CHRISTABEL:

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6003, 12 February 1881, Page 2

CHRISTABEL:

' A NOVELETTE.* BY MKS. LEITH ADAMS, Lutlior of "Madelon Lemoino," "Winstow-," "My Land of Beulah," "Aunt Hopseya Foundling," Ac., &c. CHAPTER IV. s Uny were tlie strange rumoure about the loines at the Glen in these days. How ao ;hose things get about of which none hut t\\ o >r three in a household are cognizant, and | :hose two or three all interested in keeping them from the outside world ? Sometimes it would seem as though the very walls haci ears, and the birds of the air a voice to spread things abroad. . It was known and discussed ill all its possible and impossible bearings that Lady Deane had fallen into a deep swoon while talking with Sir Edgar in her own special apartment; that he had been well-nigh distraught with love and fear; that the family physician had pi-eseribea lor her entire and perfect rest of mind and body ; so far it was comprehensible that things should become known in the neighbourhood ; but who first started the supposition that Deane Glen was haunted? Who added thereunto the perfectly gratuitous hypothesis that Michael Daly, the old family servant, walked in his sleep, and frightened the other inmates of the house out of their proper wits? As time rolled on rumour, that snowball that once set a-rolling grows bigger as it rolls, added to all this fears about Sir Edgar s health, not so much his physical condition as a moody and abstracted state of mind, slicv. n by long, solitary rambles extended far on into the night, and by this and that eccentric habit. Speaking of Lady Deane people said, '' Poor soul! has she not had trouble enough ? Then they put their heads close together and lowered their voices, as they added, "is the doom of his house coming on that handsome son of lier's ? Is there going to be another Mad Deane ?'' She did not know that people talked of her and hers in this way; life, I think, would lose all its brightness for most of us if we knew how others speak of us and our affairs—happily we don't —and no wise man or woman will ever seek to tear aside this veil of ignorance that is, in truth, a shelter from the storm and *' a covert from the tempest." She lived her life utterly alone ; more so, ill truth,even than heretofore. Sbe used to sit at the window, book in hand, every now and then raising her eyes to the fair pleasaunce around the stately home tliathad been to herso lacking in all peace and joy,—that might have been so different had she willed it so. Sometimes she saw the two figures. Sir Edgar and his dog, crossing the landscape that lay outspread before her eyes ; the master walking rapidly along, taking 110 heed of anything to right or left of liim, the dog following at his heel; except at meal-times she saw little of the strange pair save thus at a distance. The groom said that Sir Edgar's horse ' was eating his head off" in the stable ' : Why do you never ride now?" said Ladj Deane, speaking with a timidity that was new and strange to see in one hitherto sc self-reliant. "Walking tires me best," he answered, and left her. In her distress and perplexity in the horrible haunting fears that possessee lier—fears in which poor " Mad Sir Gilbert,' that other Mad Deane who had gone before, and the look upon the face of her husbanc the last time she ever saw it in life, playec no small part—she turned to that humble but faithful friend, Michael Daly. " What shall we do?" she cried, wringinf her hands, all her pride broken down, al her haughty reserve laid aside in the keer suffering of the moment. " 'Deed an' I'm hard put to it to kno« myself," said poor old Daly, who was read\ to wring his hands too, and in some sorl blamed himself for the state of affairs. "I've a notion Master 'Gar has never beer rightly himself since the night when, like the dodderin' fool I am, I got dreaming ant shouting in my sleep, and being as my room 1 ! just overhead to his,'lie heard me and ccjiik up to see what mad divarsions I was carryinj 011 with. I'd been dreaming about— about—" but here Daly realized that his zeal had much outrun his discretion, ane that he was getting into very mines anc quicksands of embarrassing topics. "I know," she said, quickly, "he told me," and Daly breathed more freely. "I'm thinking," he said, "as the grouse and such like creatures whose season is nigl: at hand might divert his attention, anl set him thinking of asking a few young gentlemen like himself to waken up the old house with their lively talk and their nonsense. H would be more natural like, my lady, to see him with the like of them about him than going about for ever with no company bul his own, and walking such stretches of miles at times, that he just throws himself on his bed when he comes in and sleeps there in his clothes, and them as damp as if he had beer laying 011 the grass with the dew thick 01 it." She put her hand up wearily to her forehead, and Daly thought he heard her moan. The old man knew nothing of that elreae "vision of the night" in the gun-room That secret must for ever rest between these two, mother and son—to her the image of an excited anel disordered brain, to him a fear ful experience that had changeel the eolour and current of his life. The autumr wore away, the dreary winter passed, anc then, with the first spring