The influence of music over the disturbed nerves and bewildered moral sense of those who have gone astray from virtue, is something very remarkable. All modern missions more or less recognize that it has a power which goes beyond anything that spoken words can utter, and touches springs of deeper feeling.
Eva sat playing a long time, going from one thing to another; and then, rising, she found Maggie crying softly by herself.
"Come, now, Maggie," she said, "you are going to be a good girl, I know. Go up and go to bed now, and don't forget your prayers. That's a good girl."
Maggie yielded passively, and went to her room.
Then Eva had another hour's talk, to persuade Mary that she must not be too exacting with Maggie, and that she must for the future avoid all such encounters with her. Mary was, on the whole, glad to promise anything; for she had been thoroughly alarmed at the altercation into which their attempt at admonition had grown, and was ready to admit to Eva that Mike had been too hard on her. At all events, the family honor had been sufficiently vindicated, and, if Maggie would only behave herself, she was ready to promise that Mike should not be allowed to interfere in future. And so, at last, Eva succeeded in inducing Mary to go to her daughter's room with a reconciling word before she went to bed, and had the comfort of seeing the naughty girl crying in her mother's arms, and the mother petting and fondling her as a mother should.
Alas! it is only in the good old Book that the father sees the prodigal a great way off, and runs and falls on his neck and kisses him, before he has confessed his sin or done any work of repentance. So far does God's heavenly love outrun even the love of fathers and mothers.
"Well, I believe I've got things straightened out at last," said Eva, as she came back to Harry; "and now, if Mary will only let me manage Maggie, I think I can make all go smooth."