ed when we were

married, his sole heir and legatee, indeed in | simple hymn which we learned
exactly the position that she would have
been had she been his wife.

"This will exists still; so that in any case you are safe. No further poverty can ever befall my Hilary."

young :—

"Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill, t
He treasures up His vast designs,
And works His sovereign will.

"Blind unbelief is sure to err,

The

And scan His work in vain:
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."

C

His-his own-Robert Lyon's own. Her sense of this was so strong that it took away the sharpness of the parting; made her feel, up to the very last minute, when she clung to him- -was pressed close to him-heart to night after Robert Lyon left, Hilary heart and lip to lip-for a space that seemed and Johanna were sitting together in their half a lifetime of mixed anguish and joy-parlor. Hilary had been writing a long letthat he was not really going; that, someter to Miss Balquidder, explaining that she how or other, next day or next week he would be back again, as in his frequent reappearances, exactly as before.

would now give up, in favor of the other young lady, or any other of the many to whom it would be a blessing, her position in the shop; but that she hoped still to help her-Miss Balquidder-in any way she could point out that would be useful to others. She wished, in her humble way, as a

passed through the waves and been landed safe ashore, to help those who were still struggling, as she herself had struggled once. She desired, as far as in her lay, to be Miss Balquidder's "right hand" till Mr. Lyon came home.

When he was really gone-when, as she sat with her tearless eyes fixed on the closed door-Johanna softly touched her, saying, "My child!" then Hilary learned it all. The next twenty-four hours will hardly sort of thank-offering from one who had bear being written about. Most people know what it is to miss the face out of the house-the life out of the heart. To come and go, to eat and drink, to lie down and rise, and find all things the same, and gradually to recognize that it must be the same, indefinitely, perhaps always. To be met continually by small trifles-a dropped glove, a book, a scrap of handwriting that yesterday would have been thrown into the fire, but today is picked up and kept as a relic; and at times, bursting through the quietness which must be gained, or at least assumed, the cruel craving for one word more-one kiss more for only one five minutes of the eternally ended yesterday!

All this hundreds have gone through; so did Hilary. She said afterward it was good for her that she did; it would make her feel for others in a way she had never felt before. Also, because it taught her that such a heartbreak can be borne and lived through when help is sought where only real help can be found; and where, when reason fails, and those who, striving to do right irrespective of the consequences, cry out against their torments, and wonder why they should be made so to suffer, childlike faith comes to their rescue. For, let us have all the philosophy at our fingers' ends, what are we but children? We know not what a day may bring forth. All wisdom resolves itself into the

This letter she read aloud to Johanna, whose failing eyesight refused all candlelight occupation, and then came and sat beside her in silence. She felt terribly worn and weary, but she was very quiet now.

"We must go to bed early," was all she said.

"Yes, my child."

And Johanna smoothed her hair in the old, fond way, making no attempt to console her, but only to love her-always the safest consolation. And Hilary was thankful that never, even in her sharpest agonies of grief, had she betrayed that secret which would have made her sister's life miserable, have blotted out the thirty years of motherly love, and caused the other love to rise up like a cloud between her and it, never to be lifted until Johanna sank into the possibly not faroff grave.

"No, no," she thought to herself, as she looked on that frail old face, which even the secondary grief of this last week seemed to have made frailer and older. "No, it is better as it is; I believe I did right. The end will show."

The end was nearer than she thought. it faded into old age-beautiful and beloved So, sometimes-not often, lest self-sacrifice even then. All the strong nature of the man should become a less holy thing than it is- gave way; he wept almost like a child in his Providence accepts the will for the act, and "little woman's arms. makes the latter needless.

Let us leave them there, by that peaceful

There was a sudden knock at the hall- fireside-these two, who are to sit by one door.

"It is the young people coming in to supper."

"It's not " said Hilary, starting up "it's not their knock. It is—"

She never finished the sentence, for she was sobbing in Robert Lyon's arms.

"What does it all mean?" cried the bewildered Johanna, of whom, I must confess, for once nobody took the least notice.

It meant that, by one of these strange accidents, as we call them, which in a moment alter the whole current of things, the senior partner had suddenly died, and his son, not being qualified to take his place in the Liverpool house, had to go out to India instead of Robert Lyon, who would now remain permanently, as the third senior partner, in England.

This news had met him at Southampton. He had gone thence direct to Liverpool, arranged affairs so far as was possible, and returned, travelling without an hour's intermission, to tell his own tidings, as was best -or as he thought it was.

Perhaps at the core of his heart lurked the desire to come suddenly back, as, it is said, if the absent or the dead could come, they would find all things changed: the place filled up in home and hearth-no face of welcome no heart leaping to heart in the ecstasy of reunion.

