"May I beg that you will not disturb yourself unnecessarily in consequence of this untoward circumstance; but be assured that I will do everything in my power to track the truant, and the first tidings shall be immediately transmitted to you. "Begging to offer my best compliments,

"I remain, madam,

"Your most obedient Servant,
"CHARLES DODD."

The letter reached Helen just as she was starting for the church for her usual Saturday's practice on the organ. It grieved her much, for the warm-hearted boy, in her ten years' dealings with him, had wound himself round her heart, and made himself very dear to her. Her first impulse was to invent some plan of her own for tracing the path he had taken, and not to rest till she found him ; but upon a second perusal of Mr. Dodd's letter, it seemed to her that there was nothing she could do; he had taken the matter quite out of her hands. If she could have chosen, she would far rather have had all the trouble of the pursuit thrown upon her, than be obliged to sit still at Minsterleigh, and trust to other people.

However, she had not time to give way to her grief and anxiety just then, for the Saturday's practice was a necessity; but many tears dropped upon the keys as she played, and she could not train her thoughts to her work. She had just finished a voluntary of Mozart's, and her hands had dropped listlessly in her lap, when a quick step sounded on the stairs, the curtains were pushed aside, and Mr. Vere stood before her.

"Miss Carr, you in trouble!" he exclaimed, as she turned her tearful eyes upon him.

Helen explained, for she had grown to look upon Mary Vere's brother almost as if he were her own; and she gave him Mr. Dodd's letter to read.

He read it over-twice or thrice Helen thought, for he was a long time about it-and then he returned it to her, saying gravely,"Miss Carr, I should like very much to help to bear your troubles."

She looked at him wonderingly, and then his long pent-up story came flowing from his lips in eager, passionate words. How he had loved her almost ever since she came to Minsterleigh, and how his love for her had grown greater year by year, and how insurmountable obstacles had alone prevented him from speaking before; but now the obstacles were removed; his sister was going to marry, and leave him, and would Helen be his wife, and take her place at the parsonage?

At first Helen had tried to check his rapid current of words, but finding it impossible, she had sat listening to him, a bright flush on her cheeks, and her hands nervously playing with each other.

When he had finished he bent towards her, expecting her answer,

and Helen forced herself to speak. She thanked him for his good opinion of her; and then, in broken sentences, she told him the whole truth, the whole story which Minsterleigh had been so eager to know, how she had loved before, had been on the point of marriage with the one she loved, and how she loved him still, in spite of the hot anger in which they had parted. She explained the cause of the disagreement, and added, that she knew the probability was that they would never meet again in this world, but she could not think of anybody else.

“But, Miss Carr," the rector pleaded, "what you have told me has only increased my love and respect for you tenfold. Is it wise to sacrifice your future life to a buried-pardon me, you told me it was buried-to a buried hope?"

"Yes," she said, "it is buried. I never think of seeing him again, but I could never care for anybody else—not in that way, I mean. Mr. Vere, I esteem and--and I like you very, very much, but you ask of me more than I can give."

Once again the rector pleaded; he had put the question to her suddenly, when she was unprepared for it; would she take time to think of it? He would wait as long as she pleased, if only she would give him hope.

"No," said Helen, softly, her voice quivering, for she saw how earnest he was, and she was sorry for him, "time will make no difference. I would do anything almost for you and Mary-anything but this. Mr. Vere, you must not think me unkind; I don't mean it. I have valued your friendship so much, and I can never forget your kindness to me since I have been here."

"It has been returned to us doubled, Miss Carr," he said, and then he pressed her hand, and left her; but on going down the stairs five minutes later, feeling that further practice was impossible that day, Helen found him waiting at the church door. He walked home with her, carrying her music-books as he had often done before, and gave her hand another lingering, affectionate grasp as they parted at her own door.

Three years further on, three years unmarked by tidings either of John Locksley or Henry Clinton, and Helen Carr was laid low upon the bed of sickness. She had caught a violent cold which brought on rheumatic fever, and for a week she lay between life and death.

One of her old friends, a kind, motherly old lady, came many miles to nurse her and take care of her, and Minsterleigh friends vied with each other in their kindnesses. Mary, the rector's sister, but Mary Vere no longer, sent loving messages of inquiry from her faroff home, and the rector himself, on his own account, called twice

daily at Miss Carr's door, and sent kindly offerings-sometimes a bouquet of splendid flowers, sometimes a tiny nosegay of hedgeviolets gathered with his own hands, and sometimes a dish of fruit, a present to himself from some wealthy neighbour.

After a great deal of care and attention, Helen began to mend; but returning health disclosed a sad misfortune: rheumatism had taken such a violent hold of her that it had left both her wrists perfectly useless-at any rate, as far as organ-playing was concerned, and the doctors gave no hope of their ever regaining their former strength.

It troubled Helen dreadfully. What was she to do? How hard it would be to begin the world afresh!

"Trust in God, my child," said her old lady friend, over and over again; "He sends the trouble, and He will find a way out of it."

And Helen tried to trust, but it seemed very hard nevertheless.

One afternoon, the first of her coming down-stairs, as she was sitting in front of the fire in her easy chair, she said to her old friend,

"I wonder what made me dream so of John Locksley last night? Just when I fell asleep after tea I dreamed that he came into the room with you, and I heard you talking in a quiet whisper; and I heard him say, 'Poor thing! poor Helen!' and then I heard his footsteps as he went away, as plainly as if I were awake and he were really there."

