ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6422, 17 June 1882, Page 3

ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN.

Br WALTER I.ES ANT AND JAMES EJCE. Authors of w Ready-money Mortlboy," "Tho Golden Butterfly," " By (Jelia'a Arbour," " The Cliaplatii of tie Fleet," &c., See. CHAPTER XXXVI. WHAT WILL BE THE BND ? : "XllK.endof the year drew near, the end of • -that last year of eighty-one, which, whatever it 3 shortcomings, its. burning heat of July and its wretched rain of August, went out in ■ sweet and gracious suushino, and a December like unto the April of a poet. For six months Angela "had been living among her ■ .girls ; the place was bccome homelike to her; the workwomen were now her friends, her ' trusted friends-; the voice of calumny about ' her antecedents was silent, unless when it J was the voice of Bunker; the Palace of Delight, whose meaning was as yet unknown ' and unsuspected, .was rising rapidly, and, 'indeed, was nearly completo, a shell which had to be filled with things beautiful and - delightful, of which Angela did not trust herself to speak. She had a great deal to - think of in those last days of the year eighty-'-one. The dressmaking was nothing; that went on; there was some local custom and " :more was proihised it soemcd as if, on the soundest principles of economy, it would -'actuallypay; there was avery large acquaint- ■ ance made at odd time? among the small streets and mean houses of Stepney; it was ' necessary to-visit these people and to talk ' ~ with them. Angela had nothing to do with ■; the ordinary channels of charity ; she would help neither curate or sister of mercy, nor tible-woman. Why, she said, do not the people stand shoulder to shoulder and help . • -themselves? To be sure, she had the great advantage over the professional visitors that • she was nerself only a workwoman and was 'mot paid for any services. And, as if there ■ '.--Was not already enough to make her anxious,- " :tfiere was that lover or hers. 1 v. Were she, and Harry keeping company i ■ Dick Coppin asked this question and Angela : not altogether truthfully said that they were dot. What else were they doing, indeed ? '"No word of love, now; had he not promised • to atetain? Yet she knew his past; she ; -knew- what he had given up for her sake, ' Relieving her only a poor dressmaker —all for' love of her—and she conld not choose but let I her heart. go forth to so loyal and true a • ' lover. J ilany ladies in many tales of'chivalry have demanded strange services from their ■ lovers; none so strange as that asked by " Angela., when she, ordered her lover not only ' to pretend to be a cabinetmaker and a joiner, ' ' Tiat to" icoxh at Jiis t-raclc and to litre by it. . - Tartlyin selp-reproach, partly in admiration, 0 •■she watched hini going and coming to and ' from' the Brewery, where he now earned, ' -."thanks'to Lord Jocelyn's intervention, the " ' -snai oi a:whole shilling an hour. For there ' -was nothing in his bearing or his talk to ' ishow that he repented his decision; lie was ' :always'cheerful, always of good courage; anore, he -was always in attendance Upon her. It wa3 he who thought lor her, invented plans to'make her evenings attractive, brought raw lads—recruits in the army of Culture— .- from the Advanced Club, and elsewhere, and • set them an example of good manners, and was her prime minister, her aide-de-camp, . "her cliief vizier. And the end of it all t Nay ; the thing itself being so pleasant, why hasten the end ?t And if there was to be an end, could it not be connected with the opening of the Palace ? Yes, when the Palace was ready to open its fate3,'then would Angela opeii her arms, or the moment, it was the sweet twilight of love; the halt hour before the (lawn, the sweet uncertainty when all was certainty. And as yet the Palace was only just receiving '.its roof; the fittings and decorations, the . . organ and the statues and all had still to be ... . put-in. When everything was ready then ... . then. Angela would somehow perhaps find words to bid her lover be happ;/ if she could make him happy. There could be but one end. Angela ,' r came to Whitechapel, icognita, a Princess disguised as a milkmaid, partly out of ; curiosity, partly to try her little experiment ' ; for the good of the workgirls, with the gaiety and light heart of youth, thinking that before long she would return to her old place, jurt ax zhe had left it. But she conld not: her old . views of life were changed : and a man had ''changed them : more than that, a man whose society, whose strength, whose counsel had .. become necessary to her. "Who," she asked herself, " would have thought of the . except—him? Could I—could any woman? I could have given aivay money: that is all: I could have been robbed and " cheated: but s»ch an idea, so grand, so simple—it is a man's, not a woman's. When the Palace is completed, when all is ready for the opening—then—" And then the air became musical with the clang of >vedding bells, up the scale, down the scale, in thirds, in ' fifths, witli triple bob-majors, and theshouts of the people, and the triumphant strains of a Wedding March. How could there be any cud but one, seeing that not only did this young man pre- , 'sent; himself nearly every evening at the . - " drawing-room, when he was recognised as the Director of Ceremonies, or the Leader of the Cotillon, or the Deviser of Sports, from an , acted Proverbs to