in the situation; but I remember the widow's mite. And not being capable of doing much, I always feel it a duty, or rather I may say, a pleasure, when my Gracious Lord and Master has given me a happy, peaceful day, just to mark my sense of it, my dear, that's all."

"But you did it twice in one day, aunt, just after Miss Seymour's letter."

"Ah! my dear, and good reason I had. Did she not tell us of the fond mother, giving up her precious little girl, so calmly to God? That child prayed for, as Hannah prayed for Samuel, that blossom described as so fair, so promising

'He who asked it of thee
Loveth a cheerful giver.'

I would like to have died, my child, in place of the babe, but that could not be. So I thanked God in my way, for giving me such a lesson of resignation."

Thus aunt Scann's missionary box never stood empty.

Our first change was to Selina's house. Little children are like flowers of spring, ever

unfolding new leaves and buds, until the wintry heart becomes filled with the fragrance of summer blossoms.

We talked of my guardian as one at rest.

"In looking over his papers, Nellie (he left you in charge of them), Richard found this packet. I know what I should like to do with it." And Selina gave a sigh, as she presented me with the parcel.

I read on the back of it: "The history of the years 18"

On thinking over the date, it came quickly to my mind that this was that memorable time when his engagement to Selina, and his strange marriage with her mother, took place.

"You would wish it burnt unread," I said, in answer to her sigh.

'Oh! Nellie, yes!"

"We will do it now, on the instant," and I placed it on the fire.

"But, perhaps, Richard--" said I, pausing. "Out on you, Nellie, thinking thus for a moment. Richard and I do not like to have to think ill of any one."

So the packet slowly consumed, and shortly

no record remained to tell how two people had sported with an innocent and tender heart.

"Have you heard lately from Glynne?" I asked.

"Nellie, not a line, not a trace, for seven months or more."

"Ah! nonsense, Selina; his agents know his people at Glynne and Neville Court."

They don't, Nellie; Richard has written to them."

"I will write to the Lady.' I know her last direction."

Nellie, Glynne Castle and Neville Court are shut up; Glynne arranged all his affairs, while in Ireland, for an absence indefinite. In fact, he did not scruple to say for-life."

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Like a sailing eagle old,

Which with unwavering wings, outspread and wide,
Makes calm horizons in the slumberous air

Of cloudless noon, filling the silent heaven
With the slow circulation of a course

More placid than repose, this shining still

And universal day revolves serene

Around me; hasting not, and uncompelled."

BEDDOES.

SEVENTEEN years had gone since the time this story began, when, as a child, I had climbed up into the beech tree and willed to be a queen.

Once only, had a violent shock dismembered the ruler from her kingdom, and left it, for the time being, a wilderness unqueened. But the over-teeming soil rendered the process of lying fallow necessary for it. There must be nothing

left on which to feed the noisome, far-spreading weeds, while the good seeds would show if they were sufficiently rooted to weather this time; even to breaking forth, with fresh vigour, from the very discipline they underwent. To look back, the time was nothing; though tragedy after tragedy had been enacted; feelings excited that make havoc with a life-time; scars and wounds left on the heart that mark momentous and never-to-be-forgotten periods.

Yet nothing availed of all that had occurred to sober or age me. As eagerly, may be, as nimbly, I ran up the beech tree on this twentyseventh birth-day, as I had done on my tenth. On each anniversary, when at home, the same thing occurred; and no staid or womanly feeling over-night resisted the uncontrollable inclination of the morning.

Up in my green throne I held communion with those "who were gone before.”

It was just such a morning as on that tenth birth-day. In the same manner the sun rose; in the same mood the angels seemed to sport as they ascended from their night-watch. The hares, the birds, the cattle all woke up, all per