The darker the times grew for Mrs. Granger the more she clung to her
religion. She had a real belief, a real although dim faith. The belief
supported her tottering steps, and the faith kept her worn spirit from
utterly fainting; but they did nothing to illumine or render happy the
lives of those about her. She believed intensely in a God who punished.
He saved--she knew He saved--but only through fire. In the dark winter
evenings she poured out her stern thoughts, her unlovely ideas, into
the ears of her young daughter. As a child Bet listened in terror; as
a woman she simply ceased to believe.

"Ef God were like that, she'd have nought to do with Him,"--this was
her thought of thoughts. She refused to accompany her mother to chapel
on Sundays; she left the room when the Bible was read aloud; she made
one or two friends for herself, and these friends were certainly not
of her mother's choosing. She could read, and she loved novels--indeed,
she would devour books of any kind, but she had to hide them from her
mother, who thought it her duty, as she valued her daughter's immortal
soul, to commit them to the flames.

The mother loved the girl, and never ceased to wrestle in prayer for
her, and to believe she would shine as a jewel in her crown some day;
and the girl also cared for the mother, respecting her stern sense of
duty, admiring the length of her prayers, wondering at her ceaseless
devotion; but both were outwardly hard to the other, showing no
softness, and speaking of no love.

All Bet's up-bringing was hardening; and but for the presence of the
boys she might have wondered if she possessed any heart at all.

She was nineteen when her mother suddenly broke down completely in