CHAPTER XII.

FOUND!

Meeting no one, Marjorie and Mr. Pelham hastily ascended the spiral stairs.

Issuing on to the leads, Marjorie glanced hastily round. Together they hurried, till, under the little turret, they stood beside the, as yet, unawakened group. It looked very pathetic in the morning greyness, the little huddled-up party, which the sun had not yet reached.

The man's frame trembled as he stooped--doubting, fearing, his keen eyes noting the care which had been bestowed upon his little child. Not much of her was visible--only a rosy cheek, under the tangle of hair which lay across David's knee. The boy's body had sunk slightly as the muscles relaxed in sleep; and he and Sandy were now propped together. Both of them were jacketless: Sandy's little body was covered only by his vest.

David's hand lay protectingly across Barbara, over whom his jacket lay outspread. She was warm and rosy; so were the two babies curled up under the little coat--a scanty covering--of which Sandy had divested himself.

Marjorie sank down beside Sandy. He looked white and wan, and there was a look of disturbance and unrest on his sleeping face. His head rested uncomfortably against David's shoulder. Solicitously, she gathered his unprotected little body into her warm arms; and at her movement he opened startled blue eyes upon her.

"Is it mornin'?" he asked; then quickly, "Is the fam'ly safe?"

"How could you, Sandy?" Marjorie asked, tenderly kissing the impertinent little nose turned up to her. And that was all the reproach Sandy ever heard.

"Didn't mean to, Margie," eagerly. "The door got locked 'fore we got down. How did you guess we were here?" he went on, the fascination of the "game," now that he again felt safe and irresponsible, filling his imagination. "Was it the signal?"

He listened much gratified, as Marjorie described how the fluttering sash had caught her sight.

The children woke one by one, Barbara climbing into her father's arms to be divested of her strange night-clothes. She returned the coat to its owner, with a gracious "Barbedie's done."

Sandy and David listened amazed to the warmth of Mr. Pelham's thanks.

"You have been good to my baby. I shall never forget it, never. You are two little men."

With hurrying, trembling fingers, Marjorie tidied up the children--some impulse making her wish her mother's first sight of them to be wholly without alarm. Barbara refused to leave her father's arms, so her rescued sash was tied on under his eloquent eyes. Now that they had once delivered their message, they were masterful and compelling. Marjorie's fell before them; but something in the quiver of her lip, and the wanness of her face in the sunlight, under his closer scrutiny, made him hasten to speak. He caught her fingers, and they lay for a moment pressed close against his breast.

"Mine, Marjorie! Mine now," he said. "Dearest, do not shrink," he whispered, turning hurriedly to see what was producing the startled change in the kindling face before him. Mr. Warde stood in the doorway surveying the little scene.

With just a glance at the two, who for the moment had forgotten everyone but themselves, he stooped and picked up Orme--a disconsolate, woe-begone baby, whose ideas would need much readjusting after this eventful night.

The others followed, pitter-patter down the stairs, and along the gravelled path. But it was Marjorie who entered first through the open door into her mother's presence.

Mr. Bethune still sat beside his wife's couch. He put up a hand to hush the intruder, but Marjorie saw beyond him the wide, questioning eyes and the wave of colour rushing into her mother's face. She did not know that she herself--radiant, sparkling, with a look upon her face only to be seen on a maiden's face in presence of her beloved--was sufficient herald of good news. It scarcely needed her words.

"All quite safe, mother," even if Sandy's rush past her restraining hand had not told the tale.

The children entered like a conquering army. Mr. Warde slid Orme, murmuring satisfaction, down on to the sofa beside his mother, and watched with an unaccountable pang at his heart as she gathered them all into her arms. The parents accepted David's rapid "Didn't mean to, father," and his explanation of the mishap which they had never counted on--too glad to see them safe, too accustomed to their enterprise, too certain that what they said was true, to give the scolding they perhaps deserved.

As the news of their safety spread, sympathisers flocked in. Like a young turkey-cock lifting up its crest, Sandy stood a captive at Mrs. Lytchett's knee, his jacket held tightly in her firm grasp.

"I hope your father's going to whip you," she said severely.

"Ain't," said Sandy.

"Then he ought. Do you know you've nearly killed your mother?"

Sandy's glance crossed the room, his conscience giving a repentant twinge.

His mother's laughing, merry eyes met his, and repentance fled.

"Let me go, please," giving his jacket a tug. "I want to go to my mother." Sandy always said "My mother" when he wished to be impressive.

Mrs. Lytchett watched him insinuate his small body to his mother's side, where he stood defiant, only the mother guessing all that the clinging clasp of his fingers round her arm was meant to say.

Marjorie came down to say that the little ones were safe in bed; and David and Sandy walked off beside her with uplifted heads.

* * * * *

With the house still, and the children of which it had been bereaved once more within its walls, with the need for exertion and control giving place to a languor which would not permit sleep, Marjorie felt a load like lead descend upon her. In spite of visions that came to her wakeful senses, of ardent eyes and a tender tone, although her fingers tingled still with the warm clasp of those stronger ones, she was very unhappy. On her bed, alone with rushing thoughts, staring with wakeful eyes on to the green bravery outside her window, she thought over all that had happened, and knew that she had played a sorry part. An engaged girl--she had let another man make love to her. Marjorie shrank as she realised her action.

"What have I done? It came to me upon the roof! Oh! why didn't I find out before? What can I tell Mr. Warde? How can I tell him that I never cared for him a bit? Is it I--can it be I, who have behaved so badly? But I must tell him, straight away. Not a minute longer than I can help will I be so double-faced."

At her usual hour she dressed and went downstairs. The empty breakfast-room added strength to her resolve. Pausing but for a moment on the doorstep, to catch at her slipping courage, she ran down the flagged path of the Court, and knocked at Mr. Warde's door.

Mr. Warde, like herself, had been wakeful. Marjorie's face on the roof had been a startling revelation. And yet he had to confess to himself that in his inmost heart he had gauged rightly her love. Even in the dawn, whilst he had rejoiced at its expression, a cold hand had seemed to pluck it away. And now--he had seen her kindling face--he had seen the mounting flush, he had seen the love-light in her dark eyes, in that glance when he had surprised the lovers. It was a very different girl who had borne his caresses, when for a few moments she had leant her tired body against his strength.

He realised it all. She loved Antony Pelham; she only bore with him.

* * * * *

Entering Mr. Warde's house, the door at the end of the hall leading into the garden stood open before her. Many a time in her childish life, Marjorie had sought her friend by way of the study window. Some impulse now made her seek that mode of approach. It was a French window, not quite open to the ground. She had to mount two steps, and step over a low framework, which in former days her small feet had found a sufficient barrier.

The window was wide open. Marjorie tapped upon the pane. Mr. Warde was sitting at his bureau, and she could not see his face.

"May I come in?"

As the loved voice fell upon his ear, the man rose, and pushed the letter he was writing aside.

"Like old days, Marjorie," he smiled, coming forward to meet her, but his face looked pale and drawn.

Something in hers, something to him admirable in the courage which had prompted her visit--for he knew why she had come--some desire to save her pain made him say:

"I was writing to you, Marjorie."

"Yes?" Her troubled eyes sought some comfort from his.

"But now you have come--it was good of you to come, Marjorie--I did not like to disturb you, or I would have saved you. Sit there in the old place--your chair has never been moved."

But instead, Marjorie moved restlessly to the window, and looked out upon the trim luxuriance of the rose-filled garden. Her courage was oozing fast in face of his kindness and the old associations.

"I came to tell you," she said slowly, "that what I said the other day was wrong. I have found out--that I cannot----"

"I know, Marjorie. No need to say it," he said softly.

"I have behaved very badly," she went on. "I let you think I cared for you. I did not know--then. I never did care. I never can--I know now." Unconsciously her tone took a note of triumph, which made her hearer wince. He forced himself to reply:

"It was a mistake, dear. I realised that it was only a chance--that you were but a child whom I have loved very dearly. That is it, Marjorie. That is how it is between us."

She lifted her foot over the threshold of the window, and the straying rose-branches fell about her. She looked very slight and young, as she stood there for a moment, the sun burnishing the bright tendrils of her hair into a halo round her face. The man's soul went out in a sigh of longing as he saw the beauty of the picture--saw her standing as he had dreamt she would stand, his own loved possession, in her home.

"I think you will be happy," he forced himself to say; "I think Mr. Pelham----"

She put up her hands to ward off his speech, and her face grew scarlet.

"Good-bye," she said softly.

There was a rustle of soft drapery, a hasty footfall, a blank. The window was vacant. The man stared at it, still for a moment possessed with the vision of her presence. Then he turned, and looked painfully round the luxurious room.

All was there that man could want--every expression of a cultivated taste. As he looked, his loneliness--the loneliness that would never now be satisfied--fell in desolation round him.

* * * * *

The adventurers were gathered on the lawn on a rug and cushions Marjorie had found for them. After a long sleep, as school was out of the question for that day, they had spent some hours in shovelling the earth back into their hole.

"Never knew such a funny fing in all my life!" Sandy had exclaimed during this process. "It all came out, and on'y 'bout half will go in. How do you splain that, Dave?"

"Don't want to explain," said David, jumping in and stamping vigorously. "It's got to go, whether it will or no."

"It's like a grave," Sandy said, observing him. "On'y there's nothing buried. You'll get buried in a minute, Orme, if you don't look out."

"Me s'ant."

"You will. There!" as a clatter of earth fell over and around the busy baby. "Didn't I tell you so?"

Orme looked round, his chubby moon-face a surprised interrogation. Then as fast as he could trot, he went off to his mother. To her he imparted the information that the "'ky had fell, an' it was a dirty 'ky."

It was after they had tired themselves with digging that the four had sought Marjorie and a fairy story. In the middle of this, when the prince and the heroine were engaged in a customary understanding, Marjorie suddenly broke off in her narrative and relapsed into thought.

"Seems, Margie, as if you felt dreffle 'bout something," said David.

Marjorie did not reply. Her thoughts had ascended the hill, and there was a dreamy, unseeing look in her eyes.

* * * * *

Almost every day Ross and Orme go and stamp upon the mound of earth in the corner of the garden, the monument of the boys' enterprise. Ross does it out of hatred, and Orme in the hope of bringing down the "ky."

But to Marjorie that mound tells a tale of love, found and won--and mistakes buried, happily before it was too late. Sometimes her young brothers wonder at some unlooked-for expression of affection, and look at her reproachfully, resenting the sudden kiss. Sandy one day said to her--

"Why did you kiss Orme--sudden--like that? He ain't gooder than usual--an' he's dirty."

"Yes, I like him dirty. He reminded me----"

She stopped at the sound of a step.

"'Minded you? Your cheeks get redder an' redder the nearer Mr. Pelham comes. 'Minded you--what?"

"Of that dreadful night," she whispered.

But it was no "dreadful" reminiscence that shone in the welcome of her uplifted eye.

THE END.

THE POWER OF A GREAT PURPOSE

"None of these things move me."--ACTS XX. 24.

A Sermon Preached before the Queen by the Very Rev. the Dean of Windsor

The "things" of which St. Paul spoke were very definite things indeed. They were the things which befell him as he continued to fulfill his ministry and to proclaim the Gospel in Jerusalem and elsewhere. It is true he says that he did not know the things that would befall him when he reached Jerusalem. He meant that he could not exactly describe beforehand all that would happen to him. But his experience of the past could have left him in no doubt as to the sort of experience that awaited him in the future. Bonds and imprisonment, persecution in its many different forms, opposition to the great message which he had to deliver, contempt and ridicule, hardship and toil, pain and the risk of death--these were the things with which, his experience had been filled since he became an apostle of Christ. They were the things which, as he well knew, he should have to encounter whithersoever he might go. They were the things which he had clearly before his mind when he declared "None of these things move me."

As he speaks the words, we are at once placed in the presence of that life which is one of the great treasures of the Church of Christ--that life, the record of which has animated tens of thousands of the soldiers of Christ, and has encouraged myriads of sufferers in their times of need, and has, over and over again, made men heroes and martyrs. Delicate health, unceasing toil, bodily suffering, constant privations, long journeys by sea and land, long imprisonments, cruel scourgings, vexations and disappointments, and the ever-present danger of death--such were the experiences of that life. We, as we read the record, wonder at the steadfastness and endurance which made such a life possible. And while we admire the set purpose and the unflinching courage of the man, we pity him for the things which made up the experiences of his life. But he does not for a moment pity himself. On the contrary, he says of it all, "None of these things move me."

What did St. Paul really mean by saying that the sufferings of his life did not move him?

Is he speaking the language of mere bravado? Have we before us a man who is merely giving utterance to great swelling words? Is this some proud and foolish boaster who does not mean what he says? Men of this sort are not by any means uncommon. We have not to go far to come across those who, to judge by their fine words and their swaggering boastfulness, are brave and good, and superior to others, but who are, in reality, cowardly and mean and contemptible. Such men are to be met with in all departments of human life--in the family circle, in society, in politics, in the church. But no one that ever lived on this earth has been farther from the character of an empty boaster than the Apostle Paul. There were two reasons why it was impossible that he could ever have been a mere boaster. One reason is that he was absolutely true to his very heart's core. The other reason is that all his thoughts of himself were thoughts of the very deepest humility. The man who could feel himself to be the "chief of sinners," and whose whole life was manifestly sincere and true, was quite incapable of a windy boast. It is plain that mere bravado could have had nothing whatever to do with the words "None of these things move me."

