'But, I say, Polly, it's the next answer that puzzles me. It doesn't much matter, I suppose; but we say we are in a state of salvation,' and thank God for it. Do you think we are in a state of salvation?"

"I can't answer for anybody else; but I know I am not,” replied Polly, bluntly. "And, what is more, mother is always telling me that I am a lost creature, and must be converted in order to be saved. So last time she was talking about my getting converted, I said I didn't see that I wanted to be converted, if I was in a state of salvation."

"And what did she say? Oh, Polly, what a girl you are for thinking of things! Miss Cramp says you're always putting two and two together."

"And finding out that they never make five! What did mother say? Why, she looked dumbfoundered, for she and the Catechism don't go together anyhow, and yet she feels bound to stick up for it. After a bit, she said baptism brought us into the way of being saved. I made no answer. I should only have got scolded for what she callscarping;' but, thinks I, you're not quite a fool, Polly Wray! One needn't be very old nor very wise to understand that being in a state of salvation, which means actually saved, and in the way to be saved are quite different things! If I am in a house on fire, I'm on the way to being saved while I am going downstairs; but I am not saved till I am well out of the burning house."

"Well! there is one comfort, Polly, after to-morrow we shall not be plagued with the Church Catechism any more. When once we are confirmed we shall never be called up to say it again." "That is a comfort, Lulu. And that's the chief good of being confirmed."

“And it makes one more grown up."

"To be sure. After being confirmed, the next thing is to be married."

"I propose that when we've quite done with the Catechism and the Confirmation Service, we should study the Marriage Service, which comes next in the Prayer-book. Fancy Miss Cramp calling up the matrimony-class!"

"I can't fancy it! Nor you either, Lulu."

"Well! but I don't see why girls should not be taught their duties as wives. Miss Cramp says it is highly improper ever to think of being married till we are engaged with the sanction of our parents. We are only girls for eighteen or twenty-one years, or so, and married women for the rest of our lives. And it's of no use trying to keep grown-up girls like babies, it only makes them sly. We all think of lovers, don't we?"

"I suppose so; I am always thinking of one."

"Good gracious! Polly, you don't mean to say you are attached already?"

'Only to Ivanhoe! I was a little in love with the Earl of Leicester, when I began to read Kenilworth,' but I hated him before I had finished it."

"And how do you like Werter '?"

"Oh! the story is charming, and I have wanted to read it ever since Annie Long told me about it. But I do not care so much for Werter himself. I daresay you'll think me very unfeeling, Lulu, but I laughed at his shooting himself with Albert's pistols. If he had gone into a decline now, and pined and died, like Edwin, in that sweet ballad, I should have cried; but shooting himself was ridiculous."

"And wicked, too! And, of course, he ought not to have written those letters to Charlotte when she was married. Still, it's a beautiful tale, and extremely affecting. And do you know I'm going to buy The Mysteries of Udolpho'? I read a page or two the other day at Bradfield, when I was waiting for the dressmaker to try on my frock. I could see it was delicious!-true lovers, of course, and castles with corridors and winding stairs in them, and robbers, and gloomy forests, and best of all-ghosts! I read how Emily-the heroine, you know-went with the old housekeeper at midnight to explore the deserted rooms of the late baroness, supposed to be poisoned by her husband. The rooms, of course, had never been touched since her funeral-twenty years before-and everything was naturally very dusty, and, of course, the lady's lute was still in its place. What is a lute, Polly? All ladies in novels sing to their lutes, and wherever they go their lutes go with them. Then there's the song, 'My Heart and Lute'; and they had lutes in the old Bible time. Now, the question is, what's gone with all the lutes? I asked Miss Cramp once what a lute was."

"And what did she say?"

"A musical instrument of antiquity;' and I knew that before."

"I fancy it's something like a guitar. I've seen a guitar. But go on about the rooms that had been shut up for twenty years.” "I can't go on long, for I only read a very little further; but Emily and the housekeeper got at last to the bedroom, where the black velvet pall was still on the bed; and they saw the pall tremble, and tremble, and move, and then-oh, Polly! it made my flesh creep-they saw a real spectre lying on the bed! And just then Miss Frills came in with my dress, and I had to put the book down. I asked her to lend it to me; but it wasn't hers. She

had sat up two nights reading it, she said, and had got into such a nervous state that she was obliged to have some one to sleep with her. But she told me where I could buy it cheap; and next week or very soon I'll get it, and when I've done with it you shall have it."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Polly, in an ecstasy of gratitude. “It will be delightful. Is it a book one can put in one's pocket?' "The one I am going to have you can."

"That's right! I'm always a little afraid of books that won't go into one's pocket on an emergency. How nice it must be to be your own mistress, quite grown-up, and able to read just what you like, and wear what you like, and go where you like! I hate having to hide things-there's something mean in hiding-but what can I do, Lulu? I've read every book in the house, except the pious biographies, which I believe are just as much romance as the 'Sorrows of Werter.' And I should go crazy without my knights, and barons, and beautiful ladies, and villains."

"I say," said Lulu, with a sudden glance at my own silent self, "how about little pitchers? Take care!"

"Oh! Oliver's all right," replied Polly. "We are sworn friends and allies, are we not, Oliver? And we are bound to help each other out of scrapes."

Thus appealed to, I assented. But it had only just dawned upon my mind that our "English History" studies were slightly contraband, and might bring us into sore trouble. "Is The Castle of Udolpho' English history?" I asked, with a little malice.

