DICK'S STEP-MOTHER. 13 



And this leads us to a point in the history of Bobert 

 Dick's life which cannot be omitted, inasmuch as it 

 coloured his whole future life. The years of childhood 

 and boyhood are, as it were, a sort of prophetic recital 

 of the years of manhood. They constitute the little 

 stage on which, with puny powers, we unconsciously 

 rehearse the scenes of after life. 



The boy has in him the seeds of good and the seeds 

 of evil. Which will prove the stronger ? No one can 

 tell. But, to a large extent, it depends upon the effects 

 of love and sympathy at home. The presence of these 

 may call into life the best growths of the soul, and the 

 absence of them may raise up the noxious miasmas that 

 poison the whole human heart. 



It will be remembered, that when Thomas Dick 

 removed to Dam's Burn, he married again. Other chil- 

 dren were soon added to the household. Then the 

 feelings of the step-mother came into play. It requires 

 great tact and temper to manage a family in which there 

 are two elements, the children of the first mother, and 

 the children of the second. 



The new Mrs. Dick was a good wife and an excellent 

 mother, so far as her own children were concerned. But 

 she did not get on well with her husband's children by 

 his first wife. Perhaps they regarded her as an intruder 

 in the household ; and where her own children were con- 

 cerned, she naturally regarded them with preference'. 



Nor were her husband's attentions to his children by 

 his first wife at all to her taste. What was done for them 

 evoked many a pang of maternal jealousy. Mother-lika 



