with eyes of sober wonderment, and did not
understand what this emotion meant.

"There is no occasion for excitement,"
said the baronet; "nobody nowadays med-
dles with a man's convictions; indeed, Harry
would say, it's a great thing to have any con-
victions. That is how the young men talk
nowadays," said Sir Thomas; and he moved
off the sofa again, and yawned, though not
uncivilly. As for Miss Matty, she came steal-
ing up when she had made the tea, with her
cup in her hand.

said

to make our own way in the world".
the young man, with a touch of grandeur,
but was stopped by Miss Matty's sudden
laughter.

"Oh, how simple you are! As if rich squires and great people, as you say, could marry when they pleased-as if any man could marry when he pleased!" cried Miss Matty, scornfully. "After all, we do count for something, we poor women; now and then, we can put even an eldest son out in his calculations. It is great fun too," said the "So you do mean to be a minister?" she young lady, and she laughed, and so did Colin, said, in a half-whisper, with a deprecating who could not help wondering what special look. Lady Frankland had roused up, like case she might have in her eye, and listened her husband and the two were talking, and with all the eagerness of a lover. "There is did not take any notice of Matty's proceedings poor Harry," said Miss Matty under her with the harmless tutor. The young lady breath, and stopped short and laughed to herwas quite free to play with her mouse a little, self and sipped her tea, while Colin lent an and entered upon the amusement with zest, anxious ear. But nothing further followed as was natural. "You mean to shut your- that soft laughter. Colin sat on thorns, gazBelf up in a square house, with five windows, ing at her with a world of questions in his like the poor gentleman who has such red hair, face; but the siren looked at him no more. and never see anybody but the old women in Poor Harry! Harry's natural rival was senthe parish, and have your life made misera-sible of a thrill of jealous curiosity mingled every Sunday by that precentor." with anxiety. What had she done to Harry?

ble

"I hope I have a soul above precentors," this witch who had beguiled Colin-or was said Colin, with a little laugh, which was un-it, not she who had done anything to him, steady still, however, with a little excitement; but some other as pretty and as mischievous? "and one might mend all that," he added a Colin had no clew to the puzzle; but it gave minute after, looking at her with a kind of him a new access of half-conscious enmity to wistful inquiry which he could not have put the heir of Wodensbourne. into words. What was it he meant to ask with his anxious eye? But he did not himself know.

After that talk, there elapsed a few days during which Colin saw but little of Matty, who had visits to pay, and some solemn din"Oh, yes," said Matty, "I know what you ner-parties to attend in Lady Frankland's would do you would marry somebody who train. He had to spend the evenings by was musical, and get a little organ and teach himself on these occasions after dining with the people better; I know exactly what you Charley, who was not a very agreeable comwould do," said the young lady, with a piquant panion; and when this invalid went to his little touch of spite, and a look that startled room, as he did early, the young tutor found Colin; and then she paused, and hung her himself desolate enough in the great house, head for a moment and blushed, or looked as where no human bond existed between him if she blushed. "But you would not?" said and the little community within its walls. Matty, softly, with a sidelong glance at her He was not in a state of mind to take kindly victim. "Don't marry anybody; no one is to abstract study at that moment of his exany good after that. I don't approve of mar-istence; for Colin had passed out of that unrying, for my part, especially for a priest. Priests should always be detached, you know, from the world."

conscious stage in which he had been at Ardmartin. Then, however much he had wished to be out of temptation, he could not help himself, which was a wonderful consolation; but now he had come wilfully and knowingly into the danger, and had become aware of the fact and, far more distinctly than ever before, of the difference between

"I wonder if they all think it is a spell," said Colin to himself; but he was rebuked and was silent when he heard the responses which the cottage folk made on their knees. When the curate had read his prayer, he got up and said good-night, and went back to Colin; and this visitation of the sick was a very strange experience to the young Scotch observer, who stood revolving everything, with an eye to Scotland, at the cottage-door. "You don't make use of our Common Prayer in Scotland?" said the curate. "Pardon me for referring to it. One cannot help being sorry for people who shut themselves oht from such an inestimable advantage. How did it come about?" "I don't know," said Colin. "I suppose because Laud was a fool, and King Charles a

