feelings when she had uttered them, and how bitterly did he regret his act of disobedience! The dreadful event had come to intensify the anguish of his penitence, and he felt that, if he had not done wrong, he could have met the calamity with patience and resolution. When children do wrong, they know not what event may occur to increase a thousand fold the bitterness of their remorse.

"Do you think my father is alive now?" sobbed Paul.

"I hope so; but it is impossible to foretell the result. The doctors spoke very despondingly of his case; but we must hope for the best."

"How does my mother bear it?"

"As well as could be expected, considering the suddenness of the calamity."

"O, it will kill her," groaned Paul.

"I hope not; you must be calm, my boy. It is dreadful, I know; but we must not add to the pain of the sufferer by useless lamentation."

"I will be as calm as I can, sir; but it is awful to have such a thing happen just now."

"We know not what a day or an hour may bring forth, Paul."

"Yes, but to have it happen now. If it had been at any other time, I could have borne it better," continued the penitent boy, wiping away the tears that blinded him.

"We cannot choose the time for such an event to happen."

"If it had only come before I left home! O, dear."

"Be calm, Paul; we could not select a time when we should be prepared for such a calamity. You must not suppose one time is better than another for trials and sorrows."

"You do not understand me, Captain Littleton," replied Paul, earnestly. "I disobeyed my mother in going out in the boat. She told me to come ashore, and stood on the beach beckoning and calling to me not to go, but I didn't mind her. That's what makes me feel so bad about it."

"I am sorry you disobeyed her, for you must suffer the more for your disobedience."

"I was sorry I did so before I came ashore, and now I would give all the world if I had minded mother, and let Tom Nettle laugh at me as much as he pleased."

"Tom is a wild boy, and you must not heed his jeers."

"I will not, another time. You think my father is not dead?"

"I think not," replied Captain Littleton, as he increased the speed of the horse.

Paul did not say much more, but wept in silence as the chaise dashed along the road. Every moment seemed like an hour, till he came in sight of the cottage of his father. There were the two sulkies of the doctors, and a crowd of people at the gate, to enable him to realize the dreadful calamity which had overtaken him. The panting horse stopped before the door, and Paul's limbs almost failed him as he dragged himself into the house.

"O Paul," sobbed his mother, who met him at the door, "I thought you would never come. I'm afraid you won't have a father a great while longer."

"Forgive me, mother, for what I did," cried Paul.

"I do forgive you, my son; but come, your poor father wants to see you very much."

His mother took him by the hand, and led him into the chamber where his father lay. He was shocked by the change which a few short hours had produced, and he needed not the skill of the physicians to assure him that Mr. Duncan had but a short time to live.

"Paul," said his father, faintly, "I shall soon be no more, and I leave your mother and your brothers and sisters to your care. Take good care of them, Paul, for they will soon have no one else to help them. Be a good boy, and be an honest man, and everything will go well with you. Be true to your God and true to yourself, and then all the world cannot harm you. May God keep you in the path of duty as long as you live."

Mr. Duncan closed his eyes with an audible sigh, and Paul burst into tears, realizing that he was about to lose the kindest and best of fathers.

"Don't cry, my boy," said the sufferer; "be a man, and in a little while the struggle will be over with me."

The whole family were gathered round the bed, and Mr. Duncan gave them his blessing, for the doctors assured him his hour was at hand. We will not dwell upon the painful scene. In an hour all was still in that room save the sobs of the bereaved widow, who stood gazing in agony upon the silent form which she had seen go out from her that morning in the full vigor of health and strength. The angel of death was there, and had done his work.

Paul was stupefied by the suddenness of the shock, and all the currents of his existence seemed to stop in their flow. He spent the afternoon in his chamber, trying to understand the nature of his situation. He had dried his tears, but the deeper grief had gone in upon his heart. He spent a wakeful night in thinking of the past, and in endeavoring to make himself believe that his father was dead. All that he had ever done for him, all that he had ever said to him, came up before him with a vividness that made them seem like realities.

In this condition he moved about the house till after the funeral, mechanically executing such duties as he was required to perform; but everything was so unnatural to him that he could hardly persuade himself of the reality of his being. The death of his father was an epoch in his existence, a turning point in his career, and the wheels of time, the current of events, stopped, soon to resume their course in a different direction.

When the last rites of love and respect had been paid to the remains of his father, Paul roused himself from his stupor, and began to examine the future. At the death bed of his parent he had received a solemn charge, and he carefully reviewed the words, and recalled the expression with which it had been committed to him. His mother and his brothers and sisters had been given into his care, and he felt the responsibility of the position he had accepted. He determined, to the best of his ability, to discharge his duty to them; but he was sorely troubled to think of some way by which he could earn money enough to support them, for he had put a literal construction upon the dying words of his father.

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL BECOMES THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.

For a week after the funeral Paul racked his brain in devising expedients to supply the place of his father in a pecuniary point of view, but without success. If he went into a store, or obtained such a place as a boy can fill, it would pay him only two or three dollars a week, and this would be scarcely anything towards the support of the family, for his father had generally earned twelve dollars a week during the greater portion of the year. He wanted to do something better. He did not expect to make so much as his father had made, but was determined, if possible, to earn at least half as much.

Thus far his reflection had been to little purpose, for it was no small matter for a boy to charge himself with double the work of one of his age. He had not yet consulted his mother, nor obtained her views in regard to the support of the family. He did not know whether she expected him to do the whole of it, but it did not appear reasonable to him that she could do anything more than to keep house and take care of the children. He wished that he could go to her and relieve her of all responsibility in regard to the money affairs, and let her live just as she had been accustomed to live before the death of his father; and he almost cried with vexation, after he had vainly ransacked his brains for the means, to think he could not do so. He could not hit upon any plan that would meet his expectations, and he decided to have a talk with her in relation to the future.

"What are we going to do, mother?"