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their acquaintance, and her bright good sense and brave fearless nature had proved equally attractive to him. "Just see her ride, that's all," Brian was wont to observe, if any unfavourable strictures on her were uttered in his hearing, and he considered this argument quite unanswerable, for in his estimation so bold and skilful a rider must of necessity be far superior to the generality of her sex. She was a superior woman in other ways than this, and though timid people like Annette were sometimes rather scared by her resolute ways and the unflinching looks of her dark eyes, she had the art of attaching to her all those whose opinion was most valuable.

Sibyl was very fond of her, and now looked regretful as she said, "she must not stay to talk to her, she was afraid, she thought she ought to hurry home to papa."

"In that case, I will not try to detain you,” said Miss Devereux, rising to accompany her as far as the lodge, and when they had dropped behind Brian and Annette she added, "My dear little girl, I hear you are not forgetting to be papa's sunbeam, I am very glad that you bear your sorrow so bravely."

"Oh, godmamma, it is not that," said Sibyl, earnestly; "I am afraid I am not brave or patient either, but I cannot help trying to cheer papa and mamma. I seem to feel so much how sad it is for them that I cannot care about myself, except sometimes when I am alone, then it comes over me," and Sibyl's voice began to quiver.

Presently she went on, "Mamma says my feelings are not very deep. It hurt me rather to hear her say it, but perhaps it is true, perhaps I do not feel as much as the others. She said it when she did not know I was near, I think she was rather sorry that I heard it."

"No wonder; Eleanor scarcely understands this little daughter of hers or does her justice," thought Miss Devereux to herself; aloud she only said. "Mamma hardly knows perhaps how much selfcommand has to do with your cheerfulness, but she feels the comfort of it, she said so to me to-day."

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Papa knows," said Sibyl, lifting her glistening eyes with a radiant look, "knows, I mean, that I am not forgetting Austin when I talk and smile and seem pleased with what they mean for my pleasure. I know I am not so feeling as mamma or Mildred, but indeed, godmamma, I did love Austin, I do love him, I do try to be like him."

Miss Devereux could not help being touched by the humility with which Sibyl rated the emotions of her own warm heart below those of " mamma and Mildred." "My dear," she said gently, "I do not think there is any danger of your feeling too little, but I pray that in comforting others you may be comforted yourself."

Oh, if I could comfort them, if I could be any help, any pleasure to them!" said Sibyl, and this was no mere idle wish, it was the strong desire of her whole heart, and it bore fruit in countless deeds and words of tender unselfish love, some of which were perhaps unmarked by those on whom they were lavished, but none of which surely were without their true reward.

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"For restless as the moaning sea,
The wild and wayward will,
From side to side is wearily
Changing and tossing still;

But swayed by Thee, 'tis like the river,
That, down its green banks, flows for ever;
And calm and constant tells to all

The blessedness of such sweet thrall."

The Child's Christian Year.

THERE was a certain little glade in the wood at Vale Moir which, on warm summer days, was most tempting in its shadowy coolness, and where one might lie hid among the long grass and low underwood, and either watch the sunlight flicker through the leaves of the old elms overhead, or look across to the path which wound along not far from the spot, and formed the nearest footway between the village and the town of North Lyon.

In this particular nook, engaged in no more profitable employment than that of knocking off the heads of the wild flowers with a little switch, lay a rosy boy of eleven on one peculiarly hot afternoon. He was not watching the sunlight, and his brows were puckered into as lugubrious a frown as if there were no such thing as sunshine in the world; but he was watching the path; and when, by-andby, the tall figure of a youth came in sight, he commenced a series of howls, groans, and general discords which would have proved fatal to the nerves

of any sensitive person. Fortunately the wayfarer was not one of those persons. Hullo, Phil!" he said, poking aside the leafy screen which parted him from the maker of these inharmonious sounds, "did you think I shouldn't know your sweet voice wherever I heard it? What's the row? Why are you here all alone ?"

"I'm making up my mind to be good, and it's a great bore, and I've a great mind to say I won't," responded the pouting urchin, who was no other than Philip Merivale.

For all answer Brian laughed, pushed Philip a little to one side, and made room for himself to sit down.

"You take it coolly," said the child, relaxing somewhat of the melancholy of his aspect.

"I wish I did, but I am half dissolved with the heat; could you find it convenient to fan me with your cap for a little ?"

The request was made in joke, but Phil, ever goodnatured and obliging, fulfilled it literally.

"You see, Brian," he said, as he waved the cap backwards and forwards, "it was rather a relief to me to howl just now, because I am in a regularly bad humour."

"Aisy, my darlint," said Brian, "don't knock your fan against my nose in the perturbation of your feelings, it doesn't increase my comfort by any means. In fact, I would rather you left off altogether for a minute, and allowed me to take a look at you; I can't say I've ever seen you in a thorough ill-humour yet, and variety's always pleasing,' so allow me to contemplate you now."

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Philip left off fanning, and the two pair of honest blue eyes looked stedfastly at each other for a full minute, then each face beamed out into a smile; and, finally, Phil rolled over on the grass again, and burst into a fit of laughter. "Oh, Brian," he

said still laughing, "it's a great humbug being cross; what a little muff I was to lie there and fret. But, you see, I took a fit of being like a savage, and papa said he wouldn't have it; and when papa says he won't have a thing, why, you know, it's no go; and mamma said I must be a good boy, and I hate good boys."

"You don't really mean that, Phil," said Brian, for involuntarily came the thought of how Philip had loved and admired the goodness of his boybrother.

"Oh, Brian, don't," exclaimed Phil, jumping up in an agony, "I know what you are thinking of, but he was not like common good boys, he was, oh! what I can never be. Mamma said I should think of him, and so I do; but it doesn't make me any better, it only makes me feel that I'm a horrid, selfish, stupid, little wretch."

Well, put me down for ditto, merely substituting big for little," replied Brian half smiling, "and having thereby established a comfortable equality, let's see what can be done."

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Well, then, Brian, now don't you think it's a great plague not to be allowed to have your own P15

way

"I do," said Brian frankly.

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"And what do you do when you can't get it ?" "Do without it, to be sure; it'll be all the same a hundred years hence."

"Oh, bother a hundred years!" responded Phil impatiently; "it isn't the same now, and that's what I care about. I should like to be able always to choose what I would do, and instead of that I've got nothing to do but obey.'

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"Then, upon my word, I almost wish I could change with you," said Brian with sudden energy, "for if choice isn't a bother I don't know what is." "What makes you say that now ?"

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