Hush, for goodness' sake," said the curate, with a shiver. "What do you mean? Such language is painful to listen to. The saints and martyrs should be spoken of in a different tone. You think that was the reason? Oh, no; it was your horrible Calvinism and John Knox and the mad influences of that unfortunate Reformation which has done us all so much harm, though I suppose you think differently in Scotland," he said, with a little sigh, steering his young companion, of whose morality he felt uncertain, past the alehouse-door.

himself and the object of his thoughts. Though he found it very possible at times to comfort himself with the thought that this was a very ordinary interruption of a Scotch student's work, and noways represented the Armida's garden in which the knight lost both his vocation and his life, there were other moments and moods which were less easily manageable; and, on the whole, he wanted the stimulus of perpetual excitement to keep him from feeling the false position he was in, and the expediency of continuing here. Though the feeling haunted him all day, at night, in the drawing-room,-which was brightened and made sweet by the fair English matron who was kind to Colin, and the fairer maiden who was the centre of all his thoughts, it vanished like an evil spirit, and left him with a sense that nowhere in the world could he have been so well; but when this mighty stimulus was withdrawn, the youth was left in a very woful plight, conscious, to the bottom of his heart, that he ought to be elsewhere, and here was consuming his strength and life. He strayed out in the darkness of the December nights through the gloomy silent park into the little village with its feeble lights, where everybody and everything was unknown to him; and all the time his demon sat on his shoulders and asked what he did there. While he strayed through the broken, irregular village street, to all appearance looking at the dim cottage-windows Did you never hear of John Knox's litand listening to the rude songs from the little urgy?" said the indignant Colin ; "the sadale-house, the curate encountered the tutor. dest, passionate service! You always had Most probably the young priest, who was time to say your prayers in England, but we not remarkable for wisdom, imagined the had to snatch them as we could. And your Scotch lad to be in some danger; for he laid prayers would not do for us now," said the a kindly hand upon his arm and turned him Scotch experimentalist; "I wish they could; away from the vociferous little tavern, which but it would be impossible. A Scotch peaswas a vexation to the curate's soul. ant would have thought that an incantation "I should like you to go up to the Parson-you were reading. When you go to see a age with me, if you will only wait till I have sick man, shouldn't you like to say, God save seen this sick woman," said the curate; and him, God forgive him, straight out of your Colin went in very willingly within the cot- heart without a book?" said the eager lad; tage-porch to wait for his acquaintance, who at which question the curate looked up with had his prayer-book under his arm. The wonder in the young man's face. young Scotchman looked on with wondering eyes, while the village priest knelt down by his parishioner's bedside and opened his book. Naturally there was a comparison always going on in Colin's mind. He was like a passive experimentalist, seeing all kinds of trials made before his eyes, and watching the result.

46

66

I hope I do say it out of my heart,” said the English priest, and stopped short, with a gravity that had a great effect upon Colin; "but in words more sound than any words of mine," the curate added a moment after, which dispersed the reverential impression from the Scotch mind of the eager boy.

"I can't see that," said Colin, quickly,

66

"in the church for common prayer, yes; at on a kind of moral platform, as the emblem a bedside in a cottage, no. At least, I mean of Doubt and. that pious unbelief which is that's how we feel in Scotland, though I sup- the favorite of modern theology. Now, to pose you don't care much for our opinion, "tell the truth, Colin, though it may lower he added, with some heat, thinking he saw a him in the opinion of many readers of his smile on his companion's face. history, was not by nature given to doubtOh, yes, certainly; I have always un- ing. He had, to be sure, followed the fashderstood that there is a great deal of intelli-ion of the time enough to be aware of a wongence in Scotland," said the curate, cour-derful amount of unsettled questions, and teous as to a South-Sea Islander. "But questions which it did not appear possible people who have never known this inestima-ever to settle. But somehow these elements ble advantage? I believe preaching is considered the great thing in the North?" he said, with a little curiosity. "I wish society were a little more impressed by it among ourselves; but mere information even about spiritual matters is of so much less importance! though that, I dare say, is another point on which we don't agree?" the curate continued, pleasantly. He was just opening the gate into his own garden, which was quite invisible in the darkness, but which enclosed and surrounded a homely house with some lights in the windows, which, it was a little comfort to Colin to perceive, was not much handsomer, nor more imposing in appearance than the familiar manse on the borders of the Holy Loch.