"No! of course not; it's Italian history, or French history-I am not sure which," returned Lucretia, quickly. "But, Polly, don't you let him read it; it's not fit for a mite of a child like that. He'll be scared out of his wits."

I immediately determined that, by hook or by crook, I would read, or get read to me, "The Castle of Udolpho."

Our conversation was here interrupted by a great crash of the bells, which had kept silence all through our theological and literary controversy, and we knew that the Bishop was approaching. The crowd pressed forward as the tramp of horses was heard, and in a few minutes two carriages following each other passed quickly by. In the first was my Lord Bishop, old, wizened, and apparently asleep, or perhaps absorbed in holy meditations. His shovel hat and his pinched nose were delightful to behold. In the second carriage sat a fine-made and remarkably handsome man, also clerical in air and clothing, but just the antipodes of the Bishop in vigour and brightness and general animation. He bowed gracefully to the people, lifting his hat continually, as if he were a royal personage, acknowledging the homage of the multitude. It was Mr. Durant,

the Bishop's chaplain, and we all admired him hugely.

He took

our hearts by storm, and Polly and Lulu, in their innocent schoolgirl fashion, fell in love with him on the spot.

"Isn't he a darling ?" I heard Lulu whisper.

"He's just heavenly!" replied Polly. "Only what does a bishop Can't he say his own prayers and his own But I wish he would do the confirming to

want a chaplain for? grace at dinner-time? morrow."

As soon as these reverend gentlemen had driven by the crowd began to disperse, and then Polly said to me, "There now, Oliver, you can say you've seen a bishop!"

To which, in the pride and naughtiness of my heart, I replied, "Oh! bishops are quite common with us in London. No one thinks of looking at them there. I have seen no end of bishops, and archbishops too!"

Which statement was, of course, extremely exaggerated, though "founded upon facts," as the prefaces to novels tell us. I had seen one live bishop-to wit, the Bishop of London-several times, and I had even heard him preach. I had also seen the Bishop of

Winchester, and once, on some remarkable occasion, I had only just missed seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury! Polly was evidently much struck. It was her firm belief that London people lived a sort of enchanted life. She had wonderful ideas of the splendour of the metropolis, and I am afraid I rather misled her in this respect. Anything short of golden pavements and pearly gates she would have accredited. Miss Lulu, however, said dryly, "You cannot have seen many archbishops, Master Oliver, for the English Church owns but two."

"Oh! he lived almost next door to St. Paul's Cathedral, so that of course he was in the way to see bishops and all that," said Polly, in explanation.

As it began to grow dark, we turned our faces homewards; but there was still an air of unaccustomed stir and bustle in the town. No stranger could have passed through Castle Coleshill that evening without perceiving that on the morrow something was going to take place. The water-meadows, however, were quiet enough as we passed through them, Polly and I, Miss Lulu having left us, as her home was beyond the High-town. The bells were silent now; soft, gray shadows lay upon the grass and on the cattle peacefully grazing. I could hear the rush and ripple of the river among the sedges and water-flags, and over the trees, still in all their summer glory, rose a large full moon, that would soon send down its mellow light on tower, and town, and field, tiil, byand-by, its silvery radiance would fill the midnight skies.

Polly scarcely spoke, and I was in no mood for conversation.

Something in the utter peace and serene beauty of the hour seemed to speak to me of my dead mother; and again I was in the old attic at home-I always in my secret heart called London "home!"—in the fading April twilight, with the fire gleams dancing on the low, sloped ceiling, and the sunset flush dying on the Cathedral dome; and once more I heard the gentle voice say, oh! so earnestly, "Conquer your fate; overcome the world; be a good man; be good and do good; and in all your ways acknowledge God, and He will acknowledge you."

The words, which yet I could not fully understand, were imprinted on my memory, and I questioned much in my own mind whether I was doing as my mother had wished, and whether I was, indeed, growing up to be "a good man." "I am a great deal cleverer than I was," I thought to myself; "I know lots of things! And I shall learn more and more; but I am afraid I am not as good as I used to be at home. I don't care so much about being good, and I don't want so much to be good. But I do care about being punished."

And I knew, child as I was, that the goodness which proceeded from dread of punishment was worth nothing, and was not really goodness at all, but rather a mixture of mere worldly prudence and cowardice. I was not nearly so scrupulous about the truth as I once was. I was selfish and greedy, and oh!-in spite of the stool of repentance-so inordinately vain of my own small acquirements. I did not know what had demoralised me; but I do now-it was the home atmosphere in which I dwelt! Such trivial errors were treated as crimes; somebody was always being suspected of something wrong. Allowances were never made for temptation, youth, or inexperience. It was so easy to be blamed, so impossible to be praised; and the iron hand never dreamed of putting on a velvet glove. The two spinster-aunts and Polly, the latter especially, had acquired all sorts of diplomatic arts. Even Maggs had her own cunning ways, and knew how to divert from herself the vials of impending wrath; and Mrs. Wray was continually deceived. "Perfect transparent truth" was what she required, according to her own statement; but she got what people who rule by fear instead of love invariably do get-falsehood, fraud, and bamboozlement! And all this had a very bad effect upon me; and Polly, who was naturally frank and ingenuous to a fault, was growing up a schemer, and an intriguer, and an adept in paltry artifices.

Something of this I dimly felt; but though I was sadly old for my years, I was not by any means old enough to reason out my vague impressions, or to push my conclusions, supposing I arrived at any, to such results as might tend to actual improvement. As we crossed the foot-bridge near the mill, I stopped to look down