swept over the moorland. But Nemesis lies in wait for the peasant, and sooner or later, unless he is greatly beloved by the gods, he has to succumb. There are few men who brave nature in all her moods, day after day, that she fails to conquer at last.

he

One memorable Friday, when he was near his seventieth birthday, he was at work on the highway when a sudden storm of rain was driven up from the sea. It was the open moorland and there was no shelter, and he went quietly on with his work while the rain drenched him through and through. But he recked not of it; for years he had laughed at the weather. The cloud passed, and the sun broke forth with cheery warmth, and reached home "only a bit dampish." On the Sunday morning he was taken with a shivering fit, and could not go to church-the first time he had missed for a dozen years. After dinner, sitting, as was his custom, in the armchair near the fire, he turned pale, and, rising up, staggered out, saying he had not milked the cow. Zairey followed him, and found him clinging to the pig-sty. "He felt a bit 'mazed," he said.

With a strength born of fear she got him up-stairs and put him to bed. He lay unconscious for six weeks with inflammation of the brain, and when at last he was convalescent, he was but a shadow of the sturdy road-maker, and with a weakened mind that altogether failed him at times.

He never worked again. Husband and wife had been harmoniously frugal, and behind a loosened brick in the great chimney was a purse containing thirty pounds. But the sickness, with its consequent expenses-Zairey would have died rather than plead poverty to the doctor when his bill, "eight pounds fifteen shillings," had to be paid-had made a great hole in it. When Jimmy had been an invalid for a year there was but a few pounds left, and Zairey suddenly realized that she was an old woman whose natural force was fast abating.

zhall us do?" was the burden of the old man's complaint, as he sat in the chimney-corner in the long autumn evenings watching his wife, frail and worn herself, as she knitted unceasingly.

Zairey kept a brave front to him. It was only in solitude that she was abject before the approaching shadow. "The Lord'll provide, Jim. We've bin blessed in the world's goods ΖΟ far, and the Lord'll provide." Zairey's tone was cheerful, and Wold Jimmy's ears were dulled and could detect no quaver in it.

"The things be gwain, my maid," the old man would say in a pitiful attempt to face the possibilities.

"Don't 'ee grumble now. We've the cow and the heifer and a vew pounds left. P'raps the Lord'll zee fit to take us booth at oncet avore it be all gone. Don't 'ee worry."

Jimmy looked at his shrunken arms mournfully. "And I was zo strong as a harse avore I took thik cold. Just a wetten, zame as a score ov times, and now zo weak as watter. The ways ov things, the ways ov things! If we can get through the winter wi' what we have p'raps they'll take I—”

"Do 'ee be quiet and don't 'ee trouble."

"Iy it should come to thatJimmy stopped and cast a fearful look in the direction of Suckton. At Suckton was the place of "Damnation." It is ever the skeleton at the peasant's banquet.

Zairey laughed. "The bemoanen ways ov men! What pore creatures ye be! Just 'ee repeat the twentythird Psalm, Jimmy Manney, and let that be sufficient vor 'ee."

Zairey did not break down until she was alone. She had seen "Damnation" when it was yet farther off, and she sent one oft-repeated prayer up to heaven: "May it please 'ee, Lord, to ze fit to take we booth togeder thease winter."

was to befall, and it seemed as if the position was reversed, and Zairy was endeavoring to comfort them.

In the following summer they sold the cow and heifer and their front room furniture. The proceeds carried them through the winter and the earlier days of spring. They were very near to damnation now.

Mrs. Pointon, Mrs. Grantumen, and a few others went to condole with the old couple. The same fate might be theirs, for aught they could tell, with the feebleness of old age, and the blow that felled another produced in them a tremor of disquietude.

Mrs. Pointon, for one, shed tears over them, and the old man lifted his skinny arms. "It be wonnerful, ma'am, what a spell ov sickness do," he cried in а querulous treble. "Thease was mighty pow'ful a yer or two agwone. It be hard, ter❜ble hard!"

"We knows 'ee have a right to it, and to zomethen a zight better," said Mrs. Pointon. "But it be ter'ble hard vor 'ee both, that be what we zay, after liven togeder man and wife zo long. And to go ther and be parted at last! It do zim hard.”

"I baint zayen it be pleasant and a vurst-rate plaäce, ΖΟ like we was gwain to the zquire's; but we've paid vor it. Nobody can up and zay, "You haven't a right here," zeën as we've paid vor it times and agen!"

The visitors looked at one another with a mournful shake of the head. They had come to offer sympathy to

"But 'ee'll vind it hard," Mrs. Pointon repeated. "Pore Wold Jimmy'll vind it hard down to-there. You'll not be better thought of becos you've paid vor it zo long. It be ter'ble."