a Jladri.'al, but that, in • . addition, the custom was firmly established that he and Angela should spend their Sundays together; when it rained they went to 'church together and had readings in the drawing-room in the afternoon, with perhaps a little concert in the evening of sacred music, to which some of tho girls would come. ;. But if the .day was sunny and bright there were many places where they might go, for the East is richer than the West in pretty and accessible country places. They would take the tram along the MileEudßoad, past the delightful old church of Bow to Staring Stratford, with its fine Town Hall and its round dozen of churches and chapels—a town of fifty thousand people, and quite a 1 genteel place, whose residents preserve the primitive custom of fetching the dinner beer ; . themselves, from its native public linuse, On Sunday after ehurch. At Stratford there are many ways open if you are a good walker, as Angela was. You may take the Romford Road and presently turn to the left and find , yourself in a grand old forest—only there is not much of it left—called Hainault Forest. When yon have crossed the forest you get to Chigwetl, and then if you arc wise you will ■, take another six oiiles, as Angela and Harry generally did, r,n:l get to Epping, where the toothsome steak may be found, or haply the simple cold beef, not to be despised after a fifteen miles'walk. And so home by train. Or you may take the northern road at Stratford and walk through Leytonstone and Woodford, and leaving* Epping Forest on the riglit, walk along the.bank of the River Lea till you come to Waltliam Abbey, where there is a church to be seen, and a cross, and other marvels. Or you may go still farther afield and take train all the way to Ware and walk through country roads and pleasant-lanes, if you have a map, to stately Hatfield apd on to St. Albans —but do not try to dinff" there, even if you are only one-and-twenty, and a girl. All these walks, and many more, were taken by Angela, with her •companion, on that blessed day which should : JJfspect for the good of body as well as soul. , __r e i" are walks which are beautiful in the - [l , r ' ai well as in tho summer; though . * - - r^. e are leafless there is an'underwood an?"A' Co '9 ure d with its winter tint of purple, tmst,l„?. rQ are '. stre tches of springy tnrf and * hungTvith catkins and,"above all, there

. was nobody in the Forest or on the roads ex s cept Angela and Harry. Sometimes the r night fell on them when they we re three or t four miles from Epping : then as they walked r in the twilight, the "trees on either hand : silently glided past them like ghosts, and - the mist rose and made things look shadowy ■ and large, and the sense of an endless pilgrimage fell upon them, as if they would ■ alwayß go on like this; side by side; then ! their hearts would glow within them and they would talk, and the girl would think it : no shame to reveal the secret thoughts of her i heart, although the man with her was not her accepted lover. As for her reputation, where was it? Not gone, indeed, because no one, anions; her old friends, knew of these walks and this companionship ; but in grievous peril. Or, when the day was cloudy, there was the Cjty. I declare there is no place which contains more delightful walks for a cloudy Sunday forenoon, when the clang of the bells has finished and the scanty worshippers-are in their places and the sleepy sextons have shut the doors, than the streets and lanes of the old City. You must go, as Harry did, provided with something of ancient lore, otherwise the most beautiful places will quite certainly he thrown away and lost for yon. Take that river-side walk from Billingsgate to Black friars. Why, here were the quays, the ports, the whole commerce of the City n the good old days. Hcro.was Cold Herbergh, that great, many-gabled house where Harry, Prince ot Wales, "carried on," with Falstaff and his merry crew : here was Queen Hithe : here Dowgate with Walbrook : here Bayuard's Castle and close by the tower of Montfichct: also a little to the north a thousand places dear to the antiquarian, though they have pulled down so much : there is Tower Royal where Richard the Second lodged his mother : there is the church of Wittington, close by the place where his college stood : there are the precincts of Paul's and the famous street of Chepe—do people ever think what things have been done in Chepe? there is Austin Friars with its grand old church now given to the Dutch, and its quiet City square where only a few years ago lived Lettice Langton, of whom some of us have heard ; there is the Tower Hill on which was he residence of Alderman Medlycott,guardian of Nelly Carellis : and west of Paul's there is the place where once stood the house of Dr. Gregory Shovel, who received the orphan Kitty Pleydell. But, indeed, there is no end to the histories and associations of the City,. and a man may give his life profitably to the mastery and mystery of its winding streets. Here they would wander in the quiet Sunday forenoons, while their footsteps echoed in the deserted streets and they could walk fearless in the middle of the road, whilo they talked of the great town and its million dwellers, who come like the birds in the morning and vanish like the birds in the evening. Or they would cross the river and wander up and down the quaint old town of Rotherhithe, or visit Southwark, the town of hops