Well, if Robert Lyon had any misgivings -and being a man, and in love, perhaps he had-they were ended now.

fireside as long as they live. Of their further fortune we know nothing-nor do they themselves-except the one fact, in itself joy enough for any mortal cup to hold, that it will be shared together. Two at the hearth, two abroad; two to labor, two to rejoice; or, if so it must be, two to weep, and two to comfort one another: the man to be the head of the woman, and the woman the heart of the man. This is the ordination of God; this is the perfect life; none the less perfect that so many fall short of it.

So let us bid them good-by: Robert Lyon and Hilary Leaf, " Good-by; God be with ye!" for we shall see them no more.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ELIZABETH stood at the nursery-window pointing out to little Henry how the lilacs and laburnums were coming into flower in the square below, and speculating with him whether the tribes of sparrows which they boxes on the window-sill would be building had fed all winter from the mignonette nests in the tall trees of Russell Square; for she wished, with her great aversion to London, to make her nursling as far as possible a "country" child.

Master Henry Leaf Ascott was by no means little now. He would run about on his tottering fat legs, and he could say,

66

Mammy Lizzie," also, "Pa-pa," as had been carefully taught him by his conscientious nurse. At which papa had been at first excessively surprised, then gratified, and had at last taken kindly to the appellation as a

"Is she glad to see me ?" was all he could
find to say when, Johanna having consider-matter of course.
ately vanished, he might have talked as much
as he pleased.

Hilary's only answer was a little, low laugh
of inexpressible content.

He lifted up between his hands the sweet
face, neither so young nor so pretty as it had
been, but oh! so sweet, with the sweetness
that long outlives beauty-a face that a man
might look on all his lifetime and never tire
of-so infinitely loving, so infinitely true!
And he knew it was his wife's face to shine
upon
him day by day, and year by year, till

It inaugurated a new era in Peter Ascott's life. At first twice a-week, and then every day, he sent up for " Master Ascott" to keep him company at dessert; he then changed his dinner-hour from half-past six to five, because Elizabeth, with her stern sacrifice of everything to the child's good had suggested to him, humbly but firmly, that late hours kept little Henry too long out of his bed. He gave up his bottle of port and his afterdinner sleep, and took to making water-lilies and caterpillars out of oranges, and boats out

Elizabeth, punctual as clock-work, knocked at the dining-room door, she heard father and son laughing together in a most jovial manner, though the decanters were in their places and the wine-glasses untouched.

And even after the child disappeared the butler declared that master usually took quietly to his newspaper, or rang for his tea, or perhaps dozed harmlessly in his chair till bedtime.

of walnut-shells, for his boy's special edifica- | her "baby." This love-the only beautiful tion. Sometimes when, at half-past six, emotion her life had known, was the one fragment that remained of it after her death; the one remembrance she left to her child. Little Henry was not in the least like her, nor yet like his father. He took after some forgotten type, some past generation of either family, which re-appeared in this as something new. To Elizabeth he was a perfect revelation of beauty and infantile fascination. He filled up every corner of her heart. She grew fat and flourishing, even cheerful; so cheerful that she bore with equanimity the parting with her dear Miss Hilary, who went away in glory and happiness as Mrs. Robert Lyon, to live in Liverpool, and Miss Leaf with her. Thus both Elizabeth's youthful dreams ended in nothing, and it was more than probable that for the future, their lives and hers being so widely apart, she would see very little of her beloved mistresses any more. But they had done their work in her and for her; and it had borne fruit a hundred-fold, and would still.

I do not allege that Peter Ascott was miraculously changed; people do not change, especially at his age; externally he was still the same pompous, overbearing, coarse man. with whom, no doubt, his son would have a tolerably sore bargain in years to come. But still the child had touched a soft corner in his heart, the one soft corner which in his youth had yielded to the beauty of Miss Selina Leaf; and the old fellow was a better old fellow than he had once been. Probably, with care, he might be for the rest of his life at least manageable.

Elizabeth hoped so for his boy's sake, and little as she liked him, she tried to conquer her antipathy as much as she could. She always took care to treat him with extreme respect, and to bring up little Henry to do the same. And, as often happens, Mr. Ascott began gradually to comport himself in a manner deserving of respect. He ceased his oaths and his coarse language; seldom flew into a passion; and last, not least, the butler avouched that master hardly ever went to bed "muzzy" now. Toward all his domestics, and especially to his son's nurse, he behaved himself more like a master and less like a tyrant; so that the establishment at Russell Square went on in a way more peaceful than had ever been known before.

There was no talk of his giving it a new mistress; he seemed to have had enough of matrimony. Of his late wife he never spoke; whether he loved her or not, whether he had regretted her or not, the love and regret were now alike ended.