flowers, came f dawn of light npon the dull grey world oi Lady Deane's life. Sir Etlgar's best anel closest friend, Arthur Ffoliott, came home from long wanderings in the East, undertaker for the sake of his health, he came to stay af the Glen, anel Daly's heart was rejoiced bj seeing things "look more natural like," and by hearing the souiul of cheerful voices anel merry laughter where all had been so sileut. For Arthur Ffoliott was the very cliceriest of mortals, and that in spite of health sc fragile that people were wont to speak of him as a man " with one foot in the grave ;" be that as it might, he made good use of the one left liim for the active purposes of life, arid, even in times of much physical exhaustion, never a word of repining crosseel his lips. Lady Deane felt the influence of his bright smile, and the blue eyes so like a boy's in their ready gleam of fun. Ecb'ar's rambles were no longer solitary ; and their length had to be proportioned tc the strength, or rather the weakness, of his companion. Late hours, extending fai towards morning, were also abandoned, and the young master of Glen Deane began te: look, as Daly said, chuckling in the exuberance of liis content, " More like himself," adding, in a muttering voice meant foi no one's cars but his own, "and less like the master." From dawn to day is but a natural step, anel soon, though it came in a form that tlic mother would hardly have perhaps cliosei had she had her own way, the last traces ol morbid restlessness and moody melancholj disappeared from the young heart they had so peii'.ously overshadowed. The sunshine of a girl's smiles, the light ill her guileless eyes, were the sweet influences that drove these mists away ; and Kdgar Deane's life became an idyll of which the sweet refrain was Christabel ! They had been playmates in the days oi | long ago, and tlironuh the passing years had ; met betimes, each time forging a new link oi I the chain that was winding about the heart i of the boy-lover. Eelgar used to think his little love was j like a flower that every time he saw it had crown into some new beauty. He noted, too, each change in her outwarel appearancefirst, the waving mane of "rippling locks, simply put back from her sunny face by ?. long comb, and then these locks imprisoned, as became her riper, and—heaven save the mark !—her staider years, in two long plaits that made sweet Christie Clare look like Gretelien before she went to that village festival and met with Faust. It was not only that Christabel was fairer than all other women in Eelgar Deane s eyes, but she was, by one o£ those- eager impulses that ruled his life, destined by liim to become tlie ideal wife and companion that he craved. Of her suitability for the rot?, I fear lie was but little qualified to judge ; far calm judgment was not his forte at any time, still less so uiieler the glamour of a passion as true as it was headstrong. Nay, his love for Christabel was even more than this, it was one of those precious " schemes" which he was always evolving out of the life within him, anil the life around liim—the longing and determination to mould the girl into the woman—to have no other influence than his own hold any sway in a kingdom that should be organized wholly by himself. That, with all his tenderness towards Lady Deane, these elrcams anel hopes had never been shared with her—only went to prove how little real sympathy of thought and feeling there was between his character and hcr's ; a want that the boy had often felt in years past, and that now the man had learned to live in his own world without. It was from the lips of Arthur Ffoliott that Edgar's mother first learned the story * The right of republishing "Christabel" in Xe-.v Zta--1 lanel h i:, been purchascel by tlw pvoprietors of the ' iTeW ZtAUVKD UcitALD.

of this lfelong love. He, wholly suppressing uiy sign of surprise at her entire ignorance of the matter, spoke gently and tenderly of his friend's career when abroad, of the zeal with which lie worked, of the high standard up to which he lived, so different to that of many of those around him, and then lie touched upon the sweet and holy influence that had been at work, " the maiden passion for a maid," that had kept the waters of life's fountain crystal clear. Love, however deep and true, cannot change the nature in which it exists, though it may chasten that nature ; and Lady Deane as she paced slowly up and down the terrace walk that was one of the great beauties of the Glen with Arthur Ffoliott by her side, fought a hard fi Jit with the jealousy and love of sway that had wrecked her past life so sadly, before she could speak of Edgar and his love for this girl Christabel, the child she remembered as his playmate long ago, the pretty maiden she had met at Lady Graham's only a week ago. •'Edgar is always full of great ideas of what he is to do one day," she said, at last, when a choking sensation in her throat that had "made speaking difficult, was overcome, '' and you who are his eilbeloved jidu.t J chate-s, his second self, must know as well as I do that these great things are not always wise things—that they are dreams of Utopia—castles in the air—not palaces that can be laved in." "I know all that and more; but, dear Lady Deane, believe me this is a wise thing upon which 'Gar's he<u*t is now