can see it now-it was so sad. It was the first break-up in our family, and it seemed like tearing away a limb from a whole body.

"The carrier was a kind of cousin of my father's, and he was very good to me, and made me a bed in the wagon, of hay, and his coats, and brought me hot coffee and toast from the houses we stopped at by the way. We travelled all night, and it was cold and weary work; and when at last we reached London, I had a racking headache, and felt altogether very wretchedly ill. This did not help to make things look pleasanter, and I thought London the most horribly dirty place imaginable. My aunt was waiting at the inn where the carrier stopped. She was a sickly, rather sad-looking person, neat in her dress, but very silent.

Thank God you're safe, Biddy!' she said, as she helped me out of the cart. 'It's a dreadful journey for you; but you've got a brave heart, I hope.'

Yes, aunt,' I said, faintly; 'but is this London?' "Ay, child, it is, and likely enough you think it not over-sweet and pleasant; but it matters little where we live if we have got rest in our hearts, Biddy, and a contented mind.'

"No, aunt,' I said in a choked voice, for I could scarcely keep down my tears; and I gathered my clean skirts round me, lest they should brush against the dirty women that passed me on the pavement, and I sighed as smuts fell on my blue bonnet-strings, and on my clean collar. My Aunt Elizabeth lived, like most poor people in London, in one room of a house that had once been inhabited by gentry, but was now let off in separate rooms to many poor families. As we went in, there were dirty children playing on the stairs, and bad smells coming from the rooms; and I shrank from the walls on either side, lest they should soil my clothes. I felt almost angry, and sick with disgust at the slatternliness and dirt and withal the finery of the people whom my aunt greeted as neighbours-I who had been brought up to think dirt and untidiness to be vices!

"The room was the third floor front, and there were several pots of nasturtiums, now yellow and drooping, outside. The room itself appeared to my dainty eyes very uninviting, and I had no sooner looked round it than I dropped into the nearest chair and burst out crying.

"Poor child,' my aunt said, 'you're overtired. Come, take off your bonnet, and have a cup of tea. It's all strange to you at first, and London's not over-pleasant to look at, but there are hard lessons to be learnt all through life, and better to begin and learn them young. This place don't look like your mother's pleasant kitchen, but it's cleaner than it looks, and I've spent many happy hours in it, and I'll do all I can to make you happy too.'

"Happy!-why, it sounded to me mere mockery to suppose any one could be happy in such a place. I tried to smile, and thank my aunt, but as I did

so I looked once more round the room and saw, as I thought, its wretchedness. One little low room, smoky, and with a dirty paper upon the walls; a bed in the corner, with dusky-looking coverlet and cur tains; signs of cooking and even washing being done in this one little room—for a line hung across it, and a few clothes upon it. How different they looked to the snowy white linen our mother took such pride in!

"Oh, mother-mother!' I said, and panted for breath, for the room felt close, and I could scarcely breathe; 'oh, mother-mother! what shall I do?'

666

"Biddy, Biddy, thy mother would bid thee take a brave heart with you. It's a bad look-out indeed if you're home-sick already.'

"At these words of my aunt I did indeed feel ashamed of myself, and tried to help her get the tea, after which I did a little ironing, though I longed to wash the clothes again, and bleach them on the common." (To be concluded.)

"THE QUIVER" BIBLE CLASS. 224. How frequently is "faith" defined in Holy Scripture?

225. How many times is it recorded that St. Paul used the words, "Be not weary in well doing?"

226. That St. Peter was married is incidentally mentioned both by St. Matthew and St. Paul. Give chapter and verse.

227. We read in the Apocalypse, “He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword." Our Lord and Moses also gave expression to the same law. Quote the passages.

228. "And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did." Who were the people referred to?

229. On what does St. Paul base his argument for a general resurrection ?

230. Mention two occasions when the Lord appeared to refuse to accede to the requests made to Him, but afterwards yielded.

