that she spoke them without reason-however faint and slight her reason may have been."

And then Helen lay still, closing her eyes for a few moments; and Phœbe, too, seemed deep in thought. But soon the latter rose, and went out to her landlady, to give some direction concerning tea. And when she returned, Philip Evelyn followed her into the room. He had come to see Helen, and to speak to her, if he could, words of comfort.

Helen was evidently glad to see him-glad through all her sorrow. She had ever loved and reverenced him. He had all her life seemed almost as a father to her, and the more so that he had indeed been her father's dearest friend.

After talking a little while, he took out his pocket Testament, and read a few verses, and next he offered a short earnest prayer.

And presently, just as he was leaving, some slightest word, or look, or both perhaps, told him that Helen was now in very truth a Christian; that in her heart of hearts she had at length accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, as her Friend; and that though surface-troubles might, and certainly would, come and go, there was deep sweet peace and trust below them.

And, on this discovery, how easy and delightful was it for all three to talk! And Philip said, with a benign, gentle look

"Thank God, O thank God for this! And if trouble led to it-then that trouble was-O how blest, indeed!"

He was gone; and with quiet, happy face, Phobe and her landlady together, were getting tea. When they were alone again, Helen sat up

"Phoebe I shall go away early to-morrow morning;" and she heaved a sad sigh: the day was advancing: it was not likely that Bernard would come now" and stay away another year. And when the sixteenth of October comes again, I will, if I am alive and well, come once more."

She paused, as if thinking. Phoebe was by this time pouring out tea. Presently she looked up.

"You have your own income?" she asked, with some hesitation. "You--__”

"O yes!" with a touch of impatience, as though incomes were not worth thinking of. "The little annuity that my mother left me. It is quite enough: I shall never want more. It is wonderful how much I have learned to do with it, Phoebe;" and a faint smile crossed her lips. "I have had such good teachers." But here she suddenly checked herself: she had no wish to give even Phoebe the slightest hint as to where she had been, or what she had been doing. "But I was going to say," she continued, "that, should my husband come to Wyntoun again" and a coldness came into her face; but her weak low voice could now express no shades of feeling. 'Should you see him," she went on, "will you promise me that you will not so much as mention my name to him, unless he first makes some inquiry concerning me?"

Phoebe simply and gravely promised.

And Mr. Evelyn," added Helen, "will you ask him to promise also? He will do so if you tell him that you have promised. He always thinks-and he always did think, ever since I can remember-everything right that you did!"

Helen was too sad to give a thought to any second signification that her words might appear to have, or even to observe for an instant the faint flush of colour that had stolen to Phoebe Bassett's face as, with her eyes on her plate, she simply answered"I will ask him."

Tea over, and the tray carried away, Helen had something more to hear-something which Phœbe told in as few words as possible; and it was this: that Mrs. Brand, anxious to be able to leave something for her son, which should be quite distinct from, and independent of, what she always called "Helen's fortune," had actually been drawn, in conjunction with Mrs. Pallister and Mrs. Spencer, into some unwary speculations. That at first they had gained a little; then lost something; but at last the great crash had come, and, to cover liabilities, everything available had gone; house and furniture and all had been sold. The two older ladies, however, having been more cautious, had not been so deeply involved; and, though they, too, had lost, they had not lost their all.

"And where was poor mamma at the last?" asked Helen, with pale lips, and in low whispering tones.

"She went home with an old friend to Old Wyntoun, after the sale; for she would stay, through everything. And, perhaps, she caught cold; for she took to her bed that same day, and never left it again, and a fortnight later she died."

Helen sat a long time in silence. She was thinking of poor Carina, and, of course, of Bernard; and Phoebe could see from her face that the thought that all that had happened had made, or could make, a great pecuniary difference to herself never once occurred to her.

"He is quite poor, then," she was thinking to herself, with oh, how much yearning love in her heart. "And yet, perhaps for how can I tell?—he may have made something for himself by this time by his pictures."

Then, as she sat there, Phoebe presently heard, to her surprise, what sounded like a long breath of absolute relief.

"Yes, I will hope on,'" Helen was thinking. "It may be that it was only money that stood between us; and if so--"

And then the cold pallor left her face; and the faintest hue, as of new life, stole over it.

"Where is he, Phoebe? Bernard, I mean?" "I don't know," answered Phoebe. "I don't think that any one in Wyntoun knows."

Helen had gone to rest. She did not, however, sleep to-night. Alternately she prayed, and thought,

and planned, hour after hour, as she lay there listening to the autumn rain, as it beat steadily against the window.

Patter, patter, patter, it monotonously dripped, and plashed, and poured the whole night long.

But with the earliest dawn of morning it ceased, and Helen slept, and when she awoke the sun was shining in at the window.

An hour or two later she was on her way to Hamley Station. She had wished to walk thither alone, and Phoebe had at length reluctantly allowed her to do so.

