Jane had been gently led in the bands of love. She had been taught even more by the example than the precepts of her mother.
She had seen her mother bear with meekness the asperity and unreasonableness of her father's temper, and often turn away his wrath with a soft answer.
The law of imitation is deeply impressed on our nature. Jane had insensibly fallen into her mother's ways, and had, thus early, acquired a habit of self-command. Mrs. Elton, though, alas, negligent of some of her duties, watched over the expanding character of her child, with Christian fidelity. "There she had garnered up her heart." She knew that amiable dispositions were not to be trusted, and she sought to fortify her child's mind with Christian principles. She sowed the seed, and looked with undoubting faith for the promised blessing.
"I must soon sleep," she would say to Mary, "but the seed is already springing up. I am sure it will not lack the dews of Heaven; and you, Mary, may live to see, though I shall not, 'first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.'"
Mary had seconded Mrs. Elton's efforts. She looked upon herself as an humble instrument; but she was a most efficient one. She had a rare and remarkable knack at applying rules, so that her life might be called a commentary on the precepts of the Gospel. Mary's practical religion had, sometimes, conveyed a reproach (the only re-
