which we meet with in life. Her husband indeed stood before her a ruined
man! A commercial crash, like those which have so often reduced the rich
to poverty, coming almost as suddenly as the earthquake which shakes the
natural world, had overthrown all his fortune! The riches in which he
had trusted had taken to themselves wings and flown away.

Here was another startling shock, but Lady Grange felt it far less than
the first. It seemed to her that if her son were only spared to her, she
could bear cheerfully any other trial. When riches had increased, she
had not set her heart upon them; she had endeavoured to spend them as a
good steward of God and to lay up treasure in that blessed place where
there is no danger of its ever being lost. Sir Gilbert was far more
crushed than his wife was by this misfortune. He saw his idol broken
before his eyes, and where was he to turn for comfort? Everything upon
which his eye rested was a source of pain to him; for must he not part
with all, leave all in which his heart had delighted, all in which his
soul had taken pride? He forgot that poverty was only forestalling by a
few years the inevitable work of death!

The day passed wearily away. Philip suffered much pain, was weak and
low, and bitterly conscious how well he had earned the misery which he
was called on to endure. It was a mercy that he was experiencing, before
it was too late, that _thorns and snares are in the way of the froward_.
He liked his mother to read the Bible to him, just a few verses at a
time, as he had strength to bear it; and in this occupation she herself
found the comfort which she needed. Sir Gilbert, full of his own
troubles, scarcely ever entered the apartment of his son.

Towards evening a servant came softly into the sick-room, bringing
a sealed letter for her lady. There was no post-mark upon it, and