set. If can win this girl's love it will be an abiding rest to him." "If ?" she said, with a regal motion of her classic head. 41 There is little of that in tilt: question I should say ; the girl is poor, a sort of proMgtSe of your friend Lady Graham's. She is destined, if I am not mistaken, to become an English teacher in the foreign school where she has been herself educated by your friend Lady Graham. My sou is wealthy and titled." Arthur Ffoliott gave a quick glance at the clear profile of the woman at his side ; yes, he knew now to a hair's breadth wherein lay the want of sympathy between this I mother and her soil, the man who was deal to him as his own life. | "You have not seen much of Christabe. Clare or you would scarcely judge he sc I hardly," he said, quietly, vet with a tone that carried weight. A faint colour rose t< Lady Deaue's cheek; perhaps from 110 om else, save from Arthur Ffoliott, would sin have deigned to take an implied reproof. " I do not mean to judge her hardly,'' sin said, "still, she does not look to me like : fool." 41 No, she is not that, or I should hanlh think her worthy of being Edgar's wife. Sin is quite unformed and undisciplined in mine and character; but, as lie said to me las night over our cigars, ' She has the making of a grand woman about her.' There can b< no greater proof of this, I think, than th fact that what you spoke of just now, he determination to make an independence fo herself, is entirely her own doing, l'erliap you already know that she is the child of on of Lady Graham's oldest friends, that she i in every sense by birth and by connections gentlewoman, but that her father, one of th most unfortunate of men, died in grea poverty, and her mother did not long surviv him. Some paltry income, if one can call i by such a name, is all that Christabi possesses in the world, and yet, so highl do Sir Dennis and Lady Graham estiinat her, that no daughter of their, own could b dearer." After this came a long silence, broken a last by Arthur himself. •' Will you pardon me, Lady Deane, if seem to take too much upon myself in wha I am going to say ? "Will you let the rc membranee of my friendship for one we bot love plead for me if such a thought arises i: your inind and arrays itself against me?' She bent her head, but spoke 110 word. " When I came home, the other day, an ran down here in answer to 'Gar's urgen letter, I was shocked, more shocked than could say, to see the change that but a fei months had brought about." "In my son?" she said, putting her han up to her throat as if something stifled her. ''111 your son—1113' dearest friend. ' There were rare moments in this woman life when the hard nature softened for moment, and this was 011 cof them. Somt thing in the intonation of the words, "111 dearest friend," went home to that hidde spot of tenderness that lurked somewhere i lier heart, and as she turned her sad, dar eyes upon the face of the man beside lie: that gentle, happy face which yet so plainl bore the signs of coming death, the grer tears rose and dimmed her sight. '' I am not like another might be, he went on, the sweet smile that was s peculiar to him hovering faintly round tli lips that spoke their own doom, "uotlik anyone who could look forward to seeing th liappy future of those they love—with me i is here to-day, and may be gone to-morrow so that I cannot very well put oil saying thing that feels as if'it ought to he said." "I know," she said, "'Gar has told me. " I am glad of that, for it may make yo find it easier to forgive me for anything may say that seems like presumption 011 111; part." "Nothing could seem so to me," she said laying her hand a moment on his arm. " Well, I will open my mind to you then When Edgar and I were abroad together, have seen him much the same as I fouiu hiin when I came to you a month moody, abstracted, restless, full of fancie gone as soon as come. 'I am like Saul to day,' lie used to say to me, 'come and h my David.' You know, most people do, think, it being a prominent accomplishinen in consequence of being my only one, that can read out loud with some comfort to th listeners. Well, I used to read to "Gar i these restless moods of his, and (hen, whe I had read him into a state of quiet, w would go out wandering up the mountai: sides—llo," lie added, with a short, ga; laugh, "along the mountain sides I mean this clumsy heart of mine Mould soon relu against me going up anything except zig-zag like a tired horse up a hill. Well, the 11100 would pass, and I generally found that it lia been brought 011 by too close an applicatio ito one groove of study. Xow I don't kno\ what one subject dear eld 'Gar has bee brooding upon for some time back, for he ha said but little to me of what he has bee about, but he has been driving that exeitabl brain of his all one way—what way, you cai very likely judge better than I can." He could not see her face, for she liac turned away from him, aud was apparentl; watching a peacock 011 the terrace lower thai the one on which they two were pacing strutting about in the sunshine, trailing it gorgeous train proudly along the grass, a-' 1 arcliin; it shining neck like a consciou beauty. He could not see her face, but Ik could see the heaving of her breast, he eouh note the trembling of the hand which Ih-1< the shawl across it. There was another long