She had got more than half-way, when she neared a forlorn-looking half-finished building that had been, to all appearance, left to itself for some time.

Just outside the cracked and, in some places, crumbling walls, and among the heaps of broken bricks, and dry mortar, some idle boys were playing. And as Helen was passing they were aiming with stones at fragments of slate, etc., which they had set up on the half-high walls; and many noisy shouts arose as the fragments fell, dislodged, one after another, by their stones.

Helen, as has been said, loved children of all ages, and the tumult these were making neither made her in the least nervous of them, nor even disturbed her thoughts. She only watched them with sad quiet eyes as she passed, mentally working out her own plans meanwhile.

That is, she strove with all her feeble mental strength to work them out. Her hopes of yesterday had all been dashed; a great grief had come to her besides; and also the loss of fortune, which, however, was not even reckoned or remembered at this moment, for all that had happened had dazed and stunned her, and she seemed to have no power of thought or realisation left.

She would go back again to Aubrey and Rose, and stay and work with them as before-that was her one clear idea-and, when another year had gone by, if she should go a second time to Wyntoun-by-Sea, and find that Bernard had given no sign

She had got so far in her thoughts when a stone, thrown by one of the boys, having hit the wall instead of the mark, rebounded, and struck her eye.

The stone happened to be a comparatively small one, however, and smooth, and not one of the rough flints which the boys had been throwing so vigorously, or the consequences might have been serious.

As it was the blow, so sudden and unexpected, caused Helen to stagger for a moment; and then she leant, a little faintly, against a gate leading into a vividly green meadow, sodden with last night's rain. There was a silence, as of consternation, amongst the boys. Then one of them ran up to her. "Be ye hurt, ma'am?"

Helen stood up-the shock had been but momentary after all.

"No, thank you,” she returned, in her weak soft voice, at which the boy looked frightened. "At least, I think not."

The lad slowly returned to his companions, who stood all together at a little distance. Helen had had neither heart nor voice to say more to him; and she, too, moved slowly on. And before she had gone many steps, she could hear them all playing, and running, and shouting as gaily as ever.

A rush of weak tears filled her eyes.

"And if I had been hurt, it would not have signi- fied to anybody," she said to herself, bitterly. "Who cares what becomes of me?"

But she reproached herself the next moment for ingratitude for had not the Lord God, Who cares for the sparrows, Who gives to each blade of grass its beauty -taken care, in His over-ruling providence, that that stone had been smooth, instead of sharp ?-otherwise she might have been blinded. And if the providences of the Maker of all-with Whom nothing is trifling-be so exact and unerring, then neither had that blow been without its signification-and its good and gracious signification. And, if it had been a sharper blow, neither would its added sharpness have been without meaning-and a meaning, as in the present case, also, which she would one day, as she firmly believed, certainly read-if not in time, then in eternity.

And her tears flowed less bitterly as these reflections came to her. A renewed gentle peace stole into the very depths of her heart. She was in her God's hands then. Why had she, even for an instant, forgotten it? In His hands, wherever she went, whatever she did, and whatever happened, came (for those He loved, and who loved Him) from Him for good. Yes; and she must not even except this separation from, and estrangement of, her husband. All would be well; all would be made clear, the moment it was needful and right.

It was evening; and she sat once more with Aubrey and Rose, who had received her almost in silence, yet with countenances that expressed the truest sympathy and compassion. It was easy to sce at the first glance, that whatever her hope had been, it had wholly and grievously disappointed her.

"I will not tell all to-night," she said, with an irrepressible sigh, as she watched them, at work, as usual, for their schools. Their thorough painstaking labour seemed endless. "I could not," she addedthen broke off abruptly.

"Do not think of it," returned Rose. "But what is the matter with your eye?" she next inquired, in her quick way; "it looks as though you had caught a very bad cold in it."

Helen told of the accident, making very light of it; but Rose looked grave.

"Does it pain you much?" she asked.

with. What was that, that you heard only yesterday, Aubrey, about some famous oculist?"

"That he was from London," answered Aubrey, "and that he had come so as to be near a friend whose eyes were very bad. And she said that he had come for a quiet rest as well, but that he saw every one who liked to go to him, all the same."

The evening passed on; and that night again they all read together, and at Rose's suggestion, the fortyfirst chapter of Genesis was chosen.

And very thoughtfully all three went through the account of Joseph's sudden deliverance from prison, and advancement to rank next the king himself.

"It all came about in a moment, as one might say," remarked Rose, as she closed her Bible; and Aubrey and Helen listened with the more attention, because Rose was not given to making remarks on the chapters she read. She was quiet and reserved, and it was never easy to her, and sometimes even painful, to have to drag her thoughts, as it were,

66

"There he was shut up in

into the light of day. prison," she went on. And, except that he still had hope in God, his life was spent in blank waiting; and he was quite helpless. That was how it was one half-hour. But the next did not find him in the prison; he had been hurried out of it, never to return; and his troubles were over."