Then, are his words those of a Stoic? Are we listening to the language of one whose philosophy has taught him that human virtue could have no more conspicuous triumph than to be able to suppress every emotion of the soul, and to petrify into a marble death that warm, living thing which God has given to every man, and which we call his "heart"? There were those in St. Paul's days who were philosophers after this sort. They were the men who succeeded in killing all feeling. They practised their philosophy so well, and were so obedient to its principles, that they were never conscious of a real transport of joy, and refused to acknowledge any pangs of sorrow. They turned themselves from men into marble statues. A Stoic could move about the world with a cold, contemptuous smile upon his lips; and as he passed through scenes of joy and happiness, as he listened to the happy laughter of an innocent maiden, or watched the bounding joyousness of a young man in the heyday of his youth, as he looked upon the agonies of bodily suffering, or witnessed the bitter tears of some bereaved one, or stood in the presence of the terrible realities of death, he could say--and say it with truth--"None of these things move me."

Is it with this stoical indifference that St. Paul speaks? We might as well imagine that the sun could become cold and dark, as that the warm, tender heart of the apostle could become stoical. A very cursory glance at that life, so full of love and tenderness, is enough to tell us that there could have been nothing of the Stoic about the apostle. A single moment's recollection will bring to our memories words that he spoke or wrote, which could only have come from a nature that was sensitive, tender, and emotional. St. Paul was one who loved strongly and felt deeply. He was easily lifted up with joy, and cut to the quick by pain and suffering. His love and sympathy flowed out to all around him. He welcomed the love and sympathy of others. The warm heart that was in him spoke to and influenced the hearts of others; for, as Goethe says,

"You never can make heart throb with heart Unless your own heart first has struck the tone."

Assuredly he was far from being anything approaching to a Stoic. On the contrary, he was a man who daily grew more and more into the likeness of Him Who suffered, and felt, and loved more than any other man, Who, in his wonderful tenderness and boundless sympathy, is the Great Model for us to copy.

When, therefore, St. Paul said, "None of these things move me," he could not possibly have said it out of the cold, passionless heart of a Stoic.

What, then, did he really mean by what he said? He himself has made plain to us what he meant. He says that he must finish his course with joy, and the ministry, which he has received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Nothing must interfere with the fulfilment of his ministry. That ministry was his life's work, to which he had been specially called. There could be no possibility of mistake about it. From the time of his conversion no shadow of a misgiving or doubt concerning it had ever for a moment crossed his mind. He was absolutely certain that he was commissioned by God to testify the gospel of His grace. His mission was to go whithersoever the providence of God might lead him--over land or sea, in sunshine or in storm--in order that he might proclaim the great message of the love of God. The thought of that mission so entirely possessed him, so penetrated his whole being, that nothing in the world could turn him aside from it, even for a moment. And the steadfast purpose of his heart to fulfil his ministry at all costs is breathed out in his words, "None of these things move me." He meant that nothing, however vexatious or disappointing or painful, could hold him back from his great work. The Holy Ghost had witnessed to him that bonds and imprisonment awaited him. It made no difference. Nothing could move him. He had received his charge to preach the gospel, and preach it he must.

We cannot but admire this courageous steadfastness of purpose, this unswerving faithfulness. But behind it all, and inspiring it all, there was the clear, bright, living faith--the open eye of his soul--which looked full on the great reality of the love of God. His faith was absolutely convinced of the love of God to him and to all mankind. The great certainty lighted up an answering love in his heart towards God and towards all men; and therefore, come what might, he must preach Christ. No doubt steadfastness and courage lie in the words, "None of these things move me." Yet even more are they the words of faith. He who speaks them is one who _knows_ in Whom he has believed.

Why is it that we are not able to do greater things for God? Why do we so easily lose heart? Why does our energy so quickly flag? Why are our sacrifices so poor and small? Why does our courage so soon ebb away? Why do we so cry out when we are hurt? Why is our endurance so short-lived? Surely the reason is plain. If we had the strong faith of St. Paul, instead of a faith that is so often feeble and halting and irresolute, we should be better able to pass through the varied experiences of human life and say, "None of these things move me. Nothing can move me from my trust in God and from the work which He has given me to do."

But there is a further meaning in the apostle's words. They express the living faith which inspired the steadfastness of purpose with which he clung to his life's work. Yet they express more than this. As he speaks there is a scene before his eyes which, no doubt, he had often witnessed. He sees the runners in a race striving together for victory. He sees the one who, when the race is run, receives the prize. He sees the joy of victory that beams in his eyes as the chaplet is placed on his brow.

It is a picture of himself. He is running in a race. He is still in the midst of the course. And he expects to finish his course with the joy of victory. That is the hope set before him, and from that hope nothing could move him. It is out of the assuredness of that hope, which he knew would not be disappointed, that he can say of all his troubles and anxieties, "None of these things move me." He meant that nothing could shake his hope of finishing his course with joy. For was not that hope founded upon the promises of God? Was it not bound up with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? Had he not received ten thousand tokens of the faithfulness of God? His hope was no delusion--no baseless fabric of a dream. It was a certainty of which nothing could rob him.

It is a joy to us to remember that what was St. Paul's hope is ours also. For it is the hope of the Christian. It is the hope of glory set before all the followers of Christ. Let our faith only grasp the love of God, and win our lives from sin to the service to God, and then this blessed hope will become the golden treasure of the lives that have been renewed.

We live in a strange and sad world. Dark clouds of mystery are around us on every side. Vexation, disappointment, suffering, pain, death, confront us, and we cannot escape them. We are, more or less, sufferers all and mourners all. Oh, that we might be able to say, not with the boastfulness of fools, nor yet with the icy indifference of Stoics, but with humble faith and ever-brightening hope, "None of these things move me"! Blessed is the steadfastness which nothing can move either from the conviction of the love of God which the cross of Christ reveals, or from the path of duty which lies before us, or from the Christian hope of the life to come.

Those travellers who have noticed how turbaned or fezzed native merchants will gladly wait for half a dozen hours under the colonnade of some hotel at Tangiers or Cairo on the doubtful chance of concluding a bargain with the errant Englishman, which does not involve half a dozen francs, may have some idea of the small value which the modern Oriental sets upon his time. The sun is his only clock, and even that suits him rather to bask in than to scrutinise. The thoughts and habits of men change even less in the East than the features of Nature, and we are confronted with just the same easy elasticity as regards anything to do with definite hours when we restore for ourselves the sacred scenes of the earlier Bible history, and put back the timepiece of our own contemplation for two or three thousand years. To the Hebrew or Canaanite of Joshua's day the phenomenon of the "sun standing still," conveyed into Holy Writ from the highly wrought poetic imagery of the lost Book of Jasher, would be little of a miracle--that luminary was often stationary for the popular convenience.

Exact notes of time are very hard to discover in the Old Testament. We have for the most part to depend on such expressions as "dawn," "morning," "noon," "heat of day," "cool of day," "evening," "twilight," "night," and no attempt that Hebrew scholars have made to set those terms in their correct chronological order has met with more than very partial success. The word "hour" is itself mentioned only once: Dan. iv. 19. It seems difficult to suppose that some simple method of measuring the hours was not in use, such as the trickling of sand or water from a vessel, but our knowledge on the subject is scanty. We must even resign ourselves to the prosaic probability that the famous sun-dial of Ahaz was a very different contrivance from the lichened stone pillar, with weather-beaten brass face, which we associate in the Western world with the odorous lawn of some sequestered manor garden. It is more likely that Ahaz had upon his terrace a slanting tower, upon a certain number of the steps of which the shadow fell. Such towers were known in ancient India. The only formal computation of time that we can discover in the Old Testament is by three watches. There was the "beginning of watches" (Lam. ii. 19), from sunset to 10 p.m.; the middle watch, Judges vii. 19 (we speak of this incident later), from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.; the morning watch, from 2 a.m. to sunrise (Exodus xiv. 24), when the Lord looked on the Egyptians, and discomfited them in the midst of the Red Sea.

But the rough and ready indications of hours, supplied by the progress of the day from dawn to darkness, were quite enough for the men and women of the earlier Hebrew centuries, and if we are willing to shake off our Occidental precision and the tyranny of Greenwich, many a Bible scene would take a place upon the clock with moderate exactitude. It is in the glow of the rising sun that Abraham gazes upon the destruction of Sodom, that Jacob beholds the face of the Unknown who has wrestled with him at Peniel, that Achan is marked out before the congregation for the doom of his theft, that Hannah asks God so earnestly for the son for whom she longs; that poor, over-persuaded Darius hastens to the den of lions, to see whether his faithful favourite Daniel is alive. It is in the very early hours that Giant Goliath struts out to defy the armies of the living God, and that fair Rebekah rides away, with the day-spring on her face, to meet the love which has been predestined for her, beyond the plains of Padan-aram. It is in the heat of the day that the three mysterious Visitors greet Abraham at his tent door, and that Saul completes the slaughter of the Ammonites and wins the hearts of his people. It is at high noon that Joseph provides Benjamin with a dinner five times as large as that of his other brothers, in the sunny courts of Pharaoh, and that Ishbosheth's siesta leads to his assassination at the hands of the sons of Rimmon. It is towards evening that the weary dove returns to the ark's refuge, that Joshua takes down the bodies of the five kings from their gibbet, that Ezekiel's wife dies, and that the haunted life of King Ahab ebbs painfully away. The night scenes are numerous. It is in the darkness that the hosts of Sennacherib are destroyed, that the awful cry is heard in Egypt on the death of the first-born, and that, while Belshazzar banquets, the Angel of Death "is whetting his sword upon the stones of Babylon." We survey these pictures, so far as their exact hour is concerned, through the haze of Oriental indefiniteness, but they have been limned for ever by the genius of inspiration upon the retina of universal humanity.

When we come to New Testament times we are, at least by comparison, on more reliable ground. It was certainly Roman influence which brought the system of hours into Palestine. That this system existed in our Lord's day is undoubted. "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" said Jesus Christ Himself.

There were two modes of reckoning, one used by St. John and the other by the rest of the New Testament writers. St. John counts his hours just as we do, from midnight to noon and from noon to midnight. His fellow-evangelists reckon from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to the ordinary Jewish fashion. We may add in passing that the Romans divided the night not into three but into four watches. These watches lasted three hours each. Thus, when Christ appeared to His disciples walking on the sea "in the fourth watch of the night," it must have been some time between 3 and 6 a.m.

Let us now say a few things about the big, bald clock face, with no hands, with which we have furnished those who are jogging along with us on our chronological quest. Our clock makes a bold attempt (the first, so far as we know) to fix a Scripture event on to each hour of the twenty-four. We do not profess that the proofs which we can offer for the time of each event are equally sound, but we have made it a rule that sheer guess-work should never be employed. Consequently, there is a partial failure. We have succeeded in discovering no reasonably probable event for 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. May we console ourselves with the reflection that in Eastern countries most people during those hours are asleep? Except as regards the particular incidents we are about to consider, we will leave our big clock to tick his own tale. Whatever his faults, he is not half as much of a story-teller as another of his kind would be, who had been neglected in a lumber room for over twenty centuries. Let us, however, just defend one or two selections which might seem groundless or arbitrary. What authority have we for alleging that our Lord's friends endeavoured to arrest Him, as being "beside Himself," at 11 a.m.? This. St. Mark shows us in his minute and vivid way that owing to the insistency of the crowd the Master and His disciples could not take their meal. The usual hour for this would be about eleven in the morning. Then we have ventured to place the feeding of the five thousand about 4 p.m.; for the month was April, and St. Luke tells us that "the day began to wear away." We cannot, therefore, be very far out. Again, Jairus would hardly have come to our Lord before late in the afternoon, for Christ had had a long day and a voyage over the lake; the people also were waiting as though they expected Him earlier. And since the two Maries and Salome would be all eagerness to procure their spices for the anointing of Christ's body, and could not buy them till the Sabbath ended at six, they would not accomplish their shopping later than 7 p.m.

Now let us take out our watches and check them by our big clock. We will picture for ourselves some scenes in Old and New Testament history at the hour in which they happened. For such hours the evidence is in most of our instances good, and in the rest more than tolerable. Our selections shall start from 2 a.m. and go on in due order up to midnight.

At this hour, when the stay-at-home often awakes for a little after his "first sleep," and the modern roysterer is thinking about his pillow, St. Peter stood in the glare of the coal fire, while darkness still shrouded the most dreadful night in history. St. Luke (xxii. 59) clearly tells us that there was an hour's interval between the denials. We may well believe that the nerves of the sturdy but emotional apostle were all on edge from the surprises and horrors through which he had already passed. Scared or nettled by the inquiry of a sharp maid-servant, he takes the primary step in a sin of which the very blackness is a beacon for aftertime of the far-reaching power of divine forgiveness.

"The musky daughter of the Nile, with plaited hair and almond eyes." This is how Oliver Wendell Holmes prettily, if too fancifully, describes Hagar. The pathetic dismissal by the patriarch of this ill-starred Egyptian and her son Ishmael, has always been a theme dear to poetry and art. We are not astray in shedding over the picture the grey tints of earliest dawn. "Abraham," we are told, "rose up early in the morning," and it seems probable, from the narrative, that the unhappy business was concluded before Sarah was about. The wife of an Arab sheik would rise betimes.

We are fairly secure in fixing this for the hour on that memorable Sabbath when, after the six days' single investiture, Joshua ordered the seven priests, with the seven trumpets of rams' horns, to bear the Ark seven times round the walls of Jericho. "They rose early, about the dawning of the day." The date, calculating from the previous Passover, was about April 23rd. The dawn at this season would bring us roughly to 5 a.m. Jericho was a city of considerable extent, and allowing that it took the procession an hour and a half or more to finish each of the seven circuits, it is not likely that the leader would be able to exclaim, "Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city," and to command the massacre, till 6 p.m., when the Sabbath would be over.

The old method of the commentators, which made St. John reckon his hours like the other three evangelists, would place the call of himself and St. Andrew at 4 p.m. The theory that St. John counted his hours as we do is supported by the high authority of Bishops Wordsworth and Westcott, and many others. It surely gives a more natural sense to this passage: The two apostles abode with their Master, after their call, "that day." It would be a short day which began at four in the afternoon, instead of ten in the morning, and St. Andrew's search for his brother, together with St. Peter's subsequent call, are recorded in "that day" besides.

