look coldly and strangely at one, while one feels the blessedness of being loved by—”

"My dear fellow," said Lockwood, interrupting him, "I am no stoic. I sympathize with you in this new happiness of yours very heartily, and you have my warmest congratulations upon it; but it's my ambition to be a true friend to you, and no sham one, and therefore please don't think me harsh if at any time I give advice that may not exactly fall in with your own views. And now for the scratch," he added, as he placed his hands upon Grantley's shoulders. "Unless you

steer your course very wisely, my friend, this love affair will just make shipwreck of your own, your parents', and Miss Cecil's hopes. Don't throw yourself down, man, on a bank of

roses, to dream away the coming years. No, no, you'll surely think too much of Miss Cecil to become a dreamer, instead of a worker. You will know that when love has a tendency to enervate one, it is no manly passion. It is selfish-it is one's destruction."

Grantley was ever hot-tempered and wilful. He started back from his friend's touch, and thundered out

"By heaven! Lockwood, you mustn't cross You know not what I am when thrown off my guard."

me.

Lockwood only looked calmly, but undauntedly on the pale passion-shaken form before him, and for a few moments preserved unbroken silence. Meanwhile the other had thrown himself into his chair, and buried his face in his hands. At last, watching his opportunity, he said—

Grantley, do you mean to keep me as a

friend ?"

His companion started

"Friend! Of course. Why not? Why do you ask? Can you doubt me?"

And as the four honest eyes met, the two friends caught each other's hands.

แ

'Then suffer me now, in this hour of fever, to put your words to the test. Call me slow

blooded and passionless if you will. I shall

not heed it. I want to be a true friend, as I have said, and as such, may possibly have my vagaries; but those, if you confide in me, you will overlook. Will you suffer me to interpose myself between you and such ways and modes of proceeding as I

may hold to be positively injurious to the realisation of your best wishes ?"

"I will."

แ So far good. Now for another test.”
"Let me hear it."

"I want you to promise me you will get over a certain amount of work daily. We will read together if you like, and so shall help each other. Will you be held in by so tight a rein ?"

"I would not by any other man living, but by you I will. Oh! tame down this lion in me; bring me low; make me myself."

"I tame the lion in you! I bring you low! You forget; you must forget. No arm of flesh can do that. But it grows late, and

as you have accepted my conditions, and we are entering both on new and untried scenes, it would be well for us to say our prayers together to-night."

No opposition was offered, and the friends knelt together side by side in silence, and with heads bowed low. And shall we doubt that the Saviour of sinners walked then on the stormy waves within the heart of him who had so lately found himself without the power of self-mastery? No: for when he rose, the quivering lip, the moistened eyes, and the warm, friendly grasp of the hand, bespoke the presence of far other feelings than those that had been raging so uncontrolled before. A deep calm succeeded the outbreak, and as the two friends parted for the night, they heard the midnight-toll echo solemnly along the almost deserted streets.

VOL. 1.

E

છ

CHAPTER V.

SANDILANDS. A TEMPTATION. PATERNAL

COUNSELS.

FLUSHED as the friends were with the sense of their new and important position in life, they yet felt that the hour when dear rough Uncle Busby's face would recede from view, and leave them once more to each other, would be an unwelcome one. The early morning of his departure brought with it good promise of a fine day, and with the view of deferring the anticipated gloom a few hours, it was resolved that they should accompany the good squire in his journey home as far as