231. Name several occasions, as recorded by St. John, when our Lord's words were taken literally by His hearers, and consequently were misunderstood by them.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 512.

208. 1, The raising of Jairus's daughter (Mark v. 22-37); 2, at the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1, 2); 3, in the garden of Gethsemane (Mark xiv. 32, 33).

209. "The Feast of Ingathering" (Exod. xxiii. 16; xxxiv. 22), which lasted seven days (Deut. xvi. 13). 210. See James i. 12; Rev. ii. 10.

211. Tirhakah. See 2 Kings xix. 9; Isa. xxxvii. 9. 212. Gen. xxviii. 18.

213. St. Mark (iii. 21).

214. Two. See Matt. xi. 2-6; Luke vii. 18-23. 215. Matt. xv. 1; Mark iii. 2; vii. 1.

216. See John ii. 14-18.

When crushing wheels or trampling hoof

Approach, they flit aside,

And puff an ampler crop aloof,

And coo with conscious pride.

Bred in a noxious court, they cheer

Some heart athirst for love, As tumbling o'er in swift career Through airy rings they rove.

O happy birds! we hasten by,

Oppressed with careful thought;

You with bright mien and sparkling eye Before our ken are brought.

Thus kindly nature would allay
Our baser moods, and teach
A simpler bliss, a calmer way
Of life is in our reaeh;-
Would often bid us beauty see

In common guise enshrined,
And hint, whate'er our station be,
Some winged thoughts we may find.
And now the pigeons rise, and coy,
Seek a less bustling nook,
Types that the world holds fleeting joy,
When men no higher look.

CHAPTER V.

66

STEPHEN BOWDEN AND HIS REFLECTION.

E was a handsome man, not very young -some two or three and thirty perhaps, and he looked and felt older. A barrister by profession, and one who had already made his mark, though, refusing to take chambers in the Temple, he still lived on in his little rooms on the ground floor in Ccke Court (which, however, was only a stone's throw off), leading the quiet life he liked best. In spite of his success, he felt disappointed in his profession, as men sometimes do when they are brought face to face with its realities, so he supplemented it with his books, and now and then he wrote a little. He had made his mark in literature too, and was known as the author of one or two articles not likely to be forgotten. A clever man was Stephen Bowden, and recognised as one; educated and thoughtful and discriminating,-something of a dreamer perhaps, yet more of a thinker, and-for it is that which brings him before us-dear beyond all measure to the heart of Margaret Ashbury. He had known Herbert Ashbury for years, and now they lived in adjoining rooms, yet they were never violently intimate. There were strong, good points in Herbert, though he was always rather a reflection of his friend's greater mind than the possessor of a distinct individuality of his own, and there is no real depth in a reflection at any time. He was a good son and a good brother; had worked hard to prepare himself for his profession, and out of the slender means he had to do so, contrived to save a sum of money which, partly from kindness and partly in the hope of gain, he lent to his uncle; but he was aware of his own virtues. He was a man who did not shirk his own acquaintanceship; he knew precisely what he could and what he could not do, neither under nor over rating himself, forgetting that his very knowledge of

his own strength proved its limit. He was not conceited or arrogant, but he felt a little superior to the general run of mortals; he had no vices, he indulged in but few follies, his tastes were rather elevated, and he knew it, and felt elevated in consequence. Books and study he delighted in, and he was capable of thoroughly appreciating those whom he recognised as greater than himself; but on the other hand he was apt to feel slightly contemptuous towards those whom he did not so recognise. He reverenced great thinkers, and might have been one himself, but for his conscious endeavour to be one, and his everlasting analysis of his own progress; he was a man who was a dreamer in his way, and loved to contemplate the heights others had gained, wondering if he also might not reach them. He worked hard at his profession, yet in his quiet moments he thought of greater aims and ends, which he never quite defined to himself, yet which he might have attained if he had not sunned himself in an imaginary consummation till he learnt to shirk the labour which realisation would involve. But all this concerned only his inner life; we all live two -the one to ourselves, the other to the world; and in his outer one he was a persevering, studious young man, with a rather contemptuous manner, and a knack of making himself coldly admired rather than warmly liked.