Poor Selina! It was Elizabeth only, who, with a sacred sense of duty, occasionally talked to little Henry about "mamma up there"-pointing to the blank bit of blue sky over the trees of Russell Square, and hoped in time to make him understand something about her, and how she had loved him,

"I know you will take care of this child he is the hope of the family," said Miss Leaf, when she was giving her last kiss to little Henry. "I could not bear to leave him, if I were not leaving him with you."

And Elizabeth had taken her charge proudly in her arms, knowing she was trusted, and inwardly vowing to be worthy of that trust.

Another dream was likewise ended; so completely that she sometimes wondered if it was ever real, whether she had ever been a happy girl, looking forward as girls do to wifehood and motherhood; or whether she had not been always the staid, middle-aged person she was now, whom nobody ever suspected of any such things.

She had been once back to her old home, to settle her mother comfortably upon a weekly allowance, to 'prentice her little brother, to see one sister married, and the other sent off to Liverpool to be servant to Mrs. Lyon. While at Stowbury, she had heard by chance of Tom Cliffe's passing through the town as a Chartist lecturer, or something of the sort, with his pretty, showy London wife, who, when he brought her there, had looked down rather contemptuously upon the street where Tom was born,'

This was all Elizabeth knew about them. They, too, had passed from her life as phases

of keen joy and keener sorrow do pass, like | be something unnatural about the woman,
a dream and the shadows of a dream. It and man likewise, who can ever quite for-
may be life itself will seem at the end to be get it-the dew of their youth-the beauty
nothing more.
of their dawn.

But Elizabeth Hand's love-story was not
'so to end.

"Poor Tom, poor Tom!" sighed Elizabeth, "my own poor Tom!"

She forgot Esther; either from Tom's not mentioning her, or in the strong return to old times which his letter produced; forgot her for the time being as completely as if she had never existed. Even when the rec

One morning, the same morning when she had been pointing out the lilacs to little Henry, and now came in from the square with a branch of them in her hand, the postman gave her a letter, the handwriting of which made her start as if it had been a vis-ollection came it made little difference. itation from the dead.

The sharp jealousy, the dislike and contempt, had all calmed down; she thought she could now see Tom's wife as any other woman. Especially if, as the letter indicated, they were so very poor and miserable.

"Mammy Lizzie, Mammy Lizzie!" cried little Henry, plucking at her gown, but for once his nurse did not notice him. She stood on the door-step, trembling violently; at length she put the letter into her pocket, Possibly Esther had suggested writing it. lifted the child, and got up-stairs somehow. Perhaps, though Tom did not, Esther did When she had settled her charge to his mid-"want to get something out of her "—Elizday sleep, then, and not till then, did she take out and read the few lines, which though written on shabby paper, and with more than one blot, were so like-yet so terribly unlike-Tom's caligraphy of old :·

abeth Hand, who was known to have large wages, and to be altogether a thriving person? Well, it mattered little. The one fact remained: Tom was in distress; Tom needed her; she must go.

Her only leisure time was of an evening, after Henry was in bed. The intervening child was down-stairs with his father, calmed hours, especially the last one, when the

“DEAR ELIZABETH,-I have no right to ask any kindness of you: but if you would like to see an old friend alive, I wish you would come and see me. I have been long of asking you, lest you might fancy I her: subdued the tumult of old rememwanted to get something out of you; for brances that came surging up and beating I'm poor as a rat; and once lately I saw at the long-shut door of her heart. When you, looking so well and well-to-do. But it her boy returned, leaping and laughing, and was the same kind old face, and I should playing all sorts of tricks as she put him to like to get one kind look from it before I go bed, she could smile too. And when kneelwhere I sha'n't want any kindness from anying beside her in his pretty white nightbody. However, do just as you choose. gown, he stammered through the prayer she had thought it right to begin to teach him, though of course he was too young to under

"Yours affectionately, T. CLIFFE.

"Underneath is my address.”

those who trespass against us ;" and lastly, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," struck home to his nurse's inmost soul.

It was one of those wretched nooks in stand it-the words "Thy will be done;" Westminster, now swept away by Victoria" Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive Street and other improvements. Elizabeth happened to have read about it in one of the many charitable pamphlets, reports, etc., which were sent continually to the wealthy Mr. Ascott, and which he sent down-stairs to light fires with. What must not poor Tom have sunk to before he had come to live there? His letter was like a cry out of the depths, and the voice was that of her youth, her first love.

Is any woman ever deaf to that? The love may have died a natural death: many first loves do: a riper, completer, happier love may have come in its place: but there must

"Mammy, Mammy Lizzie's 'tying!"

Yes, she was crying, but it did her good. She was able to kiss her little boy, who slept like a top in five minutes; then she took off her good silk gown, and dressed. herself; soberly and decently, but so that people should not suspect, in that low and dangerous neighborhood, the sovereigns that she carried in an underpocket, ready to use as occasion required. Thus equipped, she

Me, Tom. But don't speak. Sit down man's strength, sometimes found in the till your cough's over."