"Then this young man has been started wrong?

"Yes, wrong indeed."

"Is he so very bad, auntie?" Laura asked with a face full of serious
concern.

Mrs. Arnot smiled as she said, "If you were a young society chit, you
might think him 'very nice,' as their slang goes. He is good-looking and
rich, and his inclination to be fast would be a piquant fact in his
favor. He has done things which would seem to you very wrong indeed. But
he is foolish and ill-trained rather than bad. He is a spoiled boy, and
spoiled boys are apt to become spoiled men. I have told you all this
partly because, having been your mother's companion all your life, you
are so old-fashioned that I can talk to you almost as I would to sister
Fanny, and partly because I like to talk about my hobby."

A young girl naturally has quick sympathies, and all the influences of
Laura's life had been gentle and humane. Her aunt's words speedily led
her to regard Haldane as an "interesting case," a sort of fever patient
who was approaching the crisis of his disease. Curling down on the
floor, and leaning her arms on her aunt's lap, she looked up with a face
full of solicitude as she asked:

"And don't you think you can save him? Please don't give up trying."

"I like the expression of your face now," said Mrs. Arnot, stroking the
abundant tresses, that were falling loosely from the girl's head, "for
in it I catch a glimpse of the divine image. Many think of God as
looking down angrily and frowningly upon the foolish and wayward; but I