The two men liked each other; the one saw the good in the other, and tried to expand it; the other tried to rest on his friend's stronger character, and strengthen his own by it; and between the two there was this link which must ever be felt as one, not merely old acquaintance, but the knowledge of the estimation in which each was held by the other.

Margaret Ashbury had known her cousin's friend for about two years, and though, excepting Hetty Ashbury, no one had the slightest idea of it, was engaged to be married to him. How it had hap

reserve.

"You know, Hetty," she said, "we were not very good friends for a long time; I do not think we even liked each other, but we had between us, and felt it between us from the first, that link which, it seems to me, is a stronger one between two human beings even than love-sympathy. Have you not often felt the want of it even in those you love best,-felt that, though you lived your lives together, yet at the end of them you would still be strangers? I have, and when we have met and talked of the little incidents of everyday life, we have finished with each other, and after that we search about in our minds for something to say, and each gets dull and fagged. You cannot, you do not know why, creep into each other's world,—no, not by any means whatever, though you are together for years, so you each play a part to the other, while a sort of second self seems to look on and wonder. Stephen Bowden and I always understood each other, we entered into each other's ideas, and had no want of faith in each other's comprehension, though he is much cleverer than I——"

"Oh no,” said Hetty, that excitable, euthusiastic Hetty.

"Yes, he is, dear," she went on musingly, as they sat, those two girls, over the fire on that quiet evening; "and I am thankful that he is not that that is saying much for him-but still I can understand him, and follow him, far off, yet sympathetic, and thus the simplest woman and the cleverest man may tread the same path together, as a leaf and a branch may float down the same stream. He never forgets too that even if a woman has not studied a subject, she is generally quick enough to grasp it from some point of view, and now and then possibly from a fresh one. So we were always excellent companions-such as Herbert and I, cousins though we are, have never been, though we have many tastes in common, or as Harry Campbell and I should never be though we have known each other all our lives-"

"Why?" asked Hetty, breathlessly. "Because, though we thoroughly like each other, there is no sympathy between us. He never enters into my world, and-dear good kind boy that he is -he has no world of his own, but clings to the surface of other people's, and so he fritters away his life. It was so different with Stephen," she said again, with quiet satisfaction in her voice. "He has understanding and appreciation of every one, and he is so perfectly self-unconscious. He is always interested in others, or in the thing he is doing, or in the book he is reading, or whatever it may be, but he never seems to think of himself, never forces himself on you, or seems to remember his own individual existence, and if he asks for your sympathy it is for what he is doing or thinking, not for himself.

"What did he say ?" asked Hetty, girl-like.

"I am not sure that I can remember, but I could not tell you if I did," she answered; "I do not think any girl could tell what the man she really cared for said to her, any more than she could show his letters. I could not. It would seem like taking the edge off its sweetness."

"But why do you keep the engagement a secret ?" It was only a month before she changed the design of her picture, that Margaret took Hetty into her confidence.

"That you mustn't ask me, dear," she answered; "you must be content to keep my secret without knowing why it is one."

"It's

"Do you ever quarrel?" she asked next; "I fancied that you were not friends the other day." "We very often quarrel,” Margaret laughed gaily, with one of her sudden transitions of moods. so absurd too, he is always fancying he is too old and grave for me, though he is only two or three and thirty, and after a quarrel, or during one, always thinks I repent the engagement, and offers to release me; and then I get my pride up too, and think he is cold, when he is only proud, or that, perhaps, I fall short and disappoint him, and altogether I wonder it is not broken off, and sometimes fear it will be in one of these ridiculous squabbles; it would have been before this but for the knowledge of each other which underlies everything we may say or do."

"Do you care for him very much, Maggie-I mean very, very much?"

The girl hesitated a moