be gracious unto you and give you peace!"

In all the liturgy of our venerable church there is no formula of devotion that pleases me more than this pastoral salutatory—this lifting up of holy hands in the sanctuary and blessing the people out of Zion;-a blessing that awes wandering thoughts into solemnity, and falls upon the week-worn heart, dusty with cares, and perchance hardened by suffering or distracted by doubts, like the dew 'of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing-even life for evermore.

"THE LORD GIVE YOU PEACE!"

The bending heavens seem to repeat it to the earth, as we turn from the main thoroughfare and drive home through unfrequented lanes and beside still waters. Drive slowly, for the day is warm, although not sultry, and there is nothing to hurry us. It is Sabbath everywhere, even in households that have sent few or no representatives to the great congregation. Oxen and horses browse idly in the pasture, or lie at their ease under the birches and willows. Empty wagons stand beside the "barracks" of hay and grain. Scythes, reapers, ploughs and harrows, are huddled together under the tool shed, and the brawny fellows who handled them yesterday sit in the vine-covered "stoops," or lounge upon the grass in the shade, with shaven faces, clean hands, and in holiday attire. There is wonderful refining power in the stated day of rest, and in this land, he who fails to recognize and yield, in a perceptible measure, to it is a bad citizen as well as thankless and godless.

I have said that there is no occasion for haste in our return. We rarely attend the second service held in another and more remote quarter of the parish. Nor do I shame to confess that a post-prandial siesta is a Sunnybank institution on Sabbath. Forty-seven weeks of laborthe threefold tension of brain, heart and nerves upon the vital forces have told sensibly, if not alarmingly upon the Dominie's bodily vigor. Twice forty-seven

sermons and almost as many lectures, not to enumerate funeral, philanthropic, educational and anniversary addresses, have drawn upon his mental resources, until to the apprehension of the one who knows him best, his works of affection and patience; his efforts, his anxieties and discouragements,—there is a new and sorrowful meaning in the text of the last discourse he delivered to the people of his love, before the summer's separation— "Faint-yet pursuing."

Let him slumber then to the lullaby of whispering leaves and the wash of drowsy waves among the pebbles. This is his harvest-time of health and refreshment, and the sound, childlike repose that seals his senses against the interruptions of the outer world, is such recuperative sleep as the Father gives his beloved. The air is cooler when he awakes and there is a livelier, more crisp rustle in the tree-tops, the sound of a going, like the patter of innumerable fairy feet, premonitory of evening freshness. The sweeter sound that fairly arouses the half-dreaming man,as he lies, hearkening, with drooping lids to Nature's vespers, is the tapping of small fingers upon the panels of the door and winning voices piping through the key-hole.

"Won't you please walk up the hill with us, Papa. It is ever so lovely now, out-of-doors!"

In this sequestered region we have not the restraining dread before our eyes of the effect of a Sabbath afternoon ramble upon our weak brethren, or worldlyminded neighbors. We cannot understand why we should not be able to maintain a thankfully pious spirit toward the Giver of the day and of all other mercies, while strolling in the fields and woods He has made, as when seated in an airless parlor, dutifully and dully conning a homily of man's composition and printing. The walk up the hill is taken, accordingly, the happy children running before us, along the winding road that traverses our grove. The gardener, with his comely, smiling wife, sits upon the porch-steps of the cottage at the outer gate,—a child upon each knee, and salutations are exchanged in passing.

"A pleasant afternoon, Conrad!” "I never see a nicer, sir. And everything is growing beautiful."

"HE maketh the outgoings of the evening to rejoice!" repeats the Dominie, very softly, when we have crossed the highway into the sixteen-acre lot-our latest acquisition-and stand upon the brow of the ridge.

The language of Holy Writ lies very near the lips and very warmly upon the heart, to-day.

While the seniors enjoy the view, the chattering triad of sisters flit hither and yon, filling their hands with wild-flowers, and in successful quest of curiosities in the form of patches of gray moss starred with scarlet lichens; oak-galls, in divers stages of ripeness, bits of variegated stone glittering with specks of mica they are sure must be gold and silver, particles of quartz, adjudged by them to be valuable as diamonds, and such chance conchological specimens as snails and spotted terrapins. There are berries in the lower grounds at the back of the field, but the wee maidens do not gather them on this afternoon. They made a special excursion for that purpose on Saturday, the fruits of which are stored in the ice-house for to-night's supper, and they have decided for themselves, long ago, that the harvesting of the luscious spoils is a secular pursuit. "Besides," says Flutter, prudent for once, we would stain our white dresses." It is lucky for them that it is wrong to gather berries on Sunday.

แ

They have no scruples with regard to hunting for marvellous balls, all covered with yellow fringe, in the adjacent cedar wood, or garlanding themselves with the ground-pine, trailing in long wreaths upon the earth under the taller evergreens. Their walk home is a triumphal procession of fauna, laden with greenwood trophies, and unpoetically eager for the early repast awaiting them and including some favorite dainty set out in honor of the day" to help make us like Sunday," is Brownie's explanation of the custom. The hour succeeding this is declared by all to be the happiest, as it is one of the most quiet we have known since early morn

ing. "Our story-time," is the children's name for it, and in fair weather it is spent upon the front piazza.

