imagination, I had run through generation after generation under its influence, until I had pictured before me a world full of inhabitants with whom it was 66 GOING WELL." In the midst of this reverie I was interrupted by a voice of vociferous anger, and the scream of terror which burst from a little boy who was, it appeared, endeavoring to run away from his father.

I will, I will! he exclaimed, and the man was answering him, as he struck him some sharp strokes over the shoulders with a rope,

I'll teach you, you young rascal, whether I'll be obeyed or not.