It was at noon, upon the knees of his mother, that the son of the Shunammite lady died. We remember how the little boy, the cherished child of many prayers, toddled out to meet his aged father in one of those rich harvest fields which nestled round the base of Mount Carmel; and how, smitten by the fierce Syrian sun, he called out to his father, "My head, my head!" and a lad carried him home to his mother. The picture is none the less fresh because we look upon it blurred by the tears of many generations, and the simple story ends in smiles, for God, through Elisha, graciously gave back the treasured life.

The hour of prayer at the Temple. Here we are chronologically as secure as if we had heard three o'clock struck by the clock at Westminster Abbey, where the week-day service is held at the same hour. When we read this account of the miraculous healing, at the Beautiful Gate, of the cripple who was over forty years old, we may recall the story of Pope Innocent III. and St. Thomas of Aquinum. "You see, son," said the Pontiff, as they surveyed the massive ingots being carried into the Vatican, "the day has gone by when the Church need say, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" "Yes, holy father," responded the honest saint, "and the day has gone by, too, when the Church could say to the paralytic, 'Arise, take up thy bed and walk.'"

"God is a Spirit" was the sublime revelation made by Christ to the woman of Samaria by Jacob's well at Sychar. If St. John counted his hours according to the Jewish habit, the sixth would, of course, be noon, but a woman would be more likely to come to draw water, according to Eastern custom, ancient and modern, in the cool of the day, than during the burning heat.

Nine o'clock at night was a judicious hour for the dispatch of St. Paul, under an armed escort, from Jerusalem to Cæsarea. The apostle's young nephew had bravely divulged to the Roman captain, Lysias, a plot on the part of some Jews to assassinate his uncle. In this matter, Lysias acted as a man of wisdom and honour.

With the exception of noon and midnight, there is no hour so exactly marked as this in the whole of the Old Testament. The noble and heroic Gideon and his three companies blew their three hundred trumpets, and crashed their pitchers, and flashed their firebrands, "in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had but newly set the watch." The middle watch, as we have said before, lasted from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. This terrific signal for the attack on the Midianites must have been given, therefore, about 11 p.m.

Of the many midnight scenes that are available, we will choose one that is remarkable, not for its profound ethical teaching, its tenderness, its tragedy, but, if we may say so with reverence, its humour. Samson lifting the gates of Gaza upon his back, and carrying them up "to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron" (R.V.), is one of those stories which delighted our childhood, and which will never be displaced by any recital of the glories of latter-day athleticism. The gist of this incident is to be found in the cleverness with which the Philistines, proverbial then as now for their stupidity, are outwitted by the prisoner, whom they fancied they had trapped so securely.

It may be that, as we lay our big clock aside, and return our watches to our pockets, some scenes of the sacred Long Ago will shape themselves more clearly and definitely for the future in our remembrance, because we shall associate them with the hour at which they occurred. We have not sought to disguise the fact that, so far as time goes, a mist of incertitude must always cling round events, however momentous, which took place in any Oriental country, and at a remote age. But we shall understand our Bible all the better, and its unchangeable and imperishable essence will be the more vital to our souls, as we realise that the Almighty was pleased to reveal Himself to a people whose modes of thought and whose ways of life were widely different from our own.

As might be expected, the languorous and unpractical Orient soon lost the impress of Roman preciseness in the matter of hours. The average native of Palestine to-day is as careless about time as he was when Abraham completed his pilgrimage from Ur of the Chaldees. Nor is this truth without its curious analogy in that life immortal into which we believe those holy men of old are entered, with whose earthly deeds we have been concerned. There is no time where they have gone. In the sight of the King before Whose presence they stand, "a thousand years are but as yesterday, seeing that is past as a watch in the night." And we think, too, of that Dial, hidden somewhere in the archives of the Eternal, whose awful Hand points to the Hour, unknown even to the angels in heaven, "when the Son of Man cometh."

_A LOVE-STORY._

By Evelyn Everett-Green.

The _Auguste-Victoria_ was steaming with dignified deliberation into the harbour of Gibraltar. The exquisite lights of a clear February morning were shining over land and sea; and Dulcie, at her port-hole window, was gazing with eager eyes over the smooth, shining ripples of the sea, and longing for a run on deck and a good look about her.

But Dulcie's cabin-companion, a frail invalid, who had been wintering in Madeira, and was on her way to the Riviera, where the spring months were to be spent, was still lying prostrate and wan in her berth. She had suffered severely during the thirty hours' passage from Funchal to Gibraltar; and Dulcie would not leave her till she had had some breakfast and had been made comfortable for a quiet sleep.

She crossed the cabin and bent over her.

"We are in now, Aunt Mary. There, do you hear? That is the rattle of the anchor chain going down. I have sent for your tea and toast. They will be here directly. Let me make you comfortable; and after you have had something to eat you will get off to sleep, and wake up quite brisk. We have no more Atlantic to face now. Only the blue, blue Mediterranean. Oh, it does look so calm and beautiful!"

Dulcie fairly danced about the floor as she waited on the invalid. This cabin was in itself a luxury--not just a gangway, with berths on one side and lounge on the other; but a small room with space to walk about, and a fixed wardrobe in which to hang clothes--as different as possible from the accommodation on the mail-boat which had taken them from Southampton to Madeira in October. This was a great pleasure steamer, which had left New York ten days or so ago, touched at Madeira, and was bound on a cruise through the Mediterranean to the Orient.

Dulcie had come out with a party of rich relations, mainly to take charge of Miss Martin, the semi-invalid "Aunt Mary." The Meredith party had wearied of Madeira by this time, and Miss Martin unspeakably dreaded the return journey in the mail, with the horrors of the Bay of Biscay and the perils of Ushant to face. They had eagerly availed themselves of the chance of returning by this splendid German-American pleasure steamer; and Dulcie's heart was all in a flutter at the prospect of what she was to see. To-day Gibraltar, to-morrow Malaga; and thence a trip up to Granada, the place, of all others in the world, that she longed to see! Then Algiers, then Genoa; and so to the Riviera, whence she was to be sent home; as, when once in Europe, and with no more sea voyage to face, her company could be dispensed with. But what a lot of the world she would have seen by that time! Certainly there were compensations sometimes in being a poor relation whose services could always be commanded.

Just as Miss Martin was sipping her tea, and finding relief at last in the steadiness of the great vessel at anchor, handsome Arabella Meredith came bustling in, in travelling trim, with a light cloak over her arm.

"Oh, Dulcie," she said, "we find that we leave for Granada at once. We do not do it from Malaga; but only join the boat again there. It is an affair of three nights. I'm sorry you will miss it; but, of course, Aunt Mary cannot be left all that time, and before she has got over her sea-sickness. Good-bye; we'll tell you all about it when we meet. I daresay you'll manage to join a shore-going party here and at Malaga, and you'll have the boat nice and quiet. Everybody's off on shore for Granada."

She was gone. There was trampling and calling overhead. The agent who arranged the shore excursions was marshalling his recruits. People were rushing down for wraps and hand-bags; all was hurry and confusion. Mrs. Meredith just ran in to kiss her sister and warn Dulcie to look well after her. Then she, too, disappeared, and Dulcie was left biting her lips to keep back the tears. She realised that Miss Martin could not be left for so long, and that before she had recovered the tossing in the Atlantic. But to miss Granada! Oh! it did seem hard when she was so near, and Aunt Mary had promised to pay the expenses of the trip for her.

Miss Martin settled to sleep, the sleep of exhausted nature. Dulcie went on deck to find the huge boat almost empty. Even those passengers who had not cared for the fatigues of the Granada expedition had gone to spend the day ashore. The steamer was not to leave the anchorage till seven o'clock that night, and then only steam gently under lee of the shore to Malaga.

Dulcie's was a happy nature; despite the keenness of her disappointment, the beauty of the scene before her eyes did much to chase sorrow away. Was she not looking upon one of the grand sights of the world? Was not that the lion-faced rock she had longed to see? And oh, how glorious were those solemn African mountains! and what an exquisite view she had of the wonderful harbour, the town climbing up the steep heights, and the white Moorish city crowning one of the low hills! There was Algeciras; she recognised it from its position, but she longed to know more of her surroundings. Oh, if Mr. Carlyon were but here, what interesting things he would tell her!

Dulcie felt her cheek suddenly glow, and she leaned over the rail, looking down into the water and growing dreamy. How was it that it was always that face which came between her and the page of her book when she read, or intruded itself into her visions, waking and sleeping, at night? Why was it that the thought of missing _that_ companionship on the Granada trip was the real trouble to her, though she scarcely dared admit it? What was Mr. Carlyon to her?

He had only been three weeks in the hotel with them at Funchal; he had come from the Cape, and it was rumoured that he had made a fortune there. He was evidently a great traveller. He seemed acquainted with every land under the sun. His thin face was very brown; and the dark hair was silvered at the temples, though the fine silky moustache was still quite black. He was tall and well-knit in figure, with regular features and very penetrating eyes of a rather dark blue; a handsome and distinguished-looking man, said to belong to a good old family. But he had lived a life of travel and adventure, and had known hard times. If he had made his fortune now, at the age of forty or under, he had known plenty of buffeting about in his earlier life.

"I wonder if he will come back engaged to Arabella?" mused Dulcie; "I know the people, at the hotel talked about it. He was so much with us. Does Arabella care for him? He attracts her. That very gentle chivalrous way he has with all women is so different from what one meets with generally in these days. Oh, I do hope, if it is to be, that she really cares. I think he is a man who would give everything without reserve, if once he loved. And she? Oh, it is not for me to judge; perhaps I am a little jealous. Sometimes she seems to have so much--more than she can use. But I must not let myself think unworthy thoughts. I have had a lovely time. A winter of sunshine and happiness, and now this wonderful trip home. To let things be spoiled for me, just because _he_ has gone with them and I am left behind! Oh, that would be ridiculous! ungrateful! horrid!"

With a brave effort Dulcie flung away disappointment. After her sleep and dinner Miss Martin was well enough to come and lie out on deck, wrapped up in rugs, and enjoy the sunshine; and, hearing of a party of American ladies going for an hour or two ashore in the afternoon, she sent Dulcie off with them; so that, if she did not see what others did, at least she wandered up the narrow, busy main street of the town, saw the jostling crowds of semi-Moorish and mixed European nationality; drove out to Catalan Bay and Europa Point, and sipped delicious chocolate in a delightfully Moorish-looking restaurant before getting back to the ship.

"We have had a perfectly charming afternoon," she told Miss Martin when she got back. "We had not time or energy for the fortifications; but I don't think I mind that. That great lion rock is enough for me. I have seen Gib'; and made a few little sketches. I am quite, quite happy and content."

II.

"How perfectly exquisite!" exclaimed Dulcie.

The great vessel was lying at her anchorage in the beautiful harbour of Malaga. The smooth water lay almost without a ripple, dreaming beneath the misty glories of the spring sunrise, the delicate opals melting into the deeper green and blue of the ocean away towards the horizon, but nearer at hand so tender and pearly in tint that Dulcie held her breath to watch; and seemed as though she would never move again.

"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Grey!"

Dulcie wheeled round with a great start, the colour flushing her face from brow to chin.

"Mr. Carlyon!" she almost gasped.

"Well, not his ghost certainly, though you seem to think so."

"But--but--I thought you had gone to Granada?"

"I started off yesterday, certainly, with that intention; but I found I could not stand being one of three hundred tourists! I had not realised that sort of travelling before. It has wonderful advantages for untravelled folk, but somehow it did not suit me. I went with them to Ronda; I wanted to see that. But Granada is an old friend of mine. I did not want its memories desecrated. I think I am not exactly a gregarious animal. I made my way to Malaga by night, and found the _Auguste-Victoria_ had already arrived. So, you see, I have turned up like a bad halfpenny, and, if Miss Martin is well enough, I should like very much to be allowed the pleasure of showing her and you what there is to see in Malaga. It is not a great deal--not enough to be fatiguing; but, if you have not been in Spain before, it will give you an idea of a pleasant Spanish town."

Dulcie's face was all in a glow; her heart seemed dancing with joy. The sunshine took a new brightness, the flocks of white sea-gulls circling round the vessel and about the harbour seemed to be crying joyously one to the other. The soft breeze blew the loosened tendrils of hair about her happy face and sparkling eyes.

The thin face of the traveller brightened as he watched.

"Let us see if we cannot get some breakfast first. We will make love to the head steward and ask if they will not let us have it in that little boudoir, as they call it, on the top deck. I hate going below on a morning like this, and I am just starving after my night's travel."

Mr. Carlyon was one of those men who always get things done in their own way. The beauty of the morning and the news of Mr. Carlyon's plan quite roused Miss Martin, who had now recovered from the effects of the Atlantic, and after her day's rest was disposed to bestir herself. She was quite ready even at that early hour to let Dulcie dress her, and help her up the many stairs to the upper deck; and there in the pleasant little "boudoir" was an appetising breakfast awaiting them.

That day was always like a dream to Dulcie, and, indeed, so were those that followed, for Mr. Carlyon proved himself the most charming and entertaining of companions. They had a boat ashore, and then a carriage, and they drove through the white town, and over the wide stony bed of the almost empty river to some exquisite gardens, belonging to Spanish grandees, now absent in Madrid, and wandered about them, whilst Miss Martin rested in the many arbours, seeing beautiful views and delighting in the flowers, which, if not so plentiful now as they would be later on, were fair and sweet and abundant.

On the day following they visited the grand cathedral and examined its many pictures, some of which were of no small interest, and drove out to the red buildings of the great bull-ring, and saw the curious structure and the weapons and saddles of the riders. Everything was empty and deserted at that time of year, for the bull-fights only begin in April. But Dulcie could picture the scene in all its splendour and horror, under the golden Southern sunshine, and gave a little shudder, feeling glad when her companion told her that he had never seen a bull-fight, though he had lived for a time in Spain.