"I

of scepticism did not give him much trouble. His heart was full of natural piety, and his instincts all fresh and strong as a child's. He could not help believing, any more than he could help breathing, his nature being such; and he was half amused and half irritated by the position in which he found himself, notwithstanding the curate's respect for the ideal sceptic, whom he had thus pounced upon. The commonplace character of Colin's mind was such that he was very glad when his new friend relaxed into gossip, and asked him who was expected at the Hall for Christmas; to which the tutor answered by such names as he had heard in the ladies' talk, and remembered with friendliness or with jealousy, according to the feeling with which Miss Matty pronounced them-which was Colin's only guide amid this crowd of the unknown.

"It depends on what you call spiritual matters," said the polemical youth. don't think a man can possibly get too much information about his relations with God, if "I wonder if it is to be a match," said the only anybody could tell him anything; but curate, who, recovering from his dread concertainly about ecclesiastical arrangements cerning the possible habits of his Scotch and the Christian year," said the irreverent guest, had taken heart to share his scholarly young Scotchman, 66 a little might suffice;" potations of beer with his new friend. "It and Colin spoke with the slightest inflection was said Lady Frankland did not like it, but of contempt, always thinking of the Twen- I never believed that. After all it was such tieth Sunday after Trinity, and scorning a natural arrangement. I wonder if it is to what he did not understand, as was natural be a match? "

to his years.
"Ah, you don't know what you are say-
ing," said the devout curate. "After you
have spent a Christian year, you will see
what comfort and beauty there is in it.
You say, if anybody could tell him any-
thing. I hope you have not got into a
aceptical way of thinking. I should like
very much to have a long talk with you,"
said the village priest, who was very good
and very much in earnest, though the ear-
nestness was after a pattern different from
anything known to Colin; and, before the
youth perceived what was going to happen,
he found himself in the curate's study, placed

"Is what to be a match?" said Colin, who all at once felt his heart stand still and grow cold, though he sat by the cheerful fire which threw its light even into the dark garden outside. "I have heard nothing about any match," he added, with a little effort. It dawned upon him instantly what it must be, and his impulse was to rush out of the house, or do anything rash and sudden that would prevent him from hearing it said in words.

"Between Henry Frankland and his cousin," said the calm curate; " they looked as if they were perfectly devoted to each other at one time. That has died off, for she is

rather a flirt, I fear; but all the people here- | about as much of Scotland as if it had lain abouts had made up their minds on the sub- in the South Seas. ject. It would be a very suitable match on the whole. But why do you get up? You are not going away?"

"Yes; I have something to do when I go home," said Colin, "something to prepare,' which he said out of habit, thinking of his old work at home, without remembering what he was saying, or whether it meant anything. The curate put down the poker which he had lifted to poke the fire, and looked at Colin with a touch of envy.

was,

Meanwhile Colin walked home to Wodensbourne with fire and passion in his heart. "It would be a very suitable match on the whole," he kept saying to himself, and then "tried to take a little comfort from Matty's sweet laughter over "Poor Harry!" Poor Harry was rich and fortunate and independent, and Colin was only the tutor. Wer? these two to meet this Christmas-time, and contend over again on this new ground? He went along past the black trees as if he were walking for a wager; but, quick as he walked, a dog-cart dashed past him with lighted lamp gleaming up the avenuc. When he reached the hall-door, one of the servants was disappearing up-stairs with a portmanteau, and a heap of coats and wrappers lay in the hall.

