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"Yes, and you told me you had no faith."

"I had not much just then, and I had less afterwards; but still I believe that in my inmost soul I did trust always, though very feebly. And, as I told you, when all seemed lost, when my very soul could only cry out of the depths, when the darkness was thickest and the floods most turbulent, the morningstar arose, and there was a great calm. He, who centuries ago trod the raging sea of Galilee, spoke to my troubled heart, and it was hushed to peace. After that, though there were still temporal anxieties, and isolation from friends, and then failing health, all was well I never doubted again."

"And now God has blessed your efforts. He has brought you out of the terrible pit into a wealthy place, and all is well with you."

"Yes, thank God, all is well. I hope I should say so, even if outward circumstances were seemingly evil; but just now it is all a calm, soft sunshine that lights my path. I have plenty of work, and I love it. I have no longer any pecuniary anxieties: I have but

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"Forgive me for being so abrupt, Agnes; but I am not so impulsive as I seem. I have hoped for three years that the day might come when I might say this to you—that one care only you can remove. Could you believe in me after all my rashness—after all the mistakes I have made? Could you take me I am, and hope to make me better?"

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"I can quite believe in you-fully trust you."

"Then, Agnes, you will crown the happiness of my fortunes; you will be my wife?"

"Yes, some day!

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"Not a very distant day, I hope. What is there to wait for? We are neither of us very young; and the home I have already may soon be prepared for your reception."

In vain Sir John and I waited luncheon that day. It was more than three o'clock when, crossing the

The old gentleman died, and in his will, which was most carefully drawn up, he left all he possessed, without reservation, to "his beloved grand-niece, Agnes Craven." We imagined it might be several hundreds a year: it turned out to be many thousands. "And I am so glad that Cyril knew nothing," said Agnes to me one day, when she and my guardian had been having what seemed to me an inordinately long talk in the study. "If he had guessed how rich I was, he would never have proposed: and I am afraid I should never have had the courage to let him know. I was only waiting to be asked; and so, miserable money, which so often divides friends, and lovers, and kindred, would have separated us."

"When will you tell him?"

"When I am his wife, I think."

"My dear child, there will be the settlements."

"I will do without them. Listen, Janet. Monkswood is in the market again; it has been for some weeks. It is to be sold by private treaty, and I, with Sir John's consent, have given directions to my lawyers, Oldknow and Griffin, to purchase it for me. I wish it, of course, to become Cyril's, unshackled by any settlements; to be his own again, as if it had never passed out of the possession of the Denhams. The small income which my father left me, and which has marvellously increased under Sir John's management, shall be settled upon myself, because Cyril wishes it. He thinks it is all my fortune. But when he marries he will become once more, solely and unconditionally, master of Monkswood."

The wedding, in spite of Cyril's impatience, was not to take place till the spring. He went back to town, to work hard through the winter; unlike the bee, he said, improving the wintry hours, and making honey during the days of nipping frost and heavy fog, to devour it in the pleasant summer-time, when the blossoms and the birds, and the laughing skies should say, “Come forth! come forth! to the sunshine and the flowers."

So he worked away diligently all through the winter 'months, only running down very often on the Saturday afternoon to Forest Range, and returning to town on the Monday; and the whole of Christmas he spent with us. And Elizabeth and he met once more; but in the pale, sad, grave woman we called Mrs. Gower, he scarcely recognised the careless, brilliant beauty who had won his heart, and essayed to crush it as ruthlessly as the boy destroys the gorgeous butterfly he has pursued.

They were friends again very soon: and no one rejoiced more sincerely than poor Elizabeth at the marriage, that was fixed for an early week in April.

And the snowdrops came, and then the early violets, and the weeks were few before the wedding-day. And when all things were quite ready, and Monkswood really in Agnes's possession, she, by Sir John's advice, confessed to her betrothed how rich she was, and what she had done with some thousands of her wealth. Sir John thought it best that there should be no mystery, not even a joyful and an innocent one. He could not bear the idea of any secret between these two, who were on the eve of a solemn union. So Cyril was told, and his astonishment was, of course, not to be described; and Agnes was glad, when the wedding-day arrived, that the story was already related. She would have been sorry for a surprise to have marred the still, deep, quiet happiness of her bridal hours.

The Rev. Samuel Pumphrey was Cyril's best man. He was about to be married himself, but not to Mary Jane, or to the provision dealer's daughter. He had chosen wisely, and his prospects were nearly as unclouded as his friend's; but I could not help thinking that Cyril was almost as dear to him as his promised lady-love, who was my sister bridesmaid.

My tale is ended. If you want to visit Mr. and Mrs. Denham, you must go and search the pleasant neighbourhood of Highgate Hill-the west hill I mean— or call upon them at Monkswood, where they spend

the fairest part of every year. The Rattenburys have returned from Russia, and they, too, live at Highgate or thereabouts, for their position now enables them to dispense with the economies of Pibroch Place. Agnes and Minnie are fast friends; they became intimate at once; and the boys still hail with delight the appearance of their "jolly Uncle Cillill." But Toodlums can say "Cyril" now, and he insists on being called by his registered and baptismal name, Edwin; and he grandly patronizes the two little Denhams, and tells them he knew their papa when he, Edwin, was quite a little boy-years and years before they were born, indeed-which, to little Cyril, and to wee Barbara, seems a very long while indeed.

Cyril has lately written a book, and a very successful one it is-successful in the greatest as well as in the least point of view; and it is all about that muchabused dame, "Fortune;" and on the title-page, by way of motto, are inscribed these lines :

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown,
With that wild wheel we go not up or down ;

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown, and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man, and master of his fate!
Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd:
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate."

"Yes! by God's grace, man may say so much," says Cyril, when he reads the new title-page, fresh from the publisher's warehouse. "I have written here the story of a woman's fortunes: but now that you have turned authoress yourself, I shall leave it to you to write 'The Fortunes of Cyril Denham.'”

FINIS.

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