"They are always on Sunday, for one thing," he said, "and I--well, I have had a rough-and-tumble life, and there have been times when Sundays have been strange days with me. But I could never bring my mind deliberately to go to such a scene on such a day; even if I could have made up my mind to witness the brutal spectacle as a matter of curiosity, or from the feeling that it was one of the sights of the country."

And Dulcie liked and respected him the more for this confession. It seemed to make a fresh link between them.

Miss Martin watched them as they paced to and fro upon the long deck at such times as they were not ashore; and sometimes a sparkle would come into her eyes as she observed the way in which Mr. Carlyon's glance would dwell upon Dulcie's bright face.

"It looks to me very much like----And really I should not be sorry. Poor child! she is so much alone in the world; and I can do nothing for her. All my money goes to Arabella and her brothers--that's the worst of being an unmarried woman; one has no control over one's money; if I had, I would have made a little provision for the child. She is a good little thing. But I don't think Janet will be best pleased. Arabella, with all her good looks, does not go off. As I tell Janet, it is her temper--she has been so spoiled. Everybody can see it; she is absolutely selfish. I did begin to think that Mr. Carlyon was attracted; but I suspect now the attraction was in another direction. Well, I only hope there won't be a terrible rumpus when they get back. They were reckoning, I know, on this trip. They meant to make him their special escort; and when they learn what has really happened! Well, they can't bully him, that is one comfort; and I'll try to protect Dulcie. But Arabella is a minx when her blood is up; and Janet knows how to make me afraid. It's ridiculous to be afraid of one's sister; but sometimes I am."

Just about sunset that evening the shore became black with hurrying forms, and the harbour was crowded with boats. The Granada party was returning to the _Auguste-Victoria_, to the strains of "Home, Sweet Home" played by the band; and Mr. Carlyon with Dulcie stood laughingly watching the embarkation of the weary, travel-stained tourists.

"I expect they have only enjoyed it very moderately; Granada would be bitterly cold at this season, April or May is the time to see it. Ah! here comes your party! They don't look very happy in their minds. I'm not sure, after all, Miss Dulcie, that we unenterprising people haven't had the best of it!"

"I have had a perfectly lovely time!" cried Dulcie with one of her sweet, direct glances; "you have been so kind to me!"

His face lighted; it was such a kind one when it did, though it could be stern, too, on occasion.

"And you must see Granada another time--at the right season."

"Ah me! I fear not!" answered Dulcie, with a little laugh. "But never mind; one can't be more than perfectly happy!"

"Dulcie, is that you? Do take my bag; I'm so tired I don't know what to do with myself. Oh, Mr. Carlyon, there you are! I wonder you have the face to speak to me again, after your base desertion in our hour of need!"

She tried to speak archly; but temper and spite were in her tone, and the gleam in the eyes that rested first on Dulcie and then on him was not at all pretty to see.

"I left you under most capable guardianship; but I found my own enthusiasm unequal to the demand made upon it. There is such a thing as making a labour of a pleasure. Old fellows like me get beyond that in time."

Arabella swept fiercely past him, carrying Dulcie with her.

"When did he join the ship again?" she asked fiercely.

"On Tuesday morning," answered Dulcie quietly.

Arabella, red and pale by turns, cross-questioned her as to every event of the past days, which Dulcie gave truthfully, though with a sense of coming trouble.

Then the storm burst. She had seen Arabella angry before; but this was a unique outburst, and before it she stood dumb.

III.

"Oh, Dulcie, my dear, we are in sad disgrace," cried Miss Martin, half laughing, but distinctly agitated as well; "really, Janet is unreasonable. As if we had anything to do with Mr. Carlyon's change of plan! As if a man like that would not have gone with Arabella if he had wanted her! But Janet can never see things fairly, and, oh! the scolding I have had! And now, my dear, there is only one thing for us to do, if we don't want our heads snapped off. We shall weigh anchor almost at once, and they say it will be rather rough when we lose the shelter of the Spanish coast. I am just going to bed quietly at once, and you are to stop down and take care of me, and not show yourself above deck at all until to-morrow midday, when everybody has got off at Algiers, and Janet has made sure of Mr. Carlyon's escort."

Dulcie's cheeks were burning; her eyes were indignant.

"What have I done that I should be mewed up like this? Of course, as long as you are ill and want me, auntie, I don't mind anything, but you are not ill yet, and I do love seeing the ship move off, and all Malaga is collecting upon the two great breakwaters to see us steam away!"

"Oh, my dear child, don't begin to argue. My nerves won't stand another scene with Janet. If we do as she says we shall have peace, and 'Peace at any price' is my motto. We shall be at Algiers to-morrow midday; they will go ashore with Mr. Carlyon. He will take them to Mustapha Supérieur, and they will all stay the night there. We can do our little sight-seeing quietly by ourselves, and be back on board and out of sight before the rest get back. The crossing to Genoa takes from Saturday evening to early Monday morning, and I shall be glad enough to lie down all that time. I am afraid it will be dull for you, poor child! but it's no good crossing your Aunt Janet. You had better keep quietly here with me, and then at Genoa, as you know, you are to take the train back to England, and we go on to the Riviera. I should have liked to keep you all the while. I shall miss you sadly; but Janet----"

Dulcie was busying herself over her aunt's belongings, to hide the tears that would come welling up. She had so looked forward to seeing something of the life on board the big boat during the days at sea in the peaceful Mediterranean; but here she was compelled to remain a prisoner in the cabin, dependent upon the port-hole for light and air; and all because----But that would scarcely bear thinking of: it was humiliating, unbearable.

Pride, however, and a sort of maidenly shame kept Dulcie below, and, as the passage to Algiers was really rather rough, she had her time taken up by attendance on her aunt. Miss Martin was not well enough to get up till they had been two hours or more at anchor, and then did not feel equal to going ashore that day.

But, at least, Dulcie could pace the almost deserted deck from end to end, and gaze her fill at the beautiful town built up and up against the side of the hill. She could see the Arab dresses of the motley crowd upon the quay and along the handsome boulevard in full view, and distinguish between the fine houses and towers and spires of the French town, and the white walls and minarets of the Arab quarter away on the right. She longed for the next day to come, when they would go ashore and explore the wonders of the place.

Miss Martin was quite recovered by the morrow, and anxious to see something of the town. They procured a carriage and a guide, and drove for many hours, and, though the elder lady did not feel equal to the exertion of walking through the native quarter, whose streets were far too steep and narrow for the carriage, she sent Dulcie with the guide, who showed it to her very well, and she gazed about her with breathless interest at the strange veiled women, and brown turbaned men, and the little dark-eyed children playing in the gutters.

Yet throughout the day Dulcie was conscious of a heaviness at heart, a sense of unsatisfied longing which she was afraid to analyse or think about. All that she saw was wonderful, much more so than what she had seen in Malaga, but to compare her pleasure in the two was impossible. One day seemed all sunshine; this other was overcast and dull by comparison. She was conscious of being always on the watch for one face--a face of which she caught no glimpse the whole day. She found herself constantly wondering what the rest were doing, and whether Arabella was finding out what a delightful guide and cicerone Mr. Carlyon could be.

They went back to the _Auguste-Victoria_ before the bulk of the passengers; for Miss Martin was really tired, and Dulcie agreed with her that it might be well for her to go to her berth before the vessel started, since there was the prospect of a mild tossing when they were once outside the harbour.

Mrs. Meredith came in presently, a good deal more gracious than before, but still a little tart in her manner towards Dulcie.

"We shall meet a head-wind when we get out of harbour," she observed. "You must take care of your aunt, Dulcie, and remain with her. With her weak heart, she should not be left alone when there is any fear of sickness coming on. When we reach Genoa, I will put you and your baggage into the hands of some competent guide or porter, who will take you to the train, and you will book yourself straight through to England."

Dulcie understood perfectly. Arabella had thought her in the way. It was a planned thing that she should not see Mr. Carlyon again, even to say good-bye. And she was quite helpless. She could not seek him out--her girlish pride and modesty alike prevented that; nor could he try to see her. He would be told that she was either laid low herself or attending upon one who was in such case. Upon that crowded boat, when its complement of passengers was on board, there would be only a remote chance of encountering him even were she to steal up for a mouthful of air. At meals she might have met him; for he was certain to sit in the same saloon with her relations, even though the pleasant "boudoir" might not now be available; but to meals she was practically forbidden to come. And, indeed, Miss Martin was sufficiently ill during the whole of the next day to keep Dulcie in pretty constant attendance upon her.

Nearly all that night Dulcie lay awake in her berth, thinking strange yearning thoughts; and wondering whether she would ever cease to feel that weary sense of heartache. Miss Martin slept soundly at last--so soundly that she heard none of the noises of the vessel's slow approach to its moorings in the magnificent harbour of Genoa; was not aware when Dulcie slipped out of her berth and dressed herself with dainty precision in her neat blue travelling costume. She slept on and on so peacefully that the girl felt no scruple in leaving her. She must get a little fresh air and have her breakfast above deck. She must watch the entrance of the stately vessel into the wonderful historic harbour. The hour was very early yet. Nobody else would be astir. It was her last chance of seeing the world. She slipped out of the cabin, ran up the many flights of steps to the promenade deck, and looked about her with wide, wondering eyes at the forest of shipping by which they were surrounded, and the buildings of the town stretching away in all directions.

"Dulcie!" She started and faced about, the colour flooding her face; he was close beside her, holding out both his hands. In his eyes there was a look of purpose she had never seen there before; her own fell before it, her heart was beating so fast she could find no voice in which to answer.

He came and took her hands in his; he bent over her and spoke in quick, vibrating tones that thrilled her through and through.

"Dulcie, forgive me if I am too hasty--too bold; but what am I to do? They have kept you away from me, child; and I have tried in vain to get speech with you. There is so little time to say what I would. I would have spoken it all so differently if I could. But yet I can say it all in a few little words. I love you, Dulcie--I love you. I cannot live my life without you. You are young, child, and I am getting old; but I think, with you beside me, I could learn to be young again. Dulcie, will you give me something to hope for? Do you think you could let me come and try to win your love?"

She looked up at him for one dazzling moment, and in that moment read the half-discovered secret of her own heart.

"I--I--love you already," she answered very simply; and then she felt herself being drawn, close, close to his side.

Was it minutes or hours later that she heard a sharp voice calling her name.

"Dulcie, Dulcie, where are you? Is your luggage ready? Have you had your breakfast? Be quick. Oh----"

Mr. Carlyon stepped forward, smiling.

"Congratulate me, Mrs. Meredith. Your niece has done me the honour to promise to be my wife. Would it be possible under the circumstances for her to remain with you at Mentone? I know Miss Martin favours that plan."

Mrs. Meredith was woman of the world enough to know when she was beaten; and, after all, was it not better to have such a man as her niece's husband than as a mere acquaintance? Besides, her hopes of securing him for a son-in-law had materially diminished during the past eight-and-forty hours.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how very interesting and romantic! Dulcie, my dear, I congratulate you. Yes, certainly, you shall remain with us. I will go and speak to Mary about it. I am sure she will be pleased. Dear me--how things do turn out!"

_American Country Parsons and their Wives._

By Elizabeth L. Banks.

"The parson's coming!"

I remember well the pleasurable excitement that announcement used to cause in our farming neighbourhood. We children, sometimes swinging upon the topmost railing of the wicket gates, from which height we could espy the parson's "buggy" afar off, were often proud to be the first bearers of the tidings of his approach. But it was not always we who saw him first. There were times when, obeying the commands of our elders that we must never swing on the "front yard gate because it loosened the hinges," we felt chagrined over the fact that, though we were good, obedient children, we were denied the privilege of first noting the parson's horse round the hedge, in his slow, safe, jog-trot style--a style, by the way, that we all thought the proper equipment of a minister's horse. There were days when our fathers and our brothers and the "hired men," ploughing in the farm fields, hastily dropped their work, tying their horses to the fence-posts, and strode hurriedly to the house with the bit of always welcome news that the parson was making his quarterly round of country visits and might shortly be expected at that particular house, which must forthwith be "tidied up" most especially in his honour. Orders were straightway given that the manufacture of mud-pies in the back yard must be at once abandoned. There was a scurrying to the garden pump or the wash-basin, hands and faces were scrubbed, straying locks were plastered back from our foreheads; soiled, dark gingham aprons were exchanged for clean, stiffly starched, light print ones; and then we were led into the "parlour" and bidden to "sit still and quiet and nice and tidy" in readiness for the parson's visit. If, when the parson was espied, it was near the noon dinner-hour or the night supper-time, extra preparations were made for the approaching meal. Slices of highly valued "pound cake" were brought from the larder, the cellar was ransacked for the choicest jar of home-made jam, and, if time allowed, an unlucky chicken was chased into a corner of the barn-yard and assassinated, to help provide a feast deemed worthy to set before the parson.

The parson lived in the village, some five miles distant. He preached every Sunday morning and evening in the village church to a congregation of perhaps fifty souls, and received from them a salary of five hundred dollars a year. Once in two weeks he drove out to our school-house on the Sunday afternoon to preach to the farmers and their families, who did not attend the village church because they considered it a cruelty to horses that had worked all the week to be obliged to carry the family to church on Sunday. We in our district added one hundred dollars "and a donation party" to the minister's salary. The inhabitants of another farming district, six miles on the other side of the village, rewarded the parson in the same way for preaching to them on the alternate Sundays when he did not come to us; so the minister had, all told, seven hundred dollars a year (£140), _and_ two "donation parties"--not a large sum on which to support a family of five, yet considerably more than Goldsmith's village preacher, who was "passing rich on forty pounds a year."