silence duv'm; which the peacock uttered a harsh, d:-s tordant scream, and floated a thing cmarvellous beauty, aci'oss their pathway an: into the woods beyond. Then Arthur Ffoliott spoke again. " Lady Deane, we want some one to pla\ David to our Saul, and that someone lnusl be, not I, but Christabel. No one realisemore keenly than I do that there is much it tliis attachment that you might wish other wise, but I know Edgar so well, I "ovc hin so truly, that I venture to express a hop< that his mother will not oppose what I an so thoroughly convinced is for his besi happiness, nay, more, what I believe will be the—" But she broke in here with a vehement passion that startled and silenced him. " You need plead no more, Mr. l'foliott; 1 shall never raise a hand to oppose my son s will about this girl. I have seen ami mourned over what you have seen and mourned over. I felt when you came as if n li-dit had shone in upon inv darkness, as if I had some hope that 'Gar might shake oil that fatal depression that lias : one near to break my heart to sec. I know you could 110 c mean him anything but good, I know you could not be otherwise than wise for him ; if he can win this girl's love, a love that is to make him so happy, as you say, never fear that I will stand between them." She spoke with a haughty composure, but all the while the demon of jealousy was gnawing at her heart; she had for orcc fought and conquered outwardly—ithin the storm raged fiercely. As she moved awav towards the house, leaving Artliui Ffoliott standing bareheaded beneath the trees as he watched her out ot sight, she kept saying over and over to herself, thinking of her son, " I have given him up, I have given him up, the only thing I had !" Having put her hand to the plough she never looked back ; she made 110 comment upon Edgar's frequent absence at _ Lady Graham's, though the many miles' drive or ride there and back made her whole day lonely. When Arthur Ffoliott left the Glen she made 110 allusion to the subject that had been discussed upou the terrace, and never named since; but hardly were those pink ;ind white beads, the bud of the May blossom, peeping out from the hedges by the wayside,

when he hear<l that M.S3 Clai^r^^- ' otljuly Deane; and we who have ln gUtßt this history so far know that Xt, owed ' buds were blossom, down bv u,„ i ea . th ose rippled at their feet, and that stirring breast the white and F 0 ' 1 * the water-weed, Edgar Deane and rt, of wandered hand in hand as plirrhttHl t * 1 A -thur Ffoliott was vise beyond *j°. vcr ®- that were so few, and never Kkclv tn^i? many; he had proved himself a l ov ?l J2 4 and a powerful pleader, but it tak« wise man indeed to read a youii" vet y . and he had 110 idea that Christabel tin 1? she had promised to marry Sir Edgarfe. "one of those fine days," knew nn „ ne the glamour of love with its nnii H lc(l m«'° £ and tenderness, its self-forgetfulne^»'°s devotion, than the blue egg of the tlmti, • it lies warmly cradled °fu the cosT.^ knows of the glory of song and all th e dS delights 01 the summer to come. CHAPTER V. Summer had passed by with her crow, llosvers : autumn with her diadem of corn and her fruit-laden hands ; winterliadhn,»i the earth in chains, and now the snow ™ longer lingered, even in the most sheltered nooks; once more spring-time had conir. round, and littW companies of sriowdr™. lioddea their white heads above the djt mould, ringing their bells merrily in til breeze whose softness was doubly welccm after the keen blasts of winter. Buds on *fk boughs were bursting into buuehes of W curled up leaflets ; birds liopped restlessly from branch to branch, telling each other in happy, ceaseless twitterings that the Ion? beautiful life of the summer was just benin ning. I always fancy that the birds fo^et there are any more winters to come—t£at they live only in the present, and as thev strain their little throats siugini; their he 4 in the warm sunshine, might never have sat linddled-up mere bunches of ruffled feathers beside a chimney-stack, or hungry and cold in the fork of a snow-laden tree". Memory and anticipation, with the strange dual gifts of harrowing torment and passiouate delight are surely the prerogative of man aloue! = ' To some, thank (iod, the gifts of memory are thoughts of such sweet peace that the life, however lonely and unvaried,=is peopled by their dear companionship, and the heart ■ that entertains such precious guests is never weary. Look at tlie face of the woman*who is ' bending over a handful of the very first violets of the year, their faint sweet perfume ' their modest loveliness, the kiudly thoifht of I the friend who has sent them toiler, alfthese f things make her happy, and bring that stiiile trembling about the mouth, whose lines tell of sorrow—sauctiiied of pain—borne as a heaven-sent cross. I On this woman's face shines the gentle light lof peace, even "the peace of God winch passeth all understanding," the jieace that the world can neither give nor take away. She is neither young nor fair, perhaps never has been the last; yet to look upon her is to love lier, nay more to those who mount, to ; tliose whose tired feet stumble on the way ; to those who are tried and tempted almost : beyond what they are able to bear, that chastened look of peace, that tender sympathetic voice, the clasp of the haml