not realized this? We belong most to | desire, and it turned to ashes in their God when we are most pitied by men. We are partakers of Christ's sufferings, and we enter dimly into the glory which shall be revealed.'

to us some of His deep secrets? Have-immovable, unchangeable forever.

The hunting-season had begun in earnest, and Geraldine saw little of her husband; but she fancied, when she did, that there was a shade more kindness in his manner to her, and that sometimes, in the evenings, he watched her, with a puzzled and pitying expression on his face. That he was more gentle and considerate, there could not be a doubt; and he found time occasionally to caress the beautiful little being who had committed the sad mistake, in his eyes, of being a girl instead of a boy.

path steep, your difficulties wellnighterest.
insurmountable, your failures more
than you can count, your pain too
great for human endurance; but your
sweat has never turned to blood upon
your forehead as His did-He who had
never sinned.
Can you not endure
something for Him? Come to-day to
His table and try. 'Eat of that bread,
and drink of that cup,' and try to en-
ter into the life which was led for you
and for me-the only life which was
ever led on earth without one thought
of self in it. And 'the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in the knowl-
edge and love of God; and the bless-
ing of God Almighty, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost, be among you
and remain with you always.' Amen."

Geraldine fetched the child from the nursery every morning as soon as breakfast was over and Colonel Trevelyan had departed for the day, and kept her with her as long as she was permitted by the nursery authorities to have her. She dreaded being alone. The peace which had raised her above earth and its jars on that Sunday morning we have described, had not lasted it never does; it never can, as

Geraldine fell on her knees, and prayed then, and during the solemn service which followed, as she had never prayed before. In after-years how she thanked God for the peace of that day, and that her heart had been long as we remain in the flesh. Grief

melted and turned to Him, that all bitterness and anger had gone out of it, and that only peace and love were there the love which is not of this earth, and which strives faintly to imitate His love who gave us all!

CHAPTER XX.

"Then in life's goblet freely press
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored waters less;
For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give."

A WEEK went by-a week unbroken by any excitement, almost by any in

has many phases; and just now it took with her the form of a dull, heavy pain, which never left her either sleeping or waking, and which was almost like physical torture. She wondered what had happened to her when first she opened her eyes in the morning. She lay down at night with an intolerable aching sense of unrest-an aching which seemed to affect her body as well as her mind, and wellnigh wore her out. She tried to work; she read for hours, without remembering what the book was about or feeling the least interest in it-or, indeed, in any thing. She put her drawing quite

away, and never even looked at it. | God gives to all, which Christ puts

into our hands and bids us use?

At other times she caught herself watching for letters-waking with the hope that one would come that morning. She did not the least realize what she expected him to say, or why she thought he would write. She wondered if he suffered as she did, and whether he would ever tell her so. Then she recoiled from herself in hor

Her life seemed suddenly to stand still. All this time she had only cried once, and that was when the child fell and hurt itself, and the poor little thing stopped its own weeping to look with pathetic wonder at mamma, and stroke the soft cheeks, which had become visibly thinner and whiter in the last few days. The little Geraldine was, no doubt, her best help and comfort through these weary hours. No lov-ror, and spent hours in abject selfing, unselfish woman's heart can be sad always when a child is present; and the mother found herself laughing sometimes; and as she carried the little creature about with her, or chased-to look for happiness and sympathy her in the long conservatory, the shadow would leave her face, and the babysmiles were reflected in the woman, who felt as if she should never smile again, and yet who had barely lived a quarter of the time allotted to us in this world.

|

abasement. Had she grown wicked, cruel, unwomanly, that she could wish Arthur to be unhappy, his wife to be neglected and unloved as she had been

in her home, as all true women must, and not find it-to be disappointed always-to live with an aching void in her heart-as she had lived for years?

After this she forced herself to pray for them both; and those names we bring with us to God's footstool must become dear to us; so, in time, she hoped she should be able to give a sister's love to the woman who called Arthur l'Estrange husband; the woman who seemed to her blessed indeed, blessed above the common lot of humanity, and over whom a halo had already fallen; for was she not his wife

Sometimes she forgot what had happened, and wondered he did not come: he had been there so many autumns, it did not seem Trevelyan without him. She avoided the picturegallery, and never trusted herself to sing now. Who was there to care what she did? Sometimes she passed hours on her-protected by him, belonging to him, knees; at others even prayer seemed loved by him? She moaned aloud at denied to her. She loathed herself this. But she could not weep; tears for this. But who that has suffered never come to eyes which ache and intensely has not felt at times that scorch as hers did. The struggle was they will fight by themselves, fight to beginning to tell upon her, and even the death-that they will not be con- her husband perceived the change, quered or yield-though for the mo- when one evening, as she sat under ment they refuse the weapons which the full blaze of a lamp, he watched

COLONEL TREVELYAN'S ACCIDENT.

95

her doing some fine work for the baby, | night had come-come as it must to and marked the drooping of the mouth end the longest and dreariest day. which had been like a rose-bud, and The doctors have done all that is poshad laughed all over, not so long ago sible-to alleviate the anguish was the either, in sunny sweetness. She raised only thing left for them—they have her eyes, and tried to smile when he said all they have to say, and have at spoke to her, but the smile faded im- last retired into the room adjoining mediately into blank weariness sadder that where their patient lies. than any weeping.

So Geraldine keeps her mournful vigil alone. She has been told that he

Not many days later she had need will never awake again to full conof all her courage, all her self-control.sciousness-never even know her beColonel Trevelyan had gone out hunt- fore he dies. ing as usual, and was brought home.

They tried to break it to her gently; but how can you soften or tell well such tidings as these?

The master of hounds, an old friend of her husband's, had ridden at once to the station, and telegraphed for the London surgeons, and their own doctor had reached Trevelyan even before his patient. He took a sanguine view of the case; but the other men saw directly what had happened.

Geraldine was at first almost too stunned to take in what they meant. She listened, but hardly comprehended.

Colonel Trevelyan had had the most perfect health; with the exception of an occasional trifling indisposition, and one slight accident, she had never seen him ill during all the years they had been married.

Now, without any warning, this had come. An accident is always terrible and startling, and in such a case as this, how unspeakably awful!

She gazes on the beautiful sculptured face, rigid but still beautiful, and thinks over their married life. So many years of married life without love! She almost wishes that it might begin over again, with the experience she has gained as an older woman; she fancies matters might have been different, had they started better; forgetting that seventeen is too early an age for one to take all the responsibility and do all the guiding both in principle and religion.

It was a sad mental review, and she shuddered as she recollected all she had suffered, and how weary she had often felt of a thraldom which was soon to cease forever. No good woman can come into contact with death under such circumstances and not grieve. Keenly and deeply Geraldine was grieving, and through it all there ran the sad under-current of what a separated false life it had been to both. Had she loved him, would it have been different?—that was the burden of her cry. Perhaps she had not tried enough. Did it please God to spare

The long day was ended, and the his life now, she felt that nothing

should be wanting on her part-no ef- | with her two little children, and that the companionship and protection of years to which no gentle woman is indifferent was even then being severed.