Four times a year the minister visited all his country parishioners. It generally took him two or three days to go the rounds in one neighbourhood--a neighbourhood, I may say, extended over several miles. He would leave "town" (there were six hundred inhabitants in the place where he presided over the only steepled meeting-house of his three charges!) early in the morning, and reach the first house where he was to call at about ten o'clock. At noon he would have his dinner with some one of the farmer folk, being careful to select for his noon call a family with whom he had not partaken bread on his previous visit of three or six months back; for to have the parson to dinner or supper or to "put him up for the night" was an honour for which there was great rivalry, and he tried to be impartial in his distribution of such favours. During the meal hours, the minister's horse fared as sumptuously as did his good master. Apples and sugar and turnips and carrots and all the luxuries that the farm produced were given to the animal by the children of the place, while the farmer or his hired help brought out their choicest corn and bran and oats and fragrant hay. Nothing was too good for the minister and his horse. Indeed, even the "buggy" would be washed up and made "fit" during the interval of the meal hour.

Happy was that house and its dwellers with whom the minister elected to call late in the evening. The "spare bedroom," which adjoined the parlour and was only opened and aired on great occasions, was given over to him, and he slept upon the softest feather bed, amid the snowiest linen, and beneath a white-fringed canopy. In the morning the usual six o'clock breakfast would be delayed on his account until 6.30, and an hour later the minister was jogging along in his buggy to the next farmhouse.

I have written this much about the country parson with whom my own childhood was associated, because he was a typical American country parson then, and he is typical now. His round of duties and pleasures during his country visits are identical with that of hundreds of others of our country parsons. The practice of taking charge of a village church and then preaching on Sunday afternoons in the neighbouring country schoolhouses, is followed to a very great extent throughout the United States. The salary received is sometimes more, sometimes less, than what I have mentioned. What these men and their wonderful wives are able to do for themselves and their children on salaries ranging from six hundred to a thousand dollars a year is little less than miraculous. I have spoken of the "wonderful wives" of our country parsons. Here is a description of the wife of the country parson who preached in our school-house. She was not and is not unique. There are very many like her.

When she married the parson, she was a graduate of one of our best "mixed colleges." She took her diploma on the day that the man whom she afterwards married took his. She had taken the course in Greek and Latin, the higher mathematics, French, and German. When I knew her as the parson's wife, she gave lessons in French, music, and painting. The young mother of three children, she not only had no nursemaid to look after them, but she had no servants in her kitchen. She did all the housework, including the family washing and ironing, and the baking of the bread and cakes and pies. She made her children's dresses and her own. The parson's shirt front and his spotless white lawn ties were "laundered" by her. At ten o'clock in the morning she presided over the wash-tub, and at three in the afternoon she read Cicero, perhaps in the same kitchen while waiting for the bread to bake in the oven. She never looked untidy, our parson's wife! Even when hanging over the wash-tub or the bread-tray, she wore a smart-looking stuff dress, kept always clean by the donning of an immense bibbed apron. She had not an "at home" day, nor even an "at home" hour. She was always at home when she was in the house, at whatever hour of the day or night a visitor might knock at her front door. If, while in the kitchen, she heard the knocking that announced callers, the bibbed apron was thrown off, and in less than a minute later she appeared at the door, well-dressed and smiling. She was the confidante of all those in trouble; she gave advice to those married and those about to marry; she was president of the Ladies' Aid Society; she led the sewing circle, she played the church organ every Sunday morning and led the singing of the choir as well; she taught a class in the Sunday-school, and then went home and got dinner in time for her husband to start for his school-house preaching. Sunday night she presided over the young people's prayer meeting which preceded the regular preaching service. Twice a year she gave her own children a "party," to which all the other village children were invited. She formed "Bands of Mercy" in all the country round, and wrote little stories for the children to read at their meetings on the subject of kindness to dumb animals.

Her house was often the scene of weddings, for those young women who could not be married at home (church weddings were a rarity), went to the parsonage to be married. There was always cake in the parsonage, and on these occasions the lady of the house would bring forth a bit of it from the larder for the bride and groom, for whom it served as the "wedding cake."

Country parsons--indeed, I think I may say nearly all American clergymen in both city and country--give the fees they receive at weddings to their wives. It is understood that the wedding fee is the perquisite of the minister's wife. Five dollars (£1) is looked upon by the ordinary country parson as a liberal fee. The very rich village grocer or country farmer occasionally astonishes the officiating clergyman with ten dollars, but such a happening is an event that could not be expected to occur oftener than once in a country parson's lifetime. The young man for whom the parson performs the all-important ceremony usually gives what he thinks he can afford. He may give two dollars. He would scarcely give less than that amount in money.

Then there is "payment in kind." A young couple frequently drive up to the parsonage in a "lumber waggon" filled with potatoes, or turnips, or firewood, or flour, beans, pickled pork--in fact, anything of an edible nature that grows on the farm. I have a schoolgirl friend married to a village clergyman, who recently regaled me with a story of a young countryman, who, with his bride, drove up to the parsonage with a large chicken coop, full of cackling hens, which he proudly delivered over to her husband as his fee for performing the marriage ceremony, with the information that "them was as good layin' hens as ever lived, and calc'lated to pervide eggs for a year an' more!"

There are numerous instances of enthusiastic and grateful bridegrooms who have presented the officiating clergyman with live pigs as wedding fees.

But it is not only as a reward for performing the marriage ceremony that the country parson is "paid in kind." Sometimes he receives a large part of his salary in this way. The members of his congregation each subscribe a certain amount of money towards the salary that is guaranteed the minister. Farmer Brown will, he says, contribute four dollars as his share. In the winter, when Farmer Brown should hand over his four dollars to the church treasurer, he finds himself short of ready cash, but with an abundant supply of wood on hand, having in the autumn felled many trees in his forest. Nothing can be more certain than that the minister needs fuel in the winter; therefore, Farmer Brown loads his waggon with logs of wood, drives to the parsonage, and deposits it in the minister's back yard, announcing to the minister that he "reckons thar 's mor'n four dollars wirth of wood in that thar load!"

The minister can, perhaps, make use of that one load of wood very conveniently; but when, as is frequently the case, a dozen frugal farmers among his parishioners are struck with the same sort of notion--that of paying their subscriptions in wood instead of money--the unfortunate parson has more wood than he can burn for many winters to come, and his back yard is entirely taken up with it. He needs sugar, and paraffin, and rice, and butter, as well as a cheerful fireside. Did I say butter? Well, sometimes he gets more butter than he wants, too. Says the farmer to his wife: "Jane, I promised to pay three dollars towards the parson's salary. Bein' as you're makin' fine butter this summer, you jes' take him a couple o' pounds a week till you've made three dollars' worth." Two pounds of fresh yellow butter weekly from the dairy of a parishioner would be appreciated by the parson's family. They would rather have it than the stale butter from the village shop; but since butter is made on all farms, and many farmers' wives send the parson butter to pay off their subscriptions, the parson's larder overflows with butter, while many other necessaries are scarce. It is the same with potatoes and cabbages and beetroots, with eggs, and with hay for the minister's horse, which, by the way, is not forgotten when the time for paying subscriptions comes round. The minister loves his horse, and is glad to have plenty of hay and oats for it to eat; but to have in his barn enough of these articles to last a horse through several lifetimes, while the children are needing boots and coats for the present winter, is not a state of affairs that appeals to his sense of the fitness of things. Some of our country parsons, with an instinct for business, not inborn, but thrust upon them by a stern necessity, have been known to become dealers in wood, potatoes, hay, and other things of which they have an over-supply, selling their surplus stock off to their neighbours. In this way they are able to get a little ready cash with which to purchase such necessary commodities as do not "grow on the farm."

In the beginning of my article I have referred to "donation parties," and have said that some ministers are guaranteed a certain number of dollars _and_ a "donation" as a yearly salary. The donation party is, I believe, a strictly American institution, which originated about a century ago in the very thinly settled regions of the United States among the pioneers. It is still extremely popular in country towns and farming neighbourhoods. Say that a clergyman receives eight hundred dollars a year and a "donation," or it may be that he is promised two donations. That means that besides his money, he will be surprised one night or two nights in the year by fifty or a hundred, or perhaps two or three hundred, people marching into his house with bundles of every size and description. His visitors will bring with them pounds of sugar, barrels of flour, jars of pickles, bags of salt, tinned meats and vegetables, remnants of calicoes, muslins, cloths, and silks, from the village "general store," white lawn neckties, cooking utensils, bed-clothing, pictures to hang upon the wall, patent medicines (including soothing syrups for the babies), shoes and stockings, a few live chickens--in fact, everything that the minds of his parishioners can conceive of his needing. Besides all these things, a "proper" donation party is expected to carry along its own supper, during which, sometimes, a collection is taken up and a purse of money presented to the parson. A good donation party, given by a generous lot of church people, is a thing not to be despised by the recipient. Store-cupboards, cellars, and wardrobes are frequently stocked for a whole year to come, and the minister is thus able to put by, for the education of his children, a goodly sum of money out of his cash salary.

But there is another kind of donation party that is by no means welcome at the parson's house. There are country churches who promise the pastor seven hundred dollars a year, without saying anything about a donation party. But in midwinter the donation party makes its appearance, the members of it bringing along anything they happen to have on hand which they do not want for themselves. Sometimes the things are useful, sometimes not. They do not bring along their own supper; instead, they eat up everything the minister has in the house, often necessitating his sending out to shops for a sufficiency of provisions. When they have enjoyed their suppers, a man who is designated as the "donation spokesman" stands on a kitchen chair, and in a loud voice "appraises the value" of each article that has been "donated": a pair of boots so much, a few yards of calico so much, a jar of jam so much, a bale of hay so much; and thus the list of things is gone through. Then the appraised values are added up and the sum deducted from the ministers salary. If the appraiser considers that one hundred dollars' worth of things have been "donated," he then and there declares that sum to have been paid on account of the salary. Perhaps an etching, handsomely framed, has been among the articles. The poor parson does not stand in particular need of an etching, yet nevertheless the picture is counted as fifteen or twenty dollars towards his salary! A clergyman's wife who, during the first years of her married life, had been the victim of such donation parties, once told me this pathetic story. A young woman invalid, a member of her husband's church, hearing that a donation party was to be given to her pastor, and not knowing of the existence of such a personage as a donation "appraiser," wove a watch-guard from her own black hair that had been cut off during her illness; the guard was mounted in gold, and sent to the minister on the evening of the donation party. It was placed among the other articles, and at the end of the evening its value was appraised at ten dollars!

One of the things about our small-salaried country parsons that has always excited my surprise and admiration is the way they contrive to give their children the benefits of a college education. No matter what their own struggles, no matter that the parson's wife must be her own cook and housemaid and washerwoman, no matter that her husband wears a shiny coat and a frayed shirt-front, a little sum of money is always laid by--an "education fund"--to be devoted to the education of the boys and girls of the family. In a great many of our colleges, especially those which are known as "denominational schools," a minister's daughter is charged only half the usual yearly college fee, which, of course, greatly facilitates matters. Then, at the colleges where the domestic system prevails--that of allowing the students to pay a part of their expenses by working in the domestic department, the minister's daughter, along with the farmer's daughter and the mechanic's daughter, helps to wash and wipe dishes and thus pays a part of her own expenses.

By the Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D., Chairman of the London Congregational Union.

In the original Law of Moses it would seem that the most favoured tribe, the tribe of Levi, had no landed property. Even in that code of the law which came into operation at the end of the seventh century B.C., the regulation still ran: "The priests, the Levites, even all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance. And they shall have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, and He hath spoken unto them." (Deut. xviii. 1-2). The Lord was their inheritance. Better than cities, and fields, and the gratifying sense of landed proprietorship, here was the notion of real property, the possession of the Eternal God, a personal part in the One Person, who is the Author and Giver of all possessions temporal and eternal. In the book of the Law this really magnificent idea is not developed. It seems rather to be a hint, a type, a suggestion for more spiritual times. The only application of it actually made, that certain parts of the sacrifices should belong to the priests (Deut. xviii. 3), a portion gradually in the process of time increased (see Lev. vii. 34, and Num. xviii. 12-24), gives but a poor and starved idea of what might be implied by "The Lord is their inheritance." As between a solid portion of the land, yielding its regular dues of corn and wine and oil, and the joints of meat, and first fruits of the crops and of the fleece, appointed for the priests, they might be pardoned for choosing the more substantial and permanent provision. But under the phrase "The Lord is their inheritance" lay hidden a mystical truth, which possibly priests and Levites as such never appropriated. It requires the Psalmist, or inspired poet, to liberate the promise from its merely official reference, and in liberating it to deepen it into a universal religious truth. In the sixteenth Psalm a far richer meaning is given to the notion that God Himself may be a portion preferable to broad acres and secured rents. This poet, some landless saint, we may surmise, in the time when the land of Israel was taken away from the people that they might learn to find a more inalienable property elsewhere, turns to his God in unreserved confidence: "I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord"--that is the note of personal possession--"I have no good beyond Thee"--that is the note of a sufficient and satisfying possession. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup; thou maintainest my lot"--that is the renunciation of outward possessions and sacraments in favour of the inward personal relation with God which suffices. This spiritual heritage is all that heart could wish; it is a prompter of blessing and thanksgiving even in the night season. Nay, more than this, in times of tumult when others are moved, and in the hour of death, when prosperity is stripped away, the saint is rejoicing with joy unspeakable, because the path of life is plain through the grave; the presence of God who is his portion cannot be taken from him, and that is joyful, and for ever (Psalm xvi. 5-11).

Here we enter upon a truth which well repays a careful study. First, we have to seek a definite meaning to the idea that the Lord is the portion of those who trust in Him. Then we have to observe how and by whom this portion is secured.

