calls, and who had taken refuge in commonplace inquiries as to how and
when Mr. Hogarth had been first taken ill, and at what hour he died,
but had given very little sympathy, and no advice. The minister of the
parish had called, as in duty bound, on the day after the funeral, and
surprised both Jane and Elsie by a style of conversation very different
from any they had ever heard from his lips. In his previous visits to
Cross Hall he had never talked of anything but the weather, and crops,
and the news of the neighbourhood. His tastes, his studies, his
politics, and his faith were so opposite to those of Mr. Hogarth that
there was no safety, and likely to be no pleasure, in conversation that
left the neutral ground he took. But now, when the eccentric and
sceptical Mr. Hogarth had crowned all this sins by an act of
such injustice to his nieces, and they were in affliction from
bereavement and poverty, he wished to give them spiritual comfort, and
to teach them something that he knew had been omitted in their
education; but he couched his consolation in language that seemed
strangely unfamiliar to the girls he addressed, and when he spoke of
crosses to be borne, that God has made crooks in every lot that no man
may make straight--when he dwelt upon the temptations of riches, and
the difficulty with which the rich can enter the kingdom of Heaven, and
hoped that his young friends would see the hand of God in this trying
dispensation, and would follow humbly His leading--Jane, who hoped to
conquer her difficulties, and did not mean to succumb to them, did not
feel much comforted or edified by the well-meant exhortation. Both
girls felt pained, too, by the reflections he cast on their late uncle,
and by the warning to be prepared for sudden death, as this had been an
instance of the Master coming when no one was looking for Him, and when
the loins were not girt, nor the light burning. Both girls had
loved their uncle; and even though Elsie felt that he had been often
hard to her, and that the will was not a just one, she could not bear