And Helen repeated, thoughtfully, yet dreamily, the verse that she never forgot-never would forget:"And when it seems no chance or change From grief can set me free;

Hope finds its strength in helplessness,!
And, patient, waits on Thee."

And little she imagined, as she uttered the words, how near was the dawn of her deliverance. Little she thought that before another day had passed, a newer, nearer hope would have risen upon her horizon, and a more intense expectation even than yesterday's would possess her. (To be continued.)

ET us speak together, my friend, by the open window, on this bright summer noontide hour. The phrase "speak together" is better than 66 communicate with." The latter is cold and hard, and I should like, in our mental wanderings together through Dovedale, amidst its scenery of exquisite beauty, or in visiting its picturesque cottages --many of which encircle lifedramas that we should go together in the spiritual feeling that we are friends.

Let me briefly introduce you to Dovedale. I write this at the open window in the sultry hush of noon. I have long been rector in this quiet Dale so long, indeed, that my hair has become silvered in the service, and the congregation of loved ones that have passed before me to the peaceful graves in the old churchyard, is greater

WINDOW.

than that whose voices now mingle in the quaint old aisle in Psalms of sacred praise.

This is not the Dovedale so dear to the heart of grand old Izaak Walton, the Dovedale in whose romantic depths he so often indulged in the "gentle art," and near which was "the honest inn with cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall."

Our Dovedale nestles in sweetness and se clusion within easy range of the Lake district. It is "far from the madding crowd," and has had little to do either in the making of history or in the pomp of war. Tradition has it that a troop of Cavaliers passed through the village on one occasion during the Civil War; but they glided on almost as silently as spectres would have done, and left only a far-off memory of the event. Only the faintest echoes, and these at long intervals, reach this hamlet of the great world's din. The promise of a golden harvest is of more importance to it than the rise and fall of shares, and the first note of the cuckoo more congenial than an account of the latest bulletins from all the Courts of Europe.

Our art gallery consists of the wondrous series of pictures that are brought to us in the charming changes of the seasons, now green and fresh in the new revelation of spring, now rich in the profusion of summer, now glad in the wealth of autumn, and now strong, crisp, spotless, and beautiful in the snows of winter.

Do not grudge me, I pray you, my praise of

winter. We all know the enjoyment we have in communion with the illustrious dead during the long winter nights, when we have the storm battling against our windows, or on other evenings when we have the consciousness that the full moon is looking down in its sweet and calm assurance of peace, as it looks on city window or on cottage roofs far away in sweet pastoral dales that are clad in the poetry that embraces both natural beauty and the lights and shadows that encompass the problems of human existence.

The genial Cowper, as you know, has sung the praises of winter, both in connection with the steaming tea-urn on the hospitable table of the warm and lit-up parlour, and the bracing ramble over the crisp snow, in the face of the ruddy early-setting sun. Listen to his last words on the whole matter:

I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed retirements, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening know.

The finest picture of winter, so far as tender sympathetic peace is brought forward, is, in my estimation, contained in the sweet calm

lines of the poet Grahame, in his "Sabbath ":

High-ridged, the whirled drift has almost reached

The powdered key-stone of the churchyard porch :

Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie silent.

What a peaceful picture of a country churchyard! The snow lies there, a winding-sheet which God Himself has so softly and tenderly laid down, covering with a spotless grace the graves of our dearly-beloved dead.

But you may consider this a digression. It may be, but it is nature all the same, and you may pardon it on that account, especially, as we may have yet largely to consider the lights and shadows, the music and the mysteries of this same nature, or our "deare modre Earth," as Chaucer quaintly, and with a heart of reverence and love, puts it.

Let us dismiss winter with a kindly smile and a good word. The white and spotless mantle that he spreads on hill-side and valley, covering all that is shattered, rude, neglected, and unlovely, can surely be considered for the time a garment of purity and peace: silence and beauty come with its fall. Then there is the robin's song. How crisp and melodious it is in the midst of the universal silence around! The robin is one of the few solo-singers that nature gives us when the hundred voices of the summer chorus are dumb. But dearer to us than all the other gifts of winter is that day which brings to us the memory of the angels' song that was sung long ago to the wondering shepherds on Bethlehem's plains-the Christmas music that first announced "Peace on earth, goodwill to men"!

By the way, what a charming description St. Luke gives us of this sublime and momentous event! It is a brief but a beautifully finished idyl "There were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night, when, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them;" and then came to their ears the glorious chorus of angel joy, the key-note of that divine psalm of redemption which Christ would yet give to the awakened and jubilant souls of every nation and kindred and tongue.

I have told you of Dovedale. It need not be that you should know my name. I hope, however, we shall be one in sympathy and love as we go mentally together in the fresh, rosy dawn, by the breezy upland, the mossy bank, or the gleaming stream, with its murmurous song of delight;