that i could not shrink from the touch of none however soiled, bring hope and trnstanl comfort, renewed trust in God and in them- 1 selves, hope as a ray of God's sunshine, in. midst of thiek darkness. The woods and hills about Glen Deane are fair to see—the contrast of pine anil beech, and cedar and willow, make a picture to enchant an artist-eye; but now the thread. of our story has led us to some other scene— a sceue quite as beautiful, but milder ami more rugged, for rocks with ruddy fronds of dead bracken drooping from their grey sides, and trees growing ail aslant wind' driven at their summits, are a startling contrast to unilulaHutf hills all carpeted with yreen, and meadow lands stretching out far and wide. We are near the sea, too, now; for what i else could sing that low monotonous son" of : which the ear never wearies, ami which makes itself heard as a sweet, never-eailmg monotone ; though the birds lilt never so loudly, and the three bells of that little '■ church lialf-way up tlie hill on the left try their best to make all the noise they can,. Perhaps a well undulated peal would be better ; but there is something cheer) - , too, in the present jangle of the three bell voices, and so thinks the woman with the first violets lying in her lap, as she sits by the open window of her little room—open for the first time that year. She is the village pastor's sister, lliss Theresa Wadderburne, or Hiss Tessa, as everyone in Faycliffe-on-Sea called her, from the boy who brought the milk and didn't j seem much bigger than the can he carried, to ! old Jim Grappleby, the sexton, who rang the three bells of tlie little church, by the simple device of having a rope in each hand and the third tied to his right elbow. The scientific jerk with which he managed to bring in number three exactly at the proper-moment, was a thing to lie remembered when once seen, and the old man firmly believed that on those rare occasions when Miss Tessa was well enough to be at the services of the church, nothing more tailed to divert her miml and cheer up her heart than the sight of his skill in managing so deftly what he was pleased to call, "the critters," at the same time assuring his hearers that "they were as skittish to manage as if they were so many wnnmen. folk, and of a fanciful sort too." JOIIII Wadderburne, perpetual curate Of Faycliffe-011-Sea, anil some miles of country round about the same, had his own ideas ss to how things appertaining to the chnrch he served should be done ; but he had not been long the shepherd of that flock, whose somewhat out-of-the-way pastures were on s bend of the lovely western coast 01 tnglanu, and whose ideas were primitive in tM I extreme. One of their pet ideas was OH Jim ' Grapplebv; therefore the "new w very tender over him, and allowed bin to ring the church-bells wit-1 two pulls an jirk, as he had done ever since his boyhooa, a period of his existence which was now, the old son.; has it, "a long time ago. "If Jim was to be made give oer rmsJUb them there bells, he'd lay him down andiUe, said a strapping farmer's wife to Mr. Wadde burne, when he once hinted at a change in the management of "the "It's the loife of him, sir,, just tbat Md nothing else, and when folks come Lorn long way off to hear you preach, sir-ml J do say as we hav'n't had such a man to pwen in these parts this many a loug year j old Jim thinks as they've hoard oi J - ;t!e his bells, and have come for to see him tem C Bui the old bell-ringer is feaJing EC astray fro::, the straight path of my f >0. ami I am forgetting Miss sweet, patient face, looking iliroughtUe pc window, and the violets on hcr-lap. , The bells have ceased their pleasant Jims "critters" are at rest «r the® bcin-j, as the women folk h'c hkenul might lo when their tougues were , The parsonage of FaycliSe-an lnj coiia.'e-lifcc sort of house with ■ gables, broad ca\es, anil a verandah ail ror.hd it-was sonear the.church' still dav like this you could hear the ru fall of the hymn-tunes ' aile3 going 011, and not so far fioni tL- .•.j.-on I by rising ground and could catch the murmur I. ,fc M tfc» i ii:g psalm chiming in. j ine llowed | hvnins went they sounded btUC> * and softened i>y the intervening spa• acrE . I up by the parsonage garden, an . a 3 >1 A choir of village lads ami powerful means and a hearty ™ e = , | mg God, but it is apt to be a I.ttto e- w j ful now and then than a culrnaied • l desire. Anyway, this fair spr^ ;; that was almost unseasouably balmy, .... f » •' Sev; every morninic.is, tlie /« Our v.-ik«:iß=i;nd Uf-mmg sounded tjui/". iu.%-™^yJS^ a ters" est their own cathedral—the pme me jjjjthe the parsonage-all these sounds;chune<m one with the other, and formeda praise, rising from the earth Scarcely had the hymn ceased, = ien sea and the birds to sing on alone. Miss Tessa saw » well-known aa ; welcome figure coming narrow path that led upwanls iroiuto^ ?t was Christabel. Yet hardly the Chr£ , whom we saw a year a go brook that babbled through the Deane Glen and bore upon its little (lower-stars white and go d, b Chistabel who looked with the 1™ wistful eyes of a child upon life> f possibilities it held; nor yet tn« c p:a loving girl who drew tlie dancing c!le . her Frencli theme. This ao cß e Christabel; a eliild no longei , into a whom some magic tomb had ff'wiop: woman—a woman with all _tne . bilities within her rp^JW I '. . v • j ntensest life. ' Tnssa, 1 I " Not at clmrcU ? s if'3 ' -.mile that seemed to It . j T-rl came into the'rooni,;-» . 13 <L I I