No idea is at the first blush so definite as that of property, or at least of real property. Here is a stretch of country, accurately delimited on the ordnance map; I say of it, it is mine. I may build on it or I may till it; I may grow what I will, or what the soil allows, or I may turn it into pasture. I may sell it or give it or leave it to my heirs. So definite is the idea, that a nobleman is called after his estate--he is So-and-so of So-and-so. He belongs to the land in something of the same sense that the land belongs to him, a small human entity so identified with the big estate that he becomes great; the lord, but also the product of these thousands of acres; a man with a stake in the country, a personality realising himself in this territorial way. You look at him and you see the vast and solid domain latent in him. You find it difficult or impossible to think that he and his landless valet are in any sense equal. The valet stands for six feet of flesh and blood, and his monthly wage. The lord stands for a considerable slice of the earth's surface in fee-simple, with royalty rights over what underlies of mineral or other wealth down to the centre. It is not my desire to cast any suspicion on the value or reality of this kind of property. I do not dwell on the fact that it cannot become part of the man, nor he a part of it until he is buried in the family vault at the centre of it. I do not wish even to remember that a trifling accident to his sensitive organism puts him out of possession for ever. Rather I desire to enlarge on this perfectly definite and distinct idea, which is nowhere so absolute and unquestionable as in England. We can have no difficulty in fixing the thought of a man's estate, his property, his possessions. Now we have to transfer this clear idea to God as the inheritance or portion of the soul. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance."

Possibly we may all have known a person, rich or poor, who has given us much the same impression of the estate in God which lies behind him as the landed proprietor gives us of his unseen spreading acres. The person may be like the poor woman who held up to Bishop Burnet the crust, exclaiming with gratitude, "All this and Christ!" Or think of David Elginbrod, or of that more real Scottish saint, the father of David Livingstone, bequeathing to his children on his deathbed no property, but the fact that in the generations of the family preserved in memory there was no dishonourable man. Such a person as I am speaking of is far more secure and serene than the owner of large estates, seems to find far more enjoyment in the beauty and interest of even this passing world, and dwells in the perpetual contemplation of an unseen domain which cannot by any possibility be taken from him. This is the person who has made the Lord his portion, and we want to realise what it is that has happened to him, the lines which have fallen to him in pleasant places. God is real to him, as landed property is to the landowner, not limited as the estate is, suggesting always a land-hunger for the fields beyond, but definite and certain. So definite and certain, that it is possible to say, "This is my God," very much as the landowner says of his estate, "This is my land."

But God presents to him also a security of salvation and of life, of progress and of joy. He finds in God a subject of endless contemplation, and a source from which he derives all things that are necessary for this world and for a world to come. God is his occupation. The will of God is his delight. The universe presents itself to him as the works of God, history as the development of a Divine thought, man as the shadow or image of God, religion as the relation between God and man, heaven as the goal of the knowledge and love which relate God to man.

If he is a thinker, like Spinoza, all things are seen in God. If he is a poet, God Himself appears the best poet, and the real is His song. If he is a man of science, he studies everything in nature, as thinking the thoughts of God after Him.

But if he is a plain man, innocent of abstract thought, none the less his business and his pleasure, his family and his friends, all present themselves as material furnished by God in which he is to work out the Divine will, and win the Divine approval. Nothing is dissociated from God, whom he recognises everywhere, and at all times. But as God who is thus all in all to him is Light and Life and Love, the problem of his own and of the world's existence is implicitly solved for him. God is all he wants, more than all in God he finds. Every question is brought up into the presence of God; in His light he sees light. Death disappears; for God is seen, the possessor of immortality, imparting life to him who possesses God. And as God is absolute love, there can be no question that all things are working together for good to those who love Him.

This sovereign presence and power of the Divine will make earthly possessions and station and success quite indifferent. They do not lose their value; but they find their value only in relation to God and His will, so that, if only a man's ways please God, and he lives in the reconciliation and obedience to the will of God, he must be sure that he has as much earthly property, as good a station, and as great a degree of success, as God thinks good for him. If all things seem taken from him, he reflects, God is my portion, and with Him I have all things. And if all things are his, he does not feel that he possesses any more than God; the things are temporary appearances within the bounds of his inheritance, which is God; they lie latent there always, appearing or disappearing as the wisdom and love of God determine.

As this portion is distinct and tangible enough, so it is obviously both larger and more satisfying than any earthly inheritance. It leaves none of the aching hunger for things beyond. It brings all things at once, and leaves to the soul the plain and endless task of developing the inexhaustible treasures that are contained in it.

But how and by whom is this portion to be obtained? In the typical arrangement of the Jewish law it fell to an order, the tribe of Levi. In the psalm it fell to one who trusted in the Lord. That furnishes the key to the new covenant, in which all that once fell to a privileged nation, or order, or office, falls to those who believe. By faith a man becomes a child of Abraham. By faith the believer becomes a priest and a king unto God. By faith the portion of this Divine inheritance is appropriated, and may be appropriated by whosoever will!

By faith, however, we are not to understand a vague and general act of the mind, which simply assumes that it has what it desires. The faith which appropriates the Divine inheritance is specific, it is faith which is in Jesus, a recognition and a reception of Christ as the Son of God entering into the sphere of human life in order to give to men God as their portion. "He that heareth My word, and believeth in Him that sent Me," said Jesus, "hath everlasting life." By faith in Jesus each of us inherits what was promised to Abraham, to Israel, to David, to Levi. Jesus has said that He will not cast out any that come to Him; and that who comes to Him comes to God. Now it is certainly remarkable--considering the universal desire for property, for real property, for lasting and inalienable property, and considering the definiteness and certainty of the possession of God, and the universality of the offer to every human being--that comparatively few persons exert themselves to become possessed of God, or bestow anything like the same energy and eagerness of endeavour on securing God as their portion which men show in the acquisition of a great earthly property. It is this remarkable fact to which Jesus alludes when He says that many are called but few are chosen, or that many walk in the broad way which leads to destruction, but few will come to Him that He may give them life.

But the Divine method of thus putting the great possession within the choice and reach of all, but forcing it on none, is in strict analogy with God's way of offering all other boons to men. The kingdom of Nature lies in the same way open for all who will exert themselves and take possession. The endless interest of the almost infinite variety of species is an open door which any investigator may enter. The bewitching beauty of sun and stars, of drifting cloud and summer skies, of all the changes of the earth and of the sea, is accessible to all, but it must be owned that only a few avail themselves of the opportunity. It seems to be the same with all the gifts of God, Who makes the sun to shine on the good and the evil alike. And thus His own being as the portion and inheritance of the soul is proffered--like the wonder and beauty of His creation--to all who will take and go in to possess it. It stretches away like the land of promise, a pleasant land flowing with milk and honey, a land of broad views and of fruitful fields, of vineyards and oliveyards, and of far distances, luminous in the fresh glory of sunrise, hazy with softened charm in the hot noon, transformed under the evening sky of crimson and gold at sunset, a land which one would have thought all might desire to possess; but, like the promised land, it is treated with scorn by those who will not believe (Ps. cvi. 24). To them the flesh-pots of Egypt are pleasanter; the very dearth and dreariness of the desert are preferred before it. A thousand excuses, imaginary fears, and obstinate depreciations are cited to evade the efforts of conquest. And this great inheritance, the portion of the human soul, God, remains unpossessed except by a handful of enterprising souls.

It should, however, be frankly acknowledged that entering into possession of this inheritance is by no means the matter of a single moment. We annex our property field by field and province by province. By searching we do not find out God unto perfection, though every further search gives us a greater joy and hope in the prosecution of it.

It is for want of this vigorous entrance into the possession that many have professed themselves disappointed with God as their portion. They have left their property unexplored and unrealised. They have neglected to pray--and prayer is the onward march into the promised land, the exercise by which the being and fulness of God are appropriated. They have forgotten to worship, and worship is the relish of possession, the discovery by gratitude and praise of what is given and what God still has to give. They have omitted the self-discipline by which the will is kept in harmony with God, and the thoughts and purposes of God take possession of the soul; and yet it is only by this kind of sustained discipline that one can have any feeling of apprehension, and progressive discovery, of God. They have forsaken the assembling of themselves together for worship, which is the forming of the host of invasion. They have ceased to study the Word, which is the chart of the land, showing all the approaches, the fastnesses to be taken, and the heights to be won. Or they have given up those good works of charity and helpfulness, the love of men, the love of souls, which are the very footsteps by which we come into the possession of God. It is this which explains the common discontent about that rich portion--God Himself--offered to the soul. The good land has only been surveyed for a moment from Pisgah; faith has flashed out as an intuition, or as a vision; but the actual and determined conquest of piece by piece, to which faith is intended to lead, has been overlooked. There are multitudes of persons who seemed to choose God as their portion in moments of religious excitement and apparent decision, but never arose to enter into possession; and they remain, in consequence, disinherited.

But this leads us to a last point which has to be observed. For one cause or another--the one just named is probably the most common--men conceive a discontent with their inheritance in God, and seek to supplement it with possessions which are regarded as more tangible and immediate. This was apparently what occurred with the priests, the Levites. Originally, as we saw in the Deuteronomic code, they were content with the Lord as their inheritance, and were fed with the meat which came from the offerings of the altar. But in a later code we find the Levites claiming cities to dwell in. There were to be forty-eight cities in all, given by the other tribes, cities of considerable size, with their corn lands and meadows (the suburbs) extending 2,000 cubits, or between a half and three-quarters of a mile, on all sides of the city; these were to be the possession of the Levites. And though six of the cities were to serve a certain religious purpose as asylums of refuge for the shedders of blood, the whole forty-eight were to be the landed property of the priests, the Levites. These forty-eight domains constituted a territory scattered throughout the tribes, as solid, and almost as bulky, as the possessions of Dan, or Asher, or Naphtali. But when we come to the book of Ezekiel, this real property of the disinherited tribe is found to be increased and consolidated; a vast district, 25,000 reeds long by 25,000 reeds broad, was to form the oblation assigned to the priests; this would be quite as large as the territory of any except the largest tribes (Ezek. xlviii. 8-30). And thus gradually, they who were to have no inheritance in the land, because the Lord Himself was their inheritance, laid claim to as large an inheritance as the rest of their brethren had.

That is a process to which the whole history of Christianity presents a series of parallels. We begin in God, in faith, in heavenly realities; we decline upon the world, and sight, and the fleeting shows of the earth.

"'Tis the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to win."

When we have got God for our portion and inheritance, we insensibly slip away, and fix our attention on things below. We would make the security of God doubly sure, by having earthly property as well; we would depend upon God, and yet lean on an arm of flesh; we would have our treasures in heaven--for heaven when we get there; but our hoard on earth--for earth while we are here.

Poor human nature! This is our delusion. The two portions cannot be ours. If God is our inheritance, He must be all in all to us. If He gives us Christ, He freely with Him gives us all things. "All this and Christ!"--yes, but in the sense that God in Christ is everything. Never can it mean that our inheritance is partly God and partly this world, that we lean, one arm on Him and the other on uncertain earthly riches.

Therefore the choice lies before us all. Can we choose Him as our portion, can we pray and trust Him to maintain our lot? Can we renounce the arm of flesh as weakness and vanity, can we disregard the alluring securities of what is considered here real property? If so we may have real property indeed: God will be ours, an inexhaustible mine of life and love, of interest and beauty, of peace and joy.

MISS CRANE'S FORTUNE.

A Complete Story. By A. B. Romney.

Miss Crane lived in No. 13, King's Parade. Doubtless at some remote period King's Parade was a street of fashion and celebrity, but at the time we speak of its chief characteristic was that air of shabby gentility inseparable from houses in whose windows at intervals appear cards announcing "Furnished Apartments."

Miss Crane was teacher of music by profession, and had what is termed "a good connection." By turns, music was her chief pleasure and pain. During the day she patiently listened to endless varieties of mistakes in the same exercises and scales; in the evening, seated at her own piano, she forgot all the cares and worries of her daily round of duty.

Everyone has a sacred ambition, as well as a secret romance, hidden in his heart. Miss Crane's ambition was to save up enough money to ensure independence, and she believed that to possess an income of £100 per annum would be the realisation of her dreams. For many years she had steadily saved and worked for this purpose, and now, at the age of forty-five, was not very far from having her desire fulfilled.

Miss Crane was a little woman, with very pretty hands, small and white. Years of patient drudgery had left some lines on her forehead and had taken the colour from her cheeks, but had not been able to spoil the sweet kindliness of her eyes and smile. She usually wore black gowns, made simply of soft, fine materials, her lace frill fastened by a small silver brooch, which she always pinned in with loving care.

One day, towards the end of the summer term, she came in more than usually tired, and sat leaning back wearily in her chair, waiting for the maid to bring in her supper. She heard below stairs the scolding voice of the landlady and the querulous crying of children. Through the open window came the strains of a barrel-organ playing with irritating liveliness. She closed her eyes wearily as the servant came clattering up the stairs and burst open her door with noisy familiarity.

"Please, miss," began the servant, laying down the tray, "there were a gentleman t'see you when you was out."

"Indeed!" cried Miss Crane, opening her eyes with a start and sitting upright. "A gentleman to see me! Did he leave his card?"

"No, miss," answered the girl. "He seemed disappointed like when I told 'im you was _h_out, and 'e said e'd call back again in th' evenin', as 'e wanted to see you particular."

"Very strange," cried Miss Crane. "Well! that will do now. Will you please come up in about ten minutes to clear away the tea-things, as I shouldn't like the room to look untidy if the gentleman calls again?"

Miss Crane drank her tea in great perplexity. A gentleman to see her! Such a thing had not happened for more than twenty years. Who could it be? Miss Crane's hand instinctively touched her silver brooch, as her thoughts turned to days long past.

A knock, a loud and impressive knock, at the hall-door roused her from her reverie. She stood up, listening eagerly, expecting she knew not what. The maid came slowly upstairs from the kitchen and opened the hall-door. There was an indistinct sound of a gruff voice, and then the footsteps of two people coming up the stairs.

The servant opened the door, saying--

"Mr. Spinner, miss."

A tall, imposingly rotund man walked in, hat in hand, his fat and rosy face all smiling affability.

