"Ask Daddy carry me!" lisped the little child, as she calmly went on with her meal, undisturbed by fears for the future.
Even Ann could scarcely help smiling at the unexpected reply.
And Martin, as he stooped to kiss his little one, thought, "if she can so quietly trust her father, shall I not trust mine, who is the Giver of all good things?"
"I suppose you'll be going to some prayer-meeting or other?" said Ann, abruptly, to her husband, as soon as the uncomfortable meal was ended.
"I am going to church," replied Martin, and he could not forbear adding, "I wish we could go there together."
"Oh! I'm no saint, whatever you may be!" exclaimed Ann, with a jerk of the head. "I'm going to Greenwich with the Battens and their set—a lark on the river is a deal more to my taste than all your preaching and praying. I shall pay for my trip with my last Sunday's earnings, which I've kept for the purpose," she added, to give a keener sting to her taunt.
"I should be the last to wish to deprive you of any harmless pleasure," said her husband; "but if you spend the Lord's day in such an excursion, it will be without my consent."
"Your consent, indeed, I never asked for it!" exclaimed the rebellious wife to him whom she had vowed before God to obey. "You go your way, I will go mine; with your leave or without your leave, I'm off to Greenwich by two."
The husband and wife were, indeed, walking on different paths, such as must conduct to different ends. "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life." * These are our Lord's own words; but how few act as if they believed them to be true!
* Matt. vii. 13, 14.