•"No/1'l«"i' a hcaclache, and besides I hat witli tlie plain "-JL feather that matched her hair, and 'OU a low stool beside her fr.end s ■ face over the purple violets. Kfiiov? sweet they are !» she said : "and oTlad I am vou like them so much. 10 «fr Uo S!l id I liked them so much? for I «iDDO«e you mean, because I sent them to Alfi Vanity?" answered the other, j under the little round white fid =o making Christabel look up. c " \Vhat tired eyes. Child, is there anything tired-that's all," said Ciiristiibel, laying her head wearily against Miss - T «Thev'arc singing the Doxology now," ; «lid "Miss Wedderbume, after a silence that «• lifted some while. • . The «ouad of mirth when we are sorrowrul, the sound of praise when we are sad and i • !nnrp reai.lv to tiin- ourselves at l-Jod s teet and £? for help thai! to sing psalms of thanks- « Things like these soon unseal the fountain of our tears. T , Something hot dropped oil Miss -""AVhv, Christie, my dearest child:" and • her arm "was round the girl's, and her loving ■ J "uuice met the drowned violet of her eyes. j ■ 3 "I told you I was tired, I could uoc sleep ; 1 hs<- A little sob half stilled, came i 1 liphveen the two sentences, and then Christie i 1 ,miled. But such a smile : It might have < been the smile of :ui eternal farewell;. perhaps In some sort it w;is. j Jtiss Tessa was puzzled, distressed, but I ] s [ ie would not question. She was one of j those women who never probe a wound till ' thev :ire asked. Tiiree months of almost | : tiailv companionship un»y teach two woman [ ] tvho are drawn together by the irresistible ! ] power of a perfect sympathy, a good deal of j each other ; more, indeed, than years of so- j • called friendship where sympathy is wanting.When Christie Clare first met and knew j ' Teresa Weddcrburne, her nature had been j • like " a folded blossom, and like the egg I 1 in t'ae thrush's nest, fill of undeveloped ! ; 'possibilities : now the bud was "as a rose uiJuiJC the little egg was a bird with ■ irinis to. fly heavenward, anil a voic eto 1 make the'world about it fnll of melody. 1 ■ There had been other influences at work besides tins, love for a pure and perfect vornaa : influences that in their mingled pain 1 and sweetness made at once the music and tne discord of the girl's life, during the short tiiree months, that seemed, as she looked back upon them now, the only rime during which she had ever known what I it was to live. Furtively watching tiie -sweet face that lay back against her shoulders, Hiss Tessa waited in silence for the confidence that she knew must come ; yet even she with all her powers of intuition was at a loss to tell by what mental process Christabel had passed from the thoughts that had called iorth those shining tears, to the lin« of thought that resulted in a question about herself. "Do you ever feel lonely—l don't mean a little lonely, bat dreadfully, achingly lonely, when you are in this little room for days anil weeks together, and can't get out into the sunshine,,or to watch the sea, or there?" and she pointed to the church, from whose sacred'walls the sound of praise was once more chiming in with the choristers' voices from the woods beyond. "I used to do, many years ago, when first I learnt that my Ufa was doomed to be so helpless, dear. It was a liard thing to submit in patience—more perhaps on John's account than on my own. I had fancied, being so many years older than he, that I might be so much help to him in his work, that I might enter so fully into all those schemes ofwhich he is so full, that I might be the most active worker in his parish, and it all ended in—this." "This" stood for a life that was one long suffering, one helpless waiting. "But you are a help to your brother, he lias often told me so, the besthelp he has,"said Christabel, raising her head from its dear resting-place, and bending over the violets that still lay in her friend's lap. "I am all the help I can be,, but you who ..have seen and known, who can realize what .mv brother's life is, what are his aims, his hopes, you can fancy what I would have "been to him, if I could. With all his strong - opinions John is no narrow-minded sectarian, nor yet one to be content with moving in a set and narrow groove, the " law of eternal . progress," as he calls it, must, he feels, be the law of man, as it is of God ; he is not content that these people scattered far and wide, these souls that are his charge should ■ lead pure and helpful lives only because he bills them ; they must learn to know why these things are rijht, to be a law unto D themselves, their sordid toilsome lives must ' be brightened by every means in Ms power, they mtist be educated to think for themselves. O Christie. I when. I see liini, ever .