epistle._"

"'Having now got rid of fleshly considerations--I mean money ones--let
me, my dear James, offer a word in season. Remember that it comes from
an attached relation, who holds your worldly affairs as nothing--'"

"_I can't dispute that_," said my father with a smothered groan.

"'But would turn your attention to the more important considerations
of our being. I would not lean too heavily upon the bruised reed, but
your early life was anything but evangelical--'"

Constance laughed; she could not, wild girl, avoid it.

"'We must all give an account of our stewardship,' _vide_ St. Luke,
chap. xvi.--'"

"_Stop--Shakspeare's right; when the devil quotes Scripture--but, go
on--let's have the whole dose._"

"'When can you pay the money in? And, oh! in you, my dear nephew, may
grace yet fructify, and may you be brought, even at the eleventh hour,
to a slow conviction that all on this earth is vanity and vexation
of spirit--drums, colors, scarlet and fine linen, hounds running
after hares, women whirling round, as they tell me they do, in that
invention of the evil one called a waltz, all these are but delusions
of the enemy, and designed to lead sinners to destruction. I
transcribe a verse from a most affecting hymn, composed by that gifted
man--'"