"So sorry to disturb you, madam," he began, bowing.

"Not at all," murmured Miss Crane, wondering greatly who he could be. "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you. I think I will."

He took a chair, sat down, carefully spreading out the skirts of his frock-coat, and, crossing his legs, looked condescendingly round the room.

Miss Crane, with heightened colour, waited expectantly.

"I am well aware," began Mr. Spinner presently, "that the name of business has to ladies a very unpleasant sound; but I venture to say that Miss Crane will find the little matter which has brought me here this evening far from being a disagreeable subject."

"Indeed!" murmured Miss Crane.

"But before I proceed further, allow me to consult my notes." Mr. Spinner took out a spectacle case, placed his glasses carefully on the bridge of his nose, glanced at Miss Crane through them, then taking a note-book from his breast pocket, opened it, and taking out a paper, cleared his throat and continued: "You are, I believe, Miss Letitia J. Crane, eldest daughter of the late Rev. Joshua Crane, M.A., formerly curate of St. Mary, in the parish of Tulberry."

"Yes, certainly, I am," cried Miss Crane.

"Then, madam, without troubling you about details, partly because business details are unwelcome to ladies, and partly because I am obliged to catch the 7.25 train up to town, I shall briefly tell you what I am certain, from my previous knowledge of human nature, will be welcome news to you, and that is----"

"What?" demanded Miss Crane with some impatience.

"It is that your uncle, the late John Crane, of No. 8, Harbourne Street, Liverpool, who died on the 27th of last month, has left you a sum which, invested as it is at present, brings in an income of £700 per annum--of," reiterated Mr. Spinner with impressive solemnity, "£700 per annum."

Miss Crane was too much astonished to speak.

"It is a fact, I assure you, madam," continued Mr. Spinner, rising from his chair and placing a card on the table. "Allow me to give you my card with the address of my place of business. Perhaps you could find time to call to see me some time to-morrow, when I shall be most happy to show you your uncle's will, and, in short, make myself useful in helping you in any way in my power."

"I cannot believe it," cried Miss Crane. "Are you quite sure there is no mistake?"

Mr. Spinner smiled indulgently.

"None whatever, and if it should be a convenience to you," he said, with a glance round the neat poverty of the room, "I shall be happy to advance you any reasonable sum as a proof of the truth of my statement."

"No, thank you," replied Miss Crane, flushing somewhat proudly. "I do not require it."

"Quite right! Quite proper!" said Mr. Spinner, taking up his hat. "Then I may expect to have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow at, let us say, 11.30 a.m."

"Yes," said Miss Crane, "I shall certainly call at that hour."

"Then I may say good-bye, and," he added, shaking her hand with impressive fervour, "pray accept my heartiest congratulations on your good fortune."

The bang of the hall-door as Mr. Spinner closed it after him awoke Miss Crane from her stupor of astonishment.

For a few moments she sat motionless. Then she burst into a fit of violent weeping. Good fortune had come at last, but had come too late to bring happiness. All her youth had been crushed beneath the weight of poverty, and, bitterest remembrance of all! she had seen those dearest to her die before their time, fading uncomplainingly away, for want of a little of the sunshine of prosperity. During all these years she had thought of them as happy to be at rest from toil and misery. In her poverty she had never felt as lonely as she did now, in time of her prosperity. Especially, a passionate longing seized her for her mother. What delight to have been able to gratify those simple wishes so often repressed! How happy they could have been together! She had wanted so little, but that little had been ever denied her.

And Frank Whitman! The force of poverty had swept him far apart. He had not been strong enough to battle against the stream. She heard of him sometimes as a man rising in his profession, prosperous and respected. His marriage with the daughter of a rich shipowner had been, everyone said, "the making of him." And yet Miss Crane remembered the evening he had given her that silver brooch, and the words he had then spoken.

"Instead of thanking God for His goodness to me," sobbed Miss Crane, "I am wickedly ungrateful, but I do wish I had mother with me now."

* * * * *

Next morning, Miss Crane took a more cheerful view of things. She sent word to her pupils that she could not see them that day, but she had not yet sufficient belief in her good fortune to feel justified in telling them of it. It was so near the end of term that she did not like putting them to the disadvantage and inconvenience of changing to another teacher, and besides, she had not courage to cut herself adrift from her usual routine. Custom is a very strong rope indeed.

As she travelled up to town, she constructed castles in the air of all the delights now possible to her--the house in the country, the really good piano, a silk dress, a thing she had always secretly desired, for she had an instinctive love of dainty dress, and the sight of a beautiful thing gave her positive joy.

The further she went, the grander she became: until after her interview with Mr. Spinner, she actually felt bold enough to enter a fashionable shop, and, unawed by the magnificence of the attending maidens, she chose, paid for, and put on "the sweetest little French bonnet possible."

On leaving the shop, she met an old pupil, who, after a preliminary stare, greeted her warmly, declaring she had never seen Miss Crane looking so well, and asked her home to lunch.

Altogether, Miss Crane's day in town was a complete success. She had been more wildly extravagant than she could have believed it possible the day before: there was something positively intoxicating in the fact that there was now no need any more to count every penny.

She knew it was false charity to give money indiscriminately to beggars, and yet she could not resist brightening, even for the moment, the face of misery and want. "To-morrow, I shall be prudent again," she declared, as over and over again she stopped to slip a silver coin into some grimy hand.

In the evening, she sat, tired but very contented, considering where she ought to go for her holidays. The world was open to her now; it was difficult to decide which part to visit first. Entrancing visions of Italy especially bewildered her, but she felt still too timid to venture far from home, though that home was but two shabby little rooms in a cheap lodging-house. Like a bird caged for long, though the door stood open, she feared to fly away.

Presently a thought struck her, her cheeks glowed--she stood up and walked uneasily about the room. At length she muttered to herself, "I shall go there! I should like to see him once again!"

The place she had decided to go to was Stockton, the seaside town in which Doctor Frank Whitman lived. She had known his wife long ago, when a girl. She had heard there were a number of children. Perhaps the family would receive her kindly, and she would find in them the friendship and companionship without which her money was valueless.

Stockton was by the sea: to sit in the sunshine, on the sands, looking on the waves, would in itself be a delight. Miss Crane wished she could start on the morrow, but this, of course, was not possible. Ten days more of drudgery must be first endured, then liberty at last!

These last days passed rapidly enough, for they were fully occupied, and at length, on the 1st of August, Miss Crane found herself seated in the train, with a ticket to Stockton in her hand, a new portmanteau beside her, and her heart beating with excitement at being off at last.

When she reached Stockton and was driving from the station to her lodgings, she eagerly looked out of the window, half hoping, half fearing to recognise Frank Whitman in each passer-by.

She remained indoors that evening and the following morning, but in the afternoon she unpacked the contents of the portmanteau and dressed to go out.

"After all, how little dress can do!" she murmured to herself, as she stood critically examining her reflection in the looking-glass. "I wonder if he will remember me!"

The day was brilliantly bright, with a fresh breeze blowing strongly from the sea. The shadows of the fleeting clouds passed swiftly by. The sunshine glittered on the dazzling waters rippling in one long white line along the margin of the bay. Along the horizon stood the ruddy sails of the fishing-smacks.

Miss Crane walked on slowly, enjoying the warmth, brightness, and freshness of the day. She had little difficulty in finding Victoria Villa, the residence of Doctor Frank Whitman. It was a large red-brick house, square, well-built and prosperous-looking, standing in its own grounds, with greenhouses, tennis-grounds, and all the usual belongings of provincial respectability and wealth.

Miss Crane's courage failed her as she came up to its entrance.

"What shall I do," she thought, "if Frank and Bessie have forgotten me, or if they should not like to know a poor little music teacher like me?"

She stood, hesitating, fearing to push open the massive iron gate.

"I cannot go in to-day," she said half aloud, and turned nervously away.

At this moment, a girl came quickly up the road, a pretty girl of some eighteen summers, wearing a white dress and shady hat, and carrying a tennis racket in her hand. As she passed, she glanced at Miss Crane, and the expression of her eyes was precisely like that of Frank Whitman's twenty years ago.

Miss Crane started. The thought, "It is his daughter!" flashed across her brain. She turned and hurried after her. The girl, hearing the footsteps behind, stopped, and looked inquiringly at Miss Crane, who hesitatingly began, "Might I trouble you to direct me to Doctor Whitman's house?"

"There it is," answered the girl smilingly. "And I am almost sure father is in at present. Will you come with me? I am just going home."

She spoke with a strangely familiar accent, she smiled with the same merry glance, quick and soft, which Miss Crane had remembered so long.

By the time they had reached the hall-door Miss Crane had confided how she had come hoping to find old friends, and then had felt too timid to enter their house. "And," she ended, "if I had not met you, my dear, I believe I should have gone straight home."

The girl laughed merrily, and then warmly assured Miss Crane that Mrs. Whitman would be sure to be delighted to see her. "And," she asked, "you said you used to know papa also a little, long ago, didn't you?"

"Yes," replied Miss Crane. "I knew him also."

"Here, mother," cried Miss Whitman, as she opened the drawing-room door; "here is an old friend to see you!"

Miss Crane advanced into the room. A tall, fashionably-dressed woman came to meet her with outstretched hand.

"What!" she exclaimed. "Letitia Crane! Well! I am glad to see you. What a time it is since we've met. But you've hardly changed at all. I should have known you anywhere. Sit down here and let us have a good long chat about the old days. Ida! go and tell your father that Miss Crane is here; I'm sure she'd like to see him."

Miss Crane sat down, grateful for being received with such cordiality. It was difficult to talk, her whole being seemed concentrated in listening. She heard Ida go downstairs, open the study door, and then came the sound of a voice she had not heard for twenty years.

"How silly I am!" she thought, as she tried to concentrate her attention on what Mrs. Whitman was saying.

Presently footsteps came up the stairs. The door opened, and Ida, followed by her father, came into the room. The blood rushed to Miss Crane's face, and for a second she could not see.

"So glad to see you again," said Doctor Whitman, in tones of bland cordiality.

Miss Crane could scarcely reply, her astonishment was so complete. Where was the man she remembered? The young fellow with the merry laughing eyes, the thick curling hair, the careless dress, the active step! The man who now stood before her was a portly, middle-aged figure, all immaculate linen and broadcloth; bald-headed, red-faced, with bland affability smilingly displaying an excellent set of false teeth. The ideal which Miss Crane had worshipped so long faded away for ever like some phantasm that had never had any being, save in her own mind. Only in Ida's eyes and Ida's smile lingered a mocking image of the past.

* * * * *

Miss Crane's time passed very pleasantly at Stockton. Most of the day she sat on the beach watching the children bathe and play about the sands.

Ida came down to bathe every morning, and afterwards used to sit talking to Miss Crane while drying and brushing her beautiful hair in the sunshine. One day, after sitting thoughtfully quiet for some time, Ida, in a somewhat embarrassed tone of voice, began--

"Are you fond of going to evening service, Miss Crane?"

"Well! my dear, you know that usually I have not time to do so on week-days. But why do you ask?" replied Miss Crane.

"Because," said Ida, "there is such a sweet little church not very far from here out in the country, and such a delightful service every evening, and," she added with heightened colour, "the curate, Mr. Archdale, preaches such beautiful sermons that I would like you to hear him!"

"I should like to hear him very much indeed," replied Miss Crane, smiling. "If you will not expect me to praise him too much!" Then, pitying Ida's confusion, she continued: "Perhaps, sometimes, he will allow me to play the organ in his church. It is the only thing I miss here. At home there is a little church quite close by, where the organist allows me to practise whenever I choose."

"Oh! I shall ask Cyril--I mean Mr. Archdale," cried Ida, blushing deeply. "I'm sure he will be delighted to allow you to practise whenever you like."

Thus it happened that almost every evening Miss Crane and Ida walked together to the little country church; and then, after service was over, Miss Crane sat down at the organ and played, while Ida and Mr. Archdale listened to her, as they sat in the porch or strolled about beneath the lime-trees; though it was curious, thought Miss Crane, how seldom it was, for people who professed to love music, that they remembered what she had played. Then in the increasing twilight the three walked back to Stockton together quietly, too happy to talk or laugh much.

The mornings on the beach were spent in talking of "Cyril," for the subject interested Miss Crane almost as much as it did Ida. She was touched by the young people's confidence in her, and their love revealed their characters in the most favourable light to her. Her love for Ida equalled her admiration of her, and she believed Mr. Archdale to be almost worthy of her.

* * * * *

The holidays were drawing to a close, and Miss Crane decided that she ought to delay no longer in telling her pupils of her change of circumstances; but, always reticent about her own concerns, she put off doing so from day to day. Even to Ida she had never spoken of her good fortune.

There was a charming house quite close to the church, which Miss Crane had determined to buy--quite an ideal old maid's cottage, she thought it, with its red-brick walls hidden by climbing roses, its garden sloping down to the riverside, and its cosy little rooms quaintly furnished with old oak. Its late owner had died and it was now to be sold, with all its belongings.

Miss Crane determined to buy it, and then, when everything was arranged, to astonish Ida, Mr. Archdale, and the Whitmans by inviting them to dinner in her new house, and then telling them the delightful news of her good fortune.

She felt very happy in anticipation of this coming pleasure.

She was never tired of imagining the joyful surprise Ida would be sure to show, and the merry days they would have together, arranging the new house.

On the day fixed for seeing the house-agent and finally deciding on the purchase, Miss Crane had asked Ida not to expect to see her, "for," she said gaily, "though but a humble little music teacher, I have some business matters to see about."

"Then," cried Ida, "I shall come and see you in the evening, for Cyril has determined to speak to father in the morning, and I must tell you how everything goes off, though I'm not in the least afraid, notwithstanding all Cyril's forebodings."

"Why? What is he afraid of?" asked Miss Crane.