- active,, full of thoughts and schemes for their improvement, when he tells me of his cottagfi lectures,-of his night-classes for the young men, of his singing-classes, of all the good work he does for the blasters sake, X soine- . times feel a thrill of the old rebellion against tliat will. Only last night John said to me that what he aimed at Was not to regulate the lives of his people for ; theai, but to teach them to regulate ' taeir own lives, not only in heavenly things, but in the things that some might call the coarser and meaner things of life, ' -and that yet are not so, looked at in the light my brother throws upon them. "Well -as I listened—as I watched his earnest face, • and saw the steadfast in bis eyes, he has our mother's eyes, Chris'ie—l coold not repress one word of bitter regret that I could iloaolrttle, but it is only sometimes that I feel like that." "Yes, I understand, '* said Christ.ibel, gently touching the leaves of the poor violets that were beginning to droop a little ; "but I mean something different, I mean just lonely, just as if there was a silence somewhere that hurts." " Once, very long ago, when I had to give • np hopes that were dear, I used to feel like 'that; but, child, see Christ's messsage to the lonely ones of the world." She took a small Bible, worn and old, from the little table that always stood by the side other invalid chair, opened it, and laid it by the violets. A faded fern frond marked the place—a faint pencil-line marked the verse, and there was a date, that of a year long passed, beside it:—"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out and departed into a solitary place, .ami there prayed." The girL bent her head, and read the ■sacred record of those solitary hours that Have for ever hallowed all the loneliness of earth, be they of heart, or place, or lack of -sympathy, or loss of those whose presence could make "the wildemes3 blossom like the rose." She ilid not speak as she raised her head, and Miss Tessa closed the Book—her lips trembled too much for that. "When first I read that record with understanding it seemed as a flood of light "to lighten the eyes of my mind. I seemed to see the lonely figure coming forth into the stillness of the eastern night, he the ' Light of. the World' passing on through the soft .gloom of the darkness, even unto that 'solitary place' where He should hold - communion with with His Heavenly Father. • X saw that the lesson Christ's lonely hours teaches us is this, that in such hours when they come to us, we may be, if we will, nearest to Heaven, and to Him." Christie waa thinking of a "lonely day" that seemed coming very near now, of a thick ■cloud of which the very shadow was upon uer— And under all the noise of life _A silence wrapping me aroanrl . N"o matter what the atir and strife."

knew it would be like tliat, she knew • that no earthly friend could help her through it, that she must stumble along in those dark *ky3 to come as best she might. But was she not garnering up a sheaf of pure and holy ..si.fclMJughts to be-an lights unto her footsteps '«'CSbjfisfciibel waj . not sure if she had r - s, " rich harvest-field of • 8 v fot . would God help people to bear a loneliness brought upon" them . ; by&eir ovm fault? Poor Christabel! she been walkmg m crooked ways, and she knew it. Till now she had not set it ia black and wiute betore her own mind that . thia was so, and yet, underlying all the ' SK-eetnesa of the last few months, a sweeties that seemed to her as "drops from a ". chalice half divine," there had been a consciousness of wrong, a shrinking from -acknowledging to herself that she was taking -something while she had nothing to give in return ; nothing, that is, that was her own -to barter, awaynothing thatconld satisfy the .. craving tenderness of eyes that meeting hers : seemed to say, "I love you, I wonld set you % my side, no toy, no passing fancy, no nor Jot only my love ; but higher still, my compwion and my friend, the sharer of my Noughts and aspirations, my fellow-worker .. i the good of those around me, my al'.er e.'jo, ■ Jearer than my lifeifaelf." Now, with her turned away from Miss Tessa's gentle ;.;v;i;fi%,shelistened to the mingled voices out 'ift Vna*lj?yied landscape, that would be ' - *jeart for ever as the one word • jkeart of the unhappy English ij shall I go?" she thought

"how shall I leave, it allZ liow shall I tell her ? what shall I do ?" Which of us has not felt the same at some time or other in our lives? Living in some quiet spot on earth where the very air about us is sympathy, where life seems an easy tiling, where Heaven grows nearer day by day, and "earth may be happier but less dear." to be at rest in such a haven, and then to have to steer our frail. barque out into the storm-tossed sea, to go amongst those who cannot understand us any more than we can understand them, where life must be a ceaseless self-watchfulness, an endless effort. Surely if Christabel had done wrong was she not about to suffer for it ? 