the Redemption.

Such things, though seemingly trifling to relate, at this remote
period, when the sinful and foolish vanities of the world have crowded
themselves in between me and my cherished memories of that holy epoch,
I now regard as the true and unmistakeable key-note of my after life.

For, was it not to little Ella Wray I first assumed the attitude of
the worldling: subscribing to the laws and exigencies of
conventionality before I had suspected the existence of such an
influence? When she praised me, and thanked me, and urged me to be
grateful to the kind Father who had willed my surroundings to be those
of comfort and prosperity, what did I do? Good reader! I smiled half
consciously, and thus sanctioned her belief in my domestic happiness.
I veiled the sorrow that dwelt in my young heart with the shadows of a
borrowed playfulness, and I sullied the baby innocence of my
unsuspecting soul with a smiling lie.

But even in its infancy, human nature is prone to every passing
weakness that assails it. To know that other eyes looked out from a
narrower sphere upon my individual portion, and found it rich in
advantages over many others: to feel that in spite of all my harassing
little cares, my life could assume an exterior aspect of smoothness
and happiness, was a short-lived, though powerful stimulant, even to
my childish heart; and I could not forfeit the small pleasure I took
in the consciousness, that at least my sufferings were hidden, though
my pleasures were widely known, by laying bare the actual condition of
my affairs.

Naturally enough, this feeling has but strengthened and matured with