and malt and all kinds of strange things, orDeptford the Deserted, or even Greenwich ; and if it was rainy they would go to church. There are a great many places of worship about Whitechapel, and many forms of creed, from the Baptist to the man with the Biretta, and it would be difficult to select one which is ie?s confident than another of possessing the real Philosopher's stone, the thing for which we are always searching, the Whole Truth. And eveywhere, church and chapel filled with the well-to-do, and tho respectable, and a sprinkling of the very poor. But of the working-men—none. "Why have they all given up religion?" asked Angela. " Why should the workingmen all over, the world feel ho need of religion, if it were only the religious emotion ?" Hairy, who had answers' ready for many questions, could find none for this. He asked his cousin Dick, but he could not tell. Personally, he said he had something else to do, but if the women wanted to go to church , they might, and so long as the parsons and ; priests did not meddle with him, he should , not meddle with them. But these state- , ments hardly seemed an answer to the • question. Perhaps in Berlin or in Paris they could explain more clearly how this strange thing has come to pass. .. cHAPTiPv.xxxvn. ; TRUTH AND ; FAITHTI7LVE3B. ;

To possess pure truth—and to know it—is a thing which affects people in two ways, both of them uncomfortable to their fellow creatures. It impels some to go pointing' out the purity of truth to the world at large, insisting upon it, dragging unwilling people along the road which leads to it, and dwelling upon the dangers .which attend the neglect of so great a chance. Others it affects with a calm and comfortable sense of superiority, The latter was Rebekah's state of mind : to be a Seventh Day. Independent was only .one degree removed from belonging to the Clio3en People, to begin with : that there is hut one chapel in all England where the Truth reposes for a space as the Ark of theCovenantrcposed atShiloh, "incurtains," is, if you please, a thing to.be proud of! It brings, with it elevation of soul. There is at present, whatever there may once have been, no proselytising zeal about the Seventh Day Independents : they are, in fact, a torpid body: they are contented with the conviction—a very comforting one, and possessed by other creeds besides their own, that, sooner or later, the whole world will embrace their faith. Perhaps the Jews look forward to a day when, in addition to the Restoration which they profess to desire, all mankind will become proselytes in the Court of the Gentiles : it is something little short of this that the congregation of Seventh Day Independents expect ill the dim future. What a splendid, what a magnificent field for glory —call it not vain-glory ! —does this conviction present to the humble believer! There are, again, so very few of them that each one may feel himself a visible pillar of the Catholic Church, bearing on his shoulders a perceptinle and measureable quantity of weight. Each is an Atlas. It is, moreover, pleasing to read the Holy Scriptures, especially the books of the Prophets, as written especially for a Connection which numbers just one chapel in Great Britain and seven in the United States. How grand is the name of Catholic applied to just one church! Catholicity is as yet all to coinc, and exists only as a germ, or seedling !■ The Early Christians may have experienced the same delight. . Rebekah, best and most careful of shopwomen and accountants, showed her religious BHperiori'y more by the silence of contempt than liy zeal for conversion. When Captain Tom Coppip, for instance, was preaching to the gi:ls, she went on with her figures, casting up, ruling in red ink, carrying forward in methodical fashion, as if his words could not possibly have any concern with her: and when a church bell rang, or any words were spoken about other forms of worship, she became suddenly deaf and blind and cold. But she entreated Angela to attend their services. "We want everybody to come," she sail : "wc only ask for a single hearing, come and hear my father preach." She believed in the faith of the Seventh Day. ? s for her father—when a man is paid to advocate the cause of an eccentric or a ridiculous form of belief : when he has to plead that cause week by week to the same slender following, to prop up the limp, and to keep together his small body of believers : when he has to maintain a show of hopefulness, to strengthening the wavering, to confirm the strong, to encourage his sheep in confidence ; when he gets too old for anything else and his daily bread depends upon this creed and no other; who shall say what, after a while, that man believes or does not believe? Red hot words fall from hia lips, but they fall equally red hot each week : his arguments are conclusive, but they were equally conclusive last week; his logic is irresistible : his encouragement is warm and glowing ; but logic and encouragement alike are those of last week and many weeks ago — mi rely, surely there is no worse fate possible for any man than to preach, week by week, any form whatever of dogmatic belief, and to live by it; surely, nothing can be moredeadly than to simulate zeal, to suppress doubt, to pretend certainty. But this is dangerous ground ; because others besides Seventh Day Independents may feel that they ate upon it, and that beneath tlwm there are quagmires.