"Ah, something literary, I suppose?" said the young priest, and went with his new friend to the door, thinking how clever he and how lucky, at his age, to have a literary connection; a thought very natural to a young priest in a country curacy with a very small endowment. The curate wrote verses, as Colin himself did, though on very different subjects, and took some of them out of his desk, and looked at them, after he had shut the door, with affectionate eyes, and a half intention of asking the tutor what was the best way to get admission to the magazines, and on the whole he thought he liked what he had seen of the young Scotchman, though he was so ignorant of Church matters -an opinion which Colin perfectly reciprocated, with a more distinct sentiment of compassion for the English curate, who knew

than was expected," said the butler, who "Mr. Harry just come, sir-a week sooner was an old servant, and shared in the joys of the family. Colin went to his room without a word; shut himself up there with feelings which he would not have explained to any one. He had not seen Harry Frankland since they were both boys; but he had never got over the youthful sense of rivalry and opposition which had sent him skimming over the waters of the Holy Loch to save the boy who was his born rival and antagonist. Was this the day of their encounter and conflict which had come at last?

THE COAL STRATA AND INTERNAL HEAT OF | internal heat can penetrate through the crust of THE EARTH.-Mr. M'Clean, the new president of the earth-estimated to be thirty-four miles in the Institution of Civil Engineers, in his address, thickness so as to interfere with the temperasays on this subject: "We may consider our surface at which mining operations are carried ture at the comparatively small depth from the coal mines to be practically inexhaustible, and on. I am of opinion that the heat, which unthat we have not to fear any deficiency in quan- doubtedly exists in some mines, arises, not from tity arising from the exhaustion of the mineral, central heat, but from superincumbent pressure, but rather the practical difficulty of obtaining it and defective ventilation. The gases in the coal from a great depth below the surface, in conse- are highly compressed, and, when liberated by quence of the central heat of our globe, which, it mining operations, are at a high temperature; is alleged, will ultimately, and within a defined but we know that with large shafts air may be and not distant period, reduce the production to conveyed to any depth that has yet been reached a limited supply. Much may be said in support in mining operations, without, in the slightest of the theory of central heat, but I think undue importance has been given to it, as a difficulty in mining operations. A comparatively, thin coating of clay, or fire-bricks, surrounding a blast furnace filled with molten iron, affords such protection that the hand may be placed without inconvenience on the outer surface of the brickwork; and it is difficult to understand how any

degree, altering its temperature. I therefore think that the time when we shall experience a want of coal, arising from exhaustion, or from difficulties occasioned by the depth of the mines, or an excess of temperature, need not at present in any way influence our conduct in the development and use of that important mineral.Builder.

POETRY.-Compensation, 212. The Boy and the Ring, 212. Three Sonnets, 240. Faith, Hope, and Charity, 240.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Frog he would a writing go, 211. Mr. Palgrave's Travels in Arabia, 211. François Hugo's French Translation of Shakspeare's Works, 211. An out-door Cellar, 232. Diary of the Japanese Envoys, 232. Miracle Plays, 232.

CORRESPONDENCE:-BURIAL OF COLORED PEOPLE.-A colored woman whose mother was a slave to my wife's mother died at my house. I proposed to bury her in our own lot in the cemetery, but was refused by the trustees, who asserted that no other cemetery allows it. Please ascertain the fact as relates to Mount Auburn Cemetery.

THE note from your friend, Mr. Parsons, astonished me. I am happy to state that there are at least two colored persons who own lots in Mount Auburn. Several have been buried in the public lots there side by side with whites; and recently a favorite black servant was buried with the family she had served. In no case have I ever known an objection to be suggested.

Darby Vassal was a highly respected and intelligent negro, in his childhood a slave in the Vassal family, and at the time of his death, the oldest member of the church in Brattle Square; his remains were deposited in the tomb of the Vassal family, under the Episcopal Church in Cambridge. A short time since there were some who so hated the negro that they were unwilling they should fight and die for us. Most have overcome their scruples as to this, and I supposed all were willing that they should be decently buried. No animosity so hard to conquer as that toward those we have wronged.

NEW BOOKS.

GEORGE WILLIAM BOND, Treasurer of Mount Auburn Cemetery.

THE CEDAR CHRISTIAN, AND OTHER PRACTICAL PAPERS AND PERSONAL SKETCHES. By Theodore L. Cuyler, Pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Church, Brooklyn. New York: Robert Carter & Bros. We anticipate pleasure and profit from this attractive little volume.

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