41 Tell me more," she said, at length, tor after Miss Tessa's last words there been a long silence ; the girFs hand nestling in the close clasp of her friend's. "'lt does me good to listen, it will be something to think of." This sentence was finished only by a kiss dropped upon the hand that held her's. "There is not much to tell; time has a blessed power of healing, and I have learnt the uses of helplessness now, I think. One thought that has often come to cheer me is this, Christabel," she touched the bowed head very lovingly as she spoke ; the little head no longer adorned with the long Oretohen plaits of old, but with sunny coils ot light brown hair knotted low down upon the slender neck, a fashion that showed its classic outline to perfection. " For many years this strange illness of mine has seemed to stand stilL I have had bad attacks of pain, as yesterday for instance, but 111 between these bad spells I have been much the same as before. Sow there is some change, I am weaker, less able to recover myself, and I have thought that perhaps the time is coming near when I shall hear the message that comes to all of us at last—'The Master calleth for thee I' Wm>n I have thought these thoughts like the sun shining upon a cloud and turning it to silver, another thought has come too, and it is this, what if God should be bringing some closer, dearer joy unto John's life, something better than ever I could bo to him? A sympathy that would enter into the very heart of his life, that would be his through sunshine and shadow, rejoicing with him in success, cheering him in failure—" Here Miss Tessa stopped short, for Christabel had covered her face with her hands, and was shaking from head to foot with tearless sobs. "Child, my darling, what is it? IS ay, do no: go away from me. I cannot get up and follow you, you know. Christabel, come back to my knee, put your dear hands in mine, tell me your trouble—are you angry with me for anything I have said ?" But Christabel did not come back to her friend's side. She took her hands from before her face and let them drop against her : browu dress; she stood by the window, i looking not at her friend, but away over I towards where the sound of the sea came j softly up from the shore. There were no ! tears in her eyes, those eyes so haggard, so weary, that involuntarily Miss Tessa put up her hand across her own to shut out the sight of them, and her voice, when she spoke, was slow and laboured, like that of some one who is very tired, and yet for whom rest is not. "I came here this morning," she said, "to tell you that I am toim away. I only knew it last night. I wanted to send a mes- | sage by Janet when she came to you three hours but I could not, so I sen t the violets instead. You know Mrs. Clements was mv mother s friend, and she sent for me to come and stay with her down here because Lady Graham told her she did not think me looking well. Mrs. Clements has been very ! kind to me, and I am quite well now." "All this is very sudden, Christie," said Miss Tessa, wistfully, but yet with a quiet gravity that sent a shiver through the girFs slight form; "are you going back to Lady ! Graham ?" 1 44 Yes, for a while." The words seemed to come with difficulty, as if breath failed the speaker. "And then?'* ''I—l am koing to be married—l have been engaged to .Sir Edgar Deane, an old playmate of mine. Since this time last year, he has been abroad with a friend who is very ill, but now he is coming home." Lower and lower drooped the pretty head ; lower and lower sank the faltering voice, until the last few words were hardly audible, and Miss Tessa, one trembling hand on either arm of the couch on which she lay, had to lean forward to catch their meaning. With a long-drawn breath of resolve Christabel once more lifted her eyes, dim as the fading violets that now lay unheeded on the ground, aud met those of her friend ; perhaps she thought the hopeless misery in their blue depths might plead for her. Miss Tessa had sank back in her chair, and her hands were clasped tightly together, her lips moved, but Christabel heard no sound of won Is. "I came to say good-bye. I tried to tell you so just now, but I could not," she said, making an effort over herself such as in all her young life she had never been called upon to do before. "There is something more I want to say, aud it is this, I want you to tell ill*. Wedderburn.*' (in her ming'ed agony* of shame and love she had nearly called him by a dearer name) "that if ever in the years to come I strive to be a helpful woman to those about me, if ever there is any good in me. if ever I am any good to others, if I try to make the best of life, not in the sense of trying how much happiness I can get from it. but in the sense of living it up to the highc-st standard of which —just as iTtind it—itls capable, I shall owe it all to him—to him and to you. Tell him that it in the years to come sorrowful days are mine, and I know where to look for help, I shall owe that blessed reality of knowledge to him and to you ; tell hixn that when I think of Heaven I shall think of it as somewhere— where once again, when all the bitterness of life is past, I shall meet him and you.' By this time Christabel was on her knees besides Miss Tessa's couch ; her arms Hung round in her in the wild abandonment of sorrow, her eyes streaming with tears, her voice broken by sobs. The chain of resolve had broken with the strain just upon it. More restrained, yet not less deep, was the emotion of the elder woman, for righteous anger was dying in the sweet health of pity ; and, even with the vivid thought of a man's ruined hopes, a man's heart-hunger for ever unsatisfied. Miss Tessa could not find a word of reproach for the culprit at her knee. Christabel could have borne it better if-shc had—could have borne anything better than the look of resigned sorrow on the gentle face that had never yet greeted her comiugs and goings but with a smile, and that now she felt and knew would never smile upon her any more in the old loving fashion. 1 [To be continued.]