"Come," said Rebekali. " Wc want nothing but a fair hearing." Their chapel was endowed, which doubtless helped the flock to keep together : it had a hundred and ten pounds a year belonging to it: and a little house for the minister, and there were scanty pew rents, which almost paid tor the maintenance of the fabric and the old woman that cleaned the windows and dusted the pews. If the Reverend Pereival Hermitage gave up that chapel lie would iiavo no means of subsistence at all. Lot us not impute motives : no doubt he firmly believed what he taugnt: but his words, like his creed, were stereotyped : they had lonf; ceased to lie persuasive : they now served only to preserve. If Angela had accepted that invitation for any given- day there would have been, she knew very well, a sermon for the oecasioa,

conceived, written, and argued out expressly , for herself. And this she did not want, r Therefore, she said nothing at all of her I intentions, but chose one Saturday when [ there was little doing and she could spare a [ forenoon for her visit. r The chapel of the Seventh Day Indepen- . dents stands in Redman's Lane, close to the | Advanced Club House. It is a structure ( extremely plain and modest in design. It [ was built by an architect who entertained ; humble views—perhaps ho was a Churchman . —concerning the possible extension of the ; Connection, because tho whole chapel if quite filled would not hold more than two , hundred people. The front, or facade, is flat, consisting of a snrfacc of grey brick wall, with a door in tho middle and two circular windows, one on each side. Over the door there are two dates—ono of the erection, the other of restoration. The chapel within ia a well-proportioned room, with a neat gallery running round three sides, resting on low pillars and painted a warm and cheerful drab: the pews are painted of the same colour. At the back are two windows with semi-circular arches, and between the windows stands a small railed platform with a reading-desk upon it for the minister. Besida it are high seats with cushions for elders, or other miuisucrs if there should be any. But these seats have never been occupied in the memory of man. The pews are ranged in front of the platform, and they are of the old and high-backed kind. It is a wonderful—a truly wonderful thing—that clergymen, priests, ministers, padres, rabbis, and church architects, with churchwaidens, sidesmen, vergers, bishops, and chapel-keepers of all persuasions are agreed, whatever their other differences, in the unalterable conviction that it ia impossible to be religious, ' that is, to attend services in a proper frame of mind, unless one is uucomfortable. Therefore wo arc offered a choice : we may sit in highbacked, narrow-seated pews, or we may sit on low-backed, narrow-seated benches : but sit in comfort we may not. The Seventh Day people have got the high-backed pew (which catches you in the shoulder blade and tries the back-bone and affects the brain, causing softening in the long run), and the narrow seat (which drags the muscles and brings on premature paralysis of the lower limbs). The equally narrow low-backed bench produces injurious effects of a different kind, but similarly pernicious. How would it be to furnish one aisle, ai; least, of a church with broad, low, and comfortable chairs having arms? They should be reserved for .the poor who have so few easy chairs of their own : rightly manjiged and properly" advertised, they might help towards a revival of religion among the working classes. Above the reading platform in this little chapel they have caused to be painted on the wall the Ten Commandments—the fourth emphasised in red—with a text or two, bearing on their distinctive doctrino : and in the corner is a door leading to a little vestry ; but, as there are no vestments, its use is not apparent. As for th« position taken by these people, I it is perfectly logical, and, in fact, impregnable. There is no answer to it. They say, "Hero is the Fourth Commandment. All the rest you continue to observe. Why no* this ? When was it repealed ? And by whom?" If you put these questions to Bishop or Presbyter, he has no reply. Because that Law never has been repealed. Yet, as the people of the Connection complain, though they have reason and logic on their side, the outside world will not li.