66

My dear, suppose I were to tell you that you were more awake than asleep, and that he was really there ?"

"I should say you were joking, dearie."

Then, as she caught a strange look on the old lady's face, her eyes grew suddenly large and anxious: "He wasn't, was he? Don't trifle with me, please."

"He was," said a manly, cheery voice close behind her; and the next moment Helen's poor weak hands were clasped in a pair of strong hearty ones, and a weatherbeaten face, dark with beard and moustaches, was bent down to kiss her.

"Helen, my own, I'm come back in the character of a man who has found out how wrong he was at a certain critical part of his life, and who is truly thankful to discover that he is not too late to regain the treasure he so thoughtlessly flung from him. Helen, for a long time I wondered how it was that all my bright prospects in New Zealand failed to please me; but at last I found out that it was because I had not you to share them with me. Will you forgive and forget?"

Their old friend left them then, and stayed in her own room for an hour, but when she came back she found them just the same

as before. Helen, with her hands clasped in John's, and John standing on the rug, looking down at her. It was all settled then. John had made a moderate fortune in New Zealand, and intended to remain in England for the future, and they were to be married in the course of the summer.-But not at St. Michael's, Minsterleigh. Helen stipulated that, and told John the reason.

"The sharp-eyed parson!" remarked John. "He showed his taste, but I'm very glad he didn't get you!"

66

'Helen, can you bear anything more to-night?" her old friend asked her, as the evening wore on.

Helen nodded.

"Because, dear, John can tell you something of poor Harry Clinton."

"Oh, John, can you?" "Do let me hear."

Helen turned her eager eyes upon him.

"You must keep yourself quiet, my own, and then you shall hear all. The way I made acquaintance with him was this:-It was in our last New Zealand summer, in the week which I hoped was to be the last of my colonial sojourn, when I had made up my mind that I could never forget you, and should never rest till I had come to England, sought you out, and persuaded you to forgive and forget all that had passed. I had made arrangements with the captain of a homeward bound vessel, and my passage money was paid. I was paying a farewell visit to my sheepwalks one morning, when a lad on a rough pony came up to me and inquired the way to the nearest town. We began talking, and he told me his history. That he had run away from school and gone to sea, and that he had run away from his ship at Auckland, and intended to make his fortune in New Zealand; but with all his openness, the lad concealed his name, and everything that might serve as a clue to possible pursuers. I took a fancy to him, and told him that if he liked to stay the night with me I thought I could get him employment the next day with a friend of mine. The boy was as grateful as if I had made him Governor at once, and we rode home together. Within twenty yards of my own dwelling my horse threw me, and I lay on the ground with a broken leg. We had not the best surgical skill near us, and the accident induced a violent illness, which forced me to forfeit my passage in the homeward bound vessel. I don't believe I should have been here now but for that grateful lad. He stayed with me, and tended me as if he had been my son. The little bit of impulsive kindness I had shown him was repaid me tenfold.

"Just as I was recovering, he fell ill with a fever, which was raging around us, and it was my turn to tend him; but I was not much used to that sort of work, and I am afraid he had but a rough nurse, poor fellow! For days and nights he tossed on his hard bed in the wildest

delirium, and the doctor came, and shook his head at him over and over again. I could not make out what he said in his delirious ravings, his words were so rapid and incoherent; not till the last night of his life at least, and then-bending over him to moisten his poor dry lips-I caught the words Helen' and Deanswood.' You may think how I listened for more after that, but no more came. The poor lad laid his head on my shoulder an hour afterwards, and died.

6

"It was not till he was gone that I thought of Henry Clinton, and then I rifled his pockets and found letters which showed me that it was he and no other.

"Helen, I can't tell you what I felt when I saw that boy lying dead before me in the moonlight. While he was but a stranger to me I would have done a great deal to save him; then I felt that I would give all I possessed if it could bring him back to life.

6

"The next day, poor lad, I buried him in a nook among the hills, with trees shading him, and a brook making music a little way off. We were in the wilds-churchyards and clergymen miles away,—but I took my Prayer-book with me, and said over him the texts and prayers out of the Burial Service; for I thought of you, Helen, and I knew you would like him to be buried as if he was at home. Then I sat down and thought about coming to England and to you; but a disagreeable idea had crept into my mind. Now that Henry Clinton is gone,' I said to myself, Helen will have Mrs. Ross's property after all. Suppose she should think that has anything to do with my going back?' A long time I sat ruminating by the boy's grave, till the sun went down, and it began to get damp and cold, and then I went home. But I couldn't sleep all that night, and for many nights after, the thought worried me so much. At last I could bear it no longer, and I flung it from me, and made up my mind to come home at once in spite of it. My own conscience is quite clear upon the point,' I said to myself. I hope I shall never stoop to such meanness as that; and if Helen thinks me capable of it, I must try to persuade her that she is wrong.' But I don't think

she will."

His eyes turned inquiringly towards her as he finished, and she put her hand in his.

"No, John," she said, "such an idea would never have entered my head. If I had not trusted you too much to think of such a thing for a moment, I should not have promised to be Helen Locksley."