"Well, you know," said Ida, in melancholy tones, "Cyril is not very rich. Clergymen never are, are they?"

"But," remonstrated Miss Crane, "surely he has some means or he wouldn't think of marrying?"

"He has," answered Ida; "he has £300 a year, which seems to me a great deal of money, but whether it will do so to papa is the question."

"Oh!" cried Miss Crane cheerfully. "Your father is a rich man, and very proud of his pretty little daughter; he will make it all right for you, never fear."

Ida flung her arms round Miss Crane's neck, called her "the dearest old thing in the world," and at last, promising to come the following evening, hurried away.

The next day was very stormy. The wind blew in great gusts from the east, rolling the waves in dashing breakers against the rocks. The rain descended in torrents. It was one of those days which sometimes come in autumn, precursor of the deadly tempests of the winter.

Miss Crane sat indoors, a shawl over her shoulders, writing letters round to her various employers and pupils, announcing the change in her circumstances. She had just closed the last envelope, and was putting the stamp on it, when the door burst open, and Ida rushed wildly into the room, her hair blown about her shoulders by the wind, and her waterproof cloak streaming with rain.

"Why, Ida, my dear!" exclaimed Miss Crane, aghast. "What is the matter?"

Ida threw herself on the sofa, sobbing violently.

"Oh! I don't know whatever I shall do," she began, as Miss Crane knelt down in alarm beside her. "Papa has been most dreadfully cross and angry with me, and he called Cyril a----" She stopped, her voice choked with sobs.

"A what?" demanded Miss Crane.

"He--he called him a----" said Ida, with another burst of indignant sobs, "a beggarly curate!"

"Then he does not personally object to Mr. Archdale?" said Miss Crane soothingly.

"How could anybody object to Cyril personally?" cried Ida, angrily rolling up her pocket-handkerchief into a tight, wet little ball and rubbing her eyes with it. "No; it is all on account of him not having enough money. He says he will never let me marry a man that has not at least £1,000 a year. And where is Cyril to get all that! Unless he is made a bishop, and he hasn't a chance of being made that until after years and years _and years_ of waiting, when he is old and quite bald!"

At this mournful idea Ida's face again squeezed up into dismal lines and puckers, and her sobs broke forth with renewed strength.

Suddenly Miss Crane became so motionless, so quiet, that at last Ida's curiosity overcame her grief; she put down her pocket-handkerchief and looked at Miss Crane with pained astonishment at her want of sympathy.

Miss Crane came out of her reverie with a start.

"Don't cry any more, it will all come right," she said, with a forced smile.

"That's what everyone says!" cried Ida in the tone of injured friendship. "But I did think you would have sympathised with one."

She arranged her hair, put on her hat, and stood up as if to go away, expecting Miss Crane would make her stay; but Miss Crane sat motionless, staring fixedly out of the window.

"Good-bye, then!" said Ida stiffly.

"Good-bye, my dear," replied Miss Crane.

"I never saw anyone so horrid and unsympathising," muttered Ida, as she closed the door after her. "I wouldn't have believed it."

Miss Crane sat for more than an hour motionless, thinking. She sighed deeply now and again.

At length she stood up, and, taking the pile of letters she had written, tore them all up into fragments; then, putting on her bonnet and waterproof cloak, she went out and did not return home until late at night.

"Why, miss!" cried the landlady, as she came in white, tired, and wet; "you'll get your death stayin' out of doors such a day as this!"

"No," said Miss Crane gently. "It will do me no harm. I was obliged to go to town on business. I am sorry to have to tell you that I must leave you on Saturday."

"I'm sorry indeed to hear it," said the landlady. "Isn't that very suddint like?"

"Yes," agreed Miss Crane; "it is very sudden."

On Saturday, as Miss Crane was packing her trunk, suddenly Ida came bounding up the stairs into the room, all radiant with smiles and gaiety and flung her arms round Miss Crane's neck, exclaiming--

"What do you think has happened I Oh! it's just too delightful. Somebody has given Cyril £700 a year--somebody who refuses to give his name. We're all dying with curiosity to find out who it can be. I'm certain it is somebody who has heard Cyril preach. Don't you think it is?"

"Yes," agreed Miss Crane. "Very likely it is."

"And now," continued Ida, "everything is settled so nicely, and we're to be married at once. I only wish we had room at home to ask you to stay with us for the wedding. You dear old thing! I believe I was cross and horrid to you the other day, but really I was so distracted that I didn't know what I was saying. And now, dear, I must be off, for Cyril is waiting for me."

She kissed Miss Crane and hurried off.

Miss Crane stood in the window watching, with dim eyes, the young pair walking down the street. A kitten came and, mewing, rubbed its soft little head against her foot. She stooped, stroked it gently, saying--

"Pussy, are you lonely too? for I am--very."

PARABLES IN MARBLE.

A story is told of a late Bishop of Peterborough, to the effect that at a public dinner he said that he once bought a picture of a sunset on a river, which he hung in his study; it was a bad picture, but it had a beautiful influence over him, and he confessed that when he looked at the picture "a curate might play with him."

The Bishop without doubt knew a good work of art when he saw one, and his knowledge informed him that technically his "sunset on a river" was bad; but it appealed to his sentiment and occupied its place on the study wall in spite of its defects. In this respect, most people are with the Bishop; it is not so much the quality of a work of art that makes it popular, but the particular strain of sentiment it contains that touches a responsive chord in the hearts of those who look at it. The English public are sentimentalists first and foremost in art, and the artist who receives the greatest acclamation is he who is most skilful in this direction. And if this is so in respect to painting, how much more so is it with regard to sculpture. Public enthusiasm is rarely roused by the sculptor's art. Next to the architectural room at the Royal Academy, the sculpture hall is the least frequented, and we fear it must be said that the majority of those who do go there go because it is the coolest place in the exhibition.

This, of course, is matter for regret, for there are as ennobling and inspiriting works of art to be seen there as in the picture galleries. The sculptor has the power to appeal to our ideals and aspirations to as great an extent as the painter, limited though he be by his materials. (It can at once be realised that the worker in marble has not the same freedom as he who uses paint and canvas--he has greater difficulties to surmount, less subjects to choose from, and far narrower scope in which to express his thoughts.) We have had "sermons in stones" which have been quite as powerful as any preached by painter or poet.

The classical tradition has undoubtedly affected the sculptor more than it has his brother-artist of the brush; it has weighed him down, and made his work cold and lifeless; and men and women of to-day want art that is living, helpful in their daily straggles, responsive to those aspirations which every one of them possesses in a measure. As a distinguished member of the Royal Academy, now dead, once wrote, "We have aspirations, we reverence something more than the ordinary life of mortals; we have before our eyes an ideal of truthfulness, piety, honour, uprightness, love, and self-sacrifice greater than any which exists on earth." To appeal to these emotions by a beautiful and living art should be the object of our artists, and those who do can be sure of receiving the approval and the gratitude of the toilers of the world. This has been proved over and over again by the votes taken at Canon Barnett's picture exhibitions as to the most popular works shown, when men like Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones have been first favourites. And this probably accounts in a measure for the public indifference to works of sculpture. The sculptor has for the most part neglected subjects which appeal to the hearts of the people of his day, and based his work on classic models and precepts.

In saying this we do not in any wise belittle the great works of the past. It is impossible to look on the mighty works of the ancient Egyptian workers in stone without feeling the sense of awe which the people of those days must have experienced--and were intended to experience--when gazing upon them. Mystery is the keynote of Egyptian sculpture, mystery deep and unfathomable. Look upon those inscrutable, gigantic faces in the British Museum; coldly inhuman; giants of stone, indifferent to the passions which pulsate in the human breast. Mighty works indeed--parables impossible of interpretation!

Look, too, at the works in the Assyrian galleries of the same collection. Marvellous of execution, they again draw forth admiration for the skill of their creators, for their dexterous records of the life of those far-off days, for the massive and imposing decorativeness of the semi-human lions and bulls. And then, coming down the ages, consider the beauty of form of the works of the sculptors of classic days; the wondrous productions of the Greeks, the perfection of line and grace of these representations in stone of the "human form divine." Masterpieces of the world which will never be excelled as works of art, they, nevertheless, do not appeal to the hearts of the people, and in adhering to the style of ancient Greece our sculptors have themselves to blame for the lack of popular sympathy.

The sculptors of Italy who shared in the revival of art in the fifteenth century understood this. Without sacrificing in the least the beauty of the classic artists, they infused into their work that touch of sentiment--either religious or frankly human--which won for them the admiration of their contemporaries, and enables them, though long since dead, to speak to us through their art. The charming creations of Donatello, the delightful child-forms of Lucca della Robbia, the gigantic creations of Michelangelo--gigantic both in conception and execution--appeal to us primarily for the humanity which they reflect: admiration for their beauty follows in due course.

Until comparatively recent years English sculptors have failed to appreciate this public taste, and the public work all through our country has been deplorably lacking either in sentiment or art. The ghastly figures which are exposed in London streets rouse no enthusiasm, and only claim attention because of the men of which they are memorials. Curiously enough the only really beautiful piece of allegorical sculpture in our city is the work of a Frenchman, and that is smothered under a hideous cupola! I refer to the charming little group symbolising "Charity," on the drinking fountain by the Royal Exchange. This beautiful figure of a woman and two children the work of Dalou, was originally shown in stone, but the ravages of the London climate destroyed the features of the figures, and it was only when replaced by a bronze cast of the original model a year or two ago that its full beauty could be appreciated by the present generation. The symbolism is not intricate, the parable can be read by the most ignorant, and understood by all, but it is "a thing of beauty," and therefore a joy for ever.

The English sculptors who are claiming attention to-day are men influenced largely by the spirit of "modernity." They are giving us works which appeal to our sentiment as well as to our sense of beauty. Look, for instance, at the charming group by Mr. Alfred Gilbert, R.A., which is illustrated on page 345. One wishes that the original could be placed in position where people could see it every day. It is a simple subject, but what greater lesson can be enforced upon us than that of the holiness and purity of a mother's love and solicitude for her child? There is in one of the public squares of Paris a group very similar to this by Delaplanche. A mother is again giving her child its first lesson in reading. Tender and pure in sentiment, it is an object lesson to all who behold it.

The nobleness and dignity of labour provide our sculptors with a manifold variety of subjects, but there are not many English artists who have availed themselves of it. Among these, however, is the distinguished Royal Academician, Mr. Hamo Thornycroft. "The Sower Scattering Seed" is but the representation of an English farm "hand," but it would be difficult to find a piece of work among English sculptures to excel it in grace and beauty of line. The artist has executed another work of "A Mower"--again an English farm-labourer, leaning on his scythe--which is another example of his skill in the adaptation of a subject which can be understood and appreciated by every man, down to him who actually wields the scythe.

Biblical subjects have found exponents in sculpture to a very large extent from the days of the Renaissance downwards. The old Italians decorated their churches with such to almost as great an extent as the painters of their time did; and many sculptors to-day find their inspiration in Scripture in like manner. We have chosen some for illustration in this paper--two by living artists, and one by Warrington Woods, a sculptor who lived some years ago, when "classic" style and subject were deemed necessary by the workers in the sculpturesque arts. "The Sisters of Bethany" is infected by this spirit, but is, nevertheless, pleasing to a certain extent. The "Faith" of Mr. Alfred Drury, is, on the other hand, distinctly pictorial and frankly illustrative of the subject. The "St. John the Baptist," by Mr. Goscombe John, another of our rising sculptors, is a beautiful figure which belongs to the Marquis of Bute, and stands in the centre of a fountain basin in the garden of St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park.

On page 347 is the most ambitious of the allegorical works among our illustrations, and is the work of Mr. A. C. Lucchesi, a young sculptor of whom great things may be expected. "The Mountain of Fame" represents a warrior, who, struggling to acquire the laurel wreath, has in his efforts thrown away sword and shield and is reaching after the honour which is held temptingly before him by the figure of Fame. Almost within his grasp, it yet eludes him, and the rough path up which he has stumbled has not yet brought him to the summit. His weapons, cast aside in the assurance of victory, are left behind; but the wreath is still not his, and he is helpless against further dangers which may await him; the eagerness for fame may prove his ruin and all his strivings end in disaster. Readers of Miss Olive Schreiner's "Story of an African Farm" will remember the beautiful parable upon this subject, and I asked the sculptor if this had influenced him at all in the work. The suggestion was almost a revelation to him, for, although he had read the book and remembered vividly this particular passage, yet confessed that it was quite out of his mind when he modelled this group. But the influence of the story is distinctly visible.

Memorial sculpture, of course, forms a large part of a sculptor's work, and the example by Mr. Armstead illustrated on this page is typical of a great many of the kind. The most beautiful and dignified monument we possess is without doubt Alfred Stevens' great work in St. Paul's Cathedral in memory of the Duke of Wellington--one that can never be sufficiently admired, contrasting as it does with the grandiose monuments of the last century in the same building and at Westminster Abbey.

We illustrate on this page one of the most curious monuments in the latter building. It is the work of Roubiliac, a Frenchman who worked in England in the eighteenth century. The tomb is that of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale, of Minehead, Somersetshire, and of the Lady Elizabeth, his wife, who died soon after her marriage. From the dark recesses of the tomb below issues the skeleton form of Death, in the act of hurling his lance at the wife, while the husband leans forward with extended arm to ward off the fatal blow from his loved partner, who is sinking to rest beside him.

Death, however, can be represented far better than by a ghastly skeleton, as Mr. George Frampton, A.R.A., has proved in his dignified "Angel of Death" which stands in the Camberwell Art Gallery. This figure of a young man, carrying the traditional scythe across his shoulder and an hour-glass in his hand, reminds us of Mr. Watts' constant representation of the "grim messenger"--no longer "grim," however, but beautiful, erect, inviting--the harbinger of the land where there shall be no more tears, neither sorrow nor sighing.

ARTHUR FISH.

By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.