-ten, and go on breaking the Commandment with light and unthinking heart. It is a dreadful responsibility—albeit a grand thing—to be in possession of so simple a truth of such vast importance ; and yet to get nobody ever to listen. The case is worse even than that of Daniel Fagg. Angela noted all these things as she entered the little chapel a short time after the servicehad commenced. It was bewildering to Btep out of the noisy streets, where the current of Saturday morning was at Sood, into this quiet room with its strange service and its strange flock of Nonconformists. The thing,at first, felt like a dream : the people seemed like the ghosts of an unquiet mind. There were ■ very- few. worshippers : she counted them all: four elderly'men, two elderly woman, three young men, two girls, one of' whom was Rubckah, and live boysV Sixteen in all. And standing on the platform was their leader. Rebekah's father, the Rev. Percival Annitage, was a shepherd who from choice led bis flock gently, along peaceful meadows and in shady quiet places : he had no prophetic fire : he had evidently loug since acquiesced in the certain fact that under him, at least, whatever it might do under others, the Connection would not greatly increase. Perhaps he did not himself desire an increase which would give him more work. Perhaps! he never had much enthusiasm. By the simple accidcnt of birth he was a Seventh Day Christian : being of .1 bookish and unambitious turn, and of an indolent habit of bod}', | mentally and physically unfitted for the life of a shop, he entered the ministry : in course of time lie got this ohapcl, where he remained, tolerably satisfied with his lot in life, a simple, self-educated mildly pious person, equipped with the phrases of his craft, and comforted with the consciousness of superiority and separation. He looked np from his book in a gentle surprise when Angela entered the chapel; it was long since a stranger had been seen there : once, not long ago, there was a boy who had put his head in at the door and shouted "Hoo!" and run away again : once there was a drunken sailor who thought it was a publichouse, and sat down and began to sing and wouldn't go, and had to be shoved out by the united efforts of the whole small congregation—when lie was gone they sang an extra hymn to restore a religious calm ; but never a yonng lady before. Angela took her seat amid the wondering looks of the people, and the minister went on in a perfnnetory way with bin prayers and his hymns and . his exposition. There certainly did seem to an outsider a want of heart about the service, but that might have t.een due to the emptiness of the pews. When it came to the sermon, Angela thought the preacher spoke and looked as if the limit of endurance bad at last almost arrived, and lie would not much longer endure the inexpressible dreariness of the conventicle. It was not so: ho was always mildly sad : he seemed always a little bored : it was no use trying to be eloquent any more : fireworks were thrown away : and as for what he had to say, the congregation always had the same thing, looked for the same thing, and would have risen in revolt at the suggestion of a new thing. His sermon was neither better nor worse than may be heard any day in church or chapel: nor was there anything in it to distinguish it from the sermons of any other body of Christians. The outsider left off listening and began to think of the congregation. In the pew with her was a man of sixty or so, with long black hair streaked with grey, brushed back behind bis ears : he was devout and followed the prayers audibly, and sang the hymns out of a manuscript music-book, and read the text critically : his face was the face of a bull-dog for resolution. The man, she thought, would enjoy going to the stake for his opinions : anil if the Seventh Day Independents were to be made tho National Established Church he would sccede the week after and make a new sect, if only by himself. Such lhen are not happy under authority : their freedom of thought is as tho breath of their nostrils, and they cannot think like other people. He was not well dressed, and was probably a shoemaker or some such craftsman. In front of her sat a family of three ; the wife was attired in a sealskin rich and valuable, and the son, a young man of one or two and twenty, had the dress and appearance of a gentleman—that is to say, of what passes for such in common City parlance. What did these people do in such a place ? Yet they were evidently of tho religion. Then she noticed a widow and her boy : the widow was not young : probably, Angela thought, she had married late in life : her lips were thin and her face was stern. "Tho boy," thought Angela, "will have the doctrine administered with faithfulness." Only sixteen altogether: yet all, except tho Pastor, seemed to he grimly in earnest and inordinately proud of their sect. It was as if the emptiness of their benches and their forsaken condition called upon them to put on a greater show of Zeal and to persuade themselves that the Cause was worth fighting for. The preacher alone seemed to have lost heart. But his people, who were accustomed to him, did not noticc this despondency.

