born in this very house. I was his only child; and when God called him
away, which he did about twelve years after my marriage, the little farm
came to me, of course. Mine it would have been at this moment, without let
or hindrance of any sort, but for a fault committed in early youth. Ah! my
friends, it is hopeless to do evil, and expect to escape the
consequences."

"The evil _you_ have done, my good mother," returned Marble, endeavouring
to console the poor creature, down whose cheeks the tears now fairly began
to run; "the evil you have done, my good mother, can be no great matter.
If it was a question about a rough tar like myself, or even of Miles
there, who's a sort of sea-saint, something might be made of it, I make no
doubt; but your account must be pretty much all credit, and no debtor."

"That is a state that befalls none of earth, my young friend,"--Marble
_was_ young, compared to his companion, though a plump fifty,--"My sin was
no less than to break one of God's commandments."

I could see that my mate was a good deal confounded at this ingenuous
admission; for, in his eyes, breaking the commandments was either killing,
stealing, or blaspheming. The other sins of the decalogue he had come by
habit to regard as peccadilloes.

"I think this must be a mistake, mother," he said, in a sort of consoling
tone. "You may have fallen into some oversights, or mistakes; but this
breaking of the commandments is rather serious sort of work."

"Yet I broke the fifth; I forgot to honour my father and mother.
Nevertheless, the Lord has been gracious; for my days have already reached
threescore-and-ten. But this is His goodness--not any merit of my own!"