over each other so naturally, that they looked as if they were clustering on a bough.

"Nothing but leaves," said Ada, reading the words. "There is no sense in this text at all, Willie. The border is beautiful," she added, with genuine admiration, "but the words don't mean anything."

"Don't you remember the fig-tree that bore leaves only, Ada?”

'Yes—but—oh, I suppose this is meant as a reminder a sort of warning?"

"I mean to hang it up in my bedroom," said Willie, quietly.

His words seemed to suggest some new thoughts to Ada. She rose abruptly from her seat, unfastened the casement, and descended the three steps that led into the garden.

The sky had begun to take a tinge of dusky gold; a pale mist was gathering over the roofs of the adjacent houses; the autumn day was closing in. As Ada walked alone down the garden path, the leaves came slowly drifting around her—some, brown and sere, rustled crisply under her tread; others dropped noiselessly upon the moist grass

and damp brown mould. 'Nothing but leaves." The words haunted her mind, and the soft September wind seemed to whisper them in her ears.

The scene described in St. Matthew's Gospel presented itself forcibly to her imagination. She pictured the pretentious tree putting forth its green foliage early in the season-before its fellows had even begun to show the fruit that should precede the leaves. And then the solemn sentence of the Master, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," followed by the rapid withering of those doomed branches. What did it signify-this stern judgment coming from such gentle lips? Ada knew only too well that the Prince of Peace must ever be at war with the empty professor of His most holy faith. Truly has a modern preacher said, "There can be no sadder epitaph on a wasted life than those three brief words- Nothing but leaves.""

Absorbed in her musings, she had nearly reached the end of the long path, when a strange creaking and a loud rustling noise startled her out of her reverie. Among the beeches and apple-trees at the bottom of the garden was a tall old pear-tree,

which stood like a patriarch above its brethren. The sounds seemed to come from its high boughs, and Ada paused to look up and listen.

Suddenly there was a snap of breaking branches, then a shrill cry, and a dark object, rolled up like a ball, fell heavily to the ground.

CHAPTER II.

TROUBLE IN THE HOUSE.

THERE was a great deal of fever in Alderport

at that season, and Dr. Fenway was busy night and day. His fifteen minutes' doze in the sittingroom had refreshed him, but he could ill afford to spare that quarter of an hour. After this brief rest he had to visit one of the lowest neighbourhoods in the town, and it must be confessed that he went about his work with rather a heavy heart.

Ada was the cause of his disquietude. She was the eldest of his six children, and his only daughter. His wife had died soon after the birth of the youngest child, and a widowed sister of the doctor's. Mrs. Hurst, had taken the place of mistress of the house.

No fault could be found with Aunt Emily's