Then Angela, while tho sermon went slowly on, began to speculate on the conditions of belonging to such a scct. First of all, with the apparent exception of the lady in sealskin and her husband and son, the whole sixteen—perhaps another two or three wei c prevented from attending—were of quite the lower middle class ; they belonged to the great stratum of society whose ignorance is as profound as their arguments are loud. But the unsomfortablencss of it 1 They can do no work on the Saturday—"neither their man servant or their maid servant," —their shops are closed and their tools put aside. They loose a sixth part of the working time. Tho

followers of this creed are as much separated from their fellows as the Jews. On the Sunday they may work if they please, but on that day all the world is at church or at play. Angela looked round again. Yes; thevrholc sixteon had upon their faces the look of pride; they were proud of being separated ; it was a distinction, just as it is to be a Samaritan. Who would not be one of the recipients, however few tlioy be in number, of Truth ? And what a grand thing, what an inspiriting thiHg it is to think to feel that some day or other, perhaps not to-day nor to-morrow, nor in one's life-time at all, tho whole world will rally round tho poor little obscure banner and shout altogether, with voice of thunder, the battle cry which now sounds no louder than a puny whistle-pipe! Yet, on tho whole, Angela felt that it must bo an un- !. comfortable creod ; better to be ono of the undistinguished cloud which flocks to the parish church and yearns not for any distinctions at all. Then tho sermon ended and they sang another hymn—the collection in use was a volume printed in New York and compiled by the Committee of the Connection, so that there were, manifestly, congregations on the other side of the Atlantic living in tho same discomfort of separation. At the departure of the people Rcbekah hurrifid out first and waited in the doorway Angela. 44 1 knew you would come some day," she said, "but oh ! I wish you had told me when j'ou were coming so that father might have given one of his doctrine sermons. What we had to day-was or ly one of tho comfortable discourses to the professed members of tho church which we all love so mnch. lam so sorry. Oh ! he conld convince you in ten minutes." "But, Rcbekah," said Angela, "I should be sorry to have seen your service otherwise than is usual. Tell me, does tho congregation of to-day represent all your strength ?" Rebekah coloured. She could not deny that they were, numerically, a feeble folk. "We rely.'! she said, "on tho strength of our cause—and some somo day— the world will rally, round us. See, Miss Kennedy, here is father; when he has said good-bye to the people,"—he was talking to the lady iu sealskin—"he will come and speak to us."

"1 suppose," said Angela, " thab this lady is a member of your chapel ?" "Yes," Rebekah whispered, "oh! they are quite rich people—the only rich people we have. They live at Leytonstone ; they made their money in the book-binding and are 'consistent Christians. «• Father," lor at this point Mr. Hermitage loft his rich followers in the porch—"this iB Miss Kennedy, of whom you have heard so much." Mr. Armitage took her hand with a weary smile, and asked Rebekah if Miss Kennedy would come home with her. They lived in a small house next door to the chapel. It was so small that there was but one sitting-room, and this was filled with books. " Father likes to sit here," said Rebekah, "by himself all day. Ho is quite happy ,if ho is let alone. Sometimes, however, ne has to go to Leytonstone." "To the rich people?" "Yes." Rebekah looked : troubled. "A minister must visit hi 3 flock, you knew ; and if they were to leave us it would be bad for us, because the endowment is only a hundred and ten pounds a year, and out of that the church and the house have got to be kept in repair. However, a clergyman must not ho dictated to,, and I tell father he should go his own way and preach his own sermons. Whatever people say, Truth must not be hiddep atvay as if we were ashamed of it. Hush I : Here he is." The good man welcomed Angela, and said some simple.words of gratitude about her reception of his daughter. He had a good face, but ho wore au anxious expression, as if something was'always on his mind. And he sighed when he sat down at his table. : ; Angela stayed for half an hour, but the minister said nothing more to her, only when she rose to go he murmured with another heavy sigh, " There's an afternoon service at three." It is. quite impossible to say whether he intended this announcement as an invitation to Angela or whether it was a complaint, wrung from a heavy heart, of a trouble almost intolerable. • , f [To be continued.]