The sunset glory is at its height, and the bright lake, with the Gennesaret rocking lightly in the cove, makes more real to mature as to childish imaginations the tale of how One in the shape of man, plainly dressed, and of grave but kindly presence, walked the water at night, and in the storm, spoke peace and safety to the terrified and toiling sailors, and caught the hand of sinking Peter. The harvestfield where the Shunamite's only son gambolled on a sunny day among the reapers until, smitten by the heat, he cried-"My head! my head!" and was carried home to die in his mother's arms, will be always, to the pitying auditors, like that on the opposite bank in which they saw the men at work, last week, while the lofty hill, overlooking plain and lake and river, lifts its shaggy forehead against the sky, as did Carmel, when the prophet bowed himself upon the summit to pray for rain, and his servant gazed wistfully across the sea for the rising of the little cloud no bigger than a man's hand. The demand is only for Bible stories. To the yet uncorrupted hearts and pure tastes of the infant group, there is nought in the range of fiction half so beautiful.

"And-" sighs Brownie, in the fullness of her happiness, leaning against her father's shoulder, her hands clasped before her as she holds them in church—" it is so nice to think that we may believe every bit of them!"

As the last flicker of flame passes from the heavens, we sing the children's songs--the youngest choosing first, the others in their turn. Baby Belle's selection is a mere form, for we are all aware beforehand what will be her bashful lisp.

"Jesus loves me-yes, I know" is her rendering of the first line, and she says it so prettily we have not the heart to correct her. Brownie asks for, "There's rest for the weary" (would she might never need it more than now!) and Flutter's choice is, "Beautiful Zion." At the last, we join, by common consent in, "Shall we meet beyond the river," raising

CHAPTER XIX.

In the story, unhappily called Christopher Kroy, the writer is conscious that to this point no one of the characters has been so drawn as to call forth sentiments of admiration or to awaken emotions of affection; they have been made to move in certain localities, to guide certain circumstances precisely as individuals walk through the years, acting upon mankind, not through the heart, but through necessities. Well! Necessities, be they real and earnest, at least reach down to the heart; so the writer trusts, ere the story be ended, to make a touch of Nature quiver along these lines and charge some soul with a tide of full human emotion. A very common business, everyday affair is the occupation called "shopping." You think there is no sentiment in it, the searching for fabrics rare and costly, of tints as new as the spring brings to earth. You think it no pleasure for a fair woman to stand in the presence of gifts from the great looms of manufacture, surrounded by traceries of laces wrought through the frost-work of blood and muscle; you think she sees in them nothing more than silks and wools and divers lines and tints. You never made a greater mistake in your life. You comprehend not what a woman sees in that which to you is a mass of mere trumpery, and I am not about to enlighten you on that point.

Did you ever see a fair young girl, over whose life not twenty years have passed, look timidly in, at "Stewart's" perhaps, or some one of the many diamond editions of that establishment, look in and go past, only to return again, wishing, dreading, half afraid, yet urged on by some secret power, until at last, drawing nearer and nearer the vortex of that inner power, she goes in with a tremble in her voice that the clerk heeds not, nor hears, asks for cashmere or silk-common fabrics! why need she hesitate? The color must be white. There is nothing unusual in that, more of white is sold than of any color. She

is "hard to suit," possibly, and her hand trembles as the fingers pass over the texture. It must be of the softest, finest, best, and, after all, it is nothing to you, but a breadth of cashmere or fold of silk. To her it is-well, the bridal garment of Death. Some loved one is daily passing more and more into the strange land of shadows and mysteries, and this young girl, quivering over the cashmere or silk, sees the final moment when the loved one vanishes, and thisthis mere fabric of man's make, is the flag, whose final flutter will shut out a heart, and sail with it over unknown seas. Forgive her, if standing there, she lingers over tint and texture; forgive her if she takes a minute more of time than the courtesies of trade demand; forgive her, if, after she is gone, you find a stain on the fair surface of your goods; that tear-stain has sanctified your fabric for further use, perhaps, for like purpose.

She

Zilpha Kroy went "shopping." cared little for the occupation, less for its fruits. Zilpha Kroy loved many things, with a vivid, impetuous zeal. The old mountains awoke in her a feeling akin to altar-worship. A sunset like that which crept through the oriel window on the night we first met her, made her long to put out her hand in sympathy with some old Parsee.

She could shut her eyes under some old thicket of Pines and imagine she heard something more than a common earth-wind blowing through them; but she had no fancy for shopping. So, when one day in May of a certain year, Mr. Kroy, with his accustomed mandatorial style, said to her: "Zilpha, I wish you to get ready for the summer," and to his wife gave the money for the purpose, Zilpha said, "Oh, father, how much nicer it would be to go up somewhere near your old home and take a house and live there away from almost everybody."

"Nicer for you, perhaps, Zilpha, for you seem to have no tastes suited to your position, but I tell you that I cannot afford it; so you must do as I wish."