"Zo it be, zo it be, ma'am," chimed in the old man in his pitiful quaver. "Strong, and worked hard. And my strength went like watter-like watter, ma'am."

"There, don't 'ee trouble, wold man," said Zairey with a laugh. "As 'ee haven't been able to smoke lately, not haven bacca won't hurt 'ee, and as for beer, why, 'ee can drink watter and think it zider."

The visitors left, sorely puzzled, and before nightfall all Barleigh knew of "Wold Zairey's" indifference. Nobody could believe that there was any person in Barleigh who could face calmly the woeful ignominy of the workhouse.

But Zairey had other words and another face when her neighbors were gone. "My man, my wold man," she cried in a tempest of agony, "we be come to the workus at last. We be disgraced at last, my man. We be gwain to the workus. And we worked hard-nigh vorty yer-and zaved-and held our heads zo high-the workus at last vor 'ee, wold man."

"Don't 'ee take on, Zairey," said the old man soothingly. "I be strongish yet, and there be work to be had. We'll zell the cow."

"Zell the cow? What cow? Didd'n we zell it last yer-and the heifer too? We've nothing left, nothen but the workus."

She passed the night sobbing and crying, while the old man, whose keen days of anguish were gone, slept peacefully at her side. But the next morning, when she went into the village to make her last purchase at the grocer's, she met all condolence with the same brave words.

"Workus! why should us care? It baint as iv we be paupers. We've

vor

she said to her husband, gwaïn to church thease marnen the las' time, my man, the las' time. P'raps iv we pray togeder in the church the Lord 'll zee fit to take we togeder at once. The las' time, my man; on'y another day where we lived zo long! On'y another day!"

"We'll gwo togeder, Zairey," said Wold Jimmy, "and I'll zeek vor work in the marnen. Have 'ee milked thease marnen?”

It was more than a mile to church, and a very tiresome journey. Wold Jimmy could only drag himself along by the aid of his stick and his wife's arm. But she was sublimely patientit was for the last time.

They were a strange-looking couple, and their appearance did not spell tragedy. Zairey had put on her silk dress with its wide skirt-a treasured relic of her former greatness-and her best bonnet, that was new twenty years before. It was only on special occasions that she adopted that COStume-the black silk was too elegant for ordinary wear. Time was when that black silk had excited the envy of her neighbors, a black silk being the hallmark of prosperity. Wold Jimmy was dressed in his broadcloth, which had been his Sunday uniform for fifteen years, and in which he like a lord, Zairey had often remarked. Now it hung on his shrunken figure like an empty sack.

looked

a

The old man slept through the greater part of the service. Zairey looked dejected at first, but after time sat upright with a smile on her face. She had found comfort in the service.

When the service was over she got up to go, but sat down again, and, presently, led her husband up to the altar to take communion together. It was for the last time.

When it was over they took leave of acquaintances who lived at a distance, and Zairey tossed up her head "as pertsome as when she was & young maid," said Mrs. Grantumen.

"All who can will 'ee come to zee we th' morn?" she said. "It'll be a long

The vicar passed and complimented them on being so cheerful and resigned, and then, after some handshaking, they left the churchyard. Mrs. Pointon made them come in as they passed her house to "have a bit ov somethen," and I had my first and last glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Manney.

"I'll call and zee 'ee to-morrow," called Mrs. Pointon, as they went down the garden path.

She told me all about it after dinner. "It be strange, zur, but Wold Zairey allus did have a dread ov the workus, and now she be like thease, zo pleased as pleased because they be gwaîn there. It do be strange, zur."

Mrs. Pointon startled me about ten o'clock the next morning by rushing into my room, and after saying, “Oh, zur!" bursting into tears.

"Oh, zur-Wold Jimmy and Zairey. She have been hiden it vrom we all. It have druv her mad. Oh dear!

"She smothered Wold Jimmy last night wi' the pillow, zur, and then she hang herself on the stairs. Varmer Wenton's man Zam vound 'em thease marnen when he went to help with the things. Oh dear!

"And avore she did it she wrote it all down in chalk on the table, and why she did it. And she hided it vrom we all. God help us, zur. I wish there were no workhouses!"

I saw Zairey's last message, chalked in great printed characters on the table. It ran, "We baint gwain to the workus, I shall kill my wold man and myself, and zo the Lord will have to take we togeder. The furnisher will bury us. No workus vor we. Zairy Manney."

ORME AGNUS.

From Macmillan's Magazine. PHILOMELE.

Of the two sisters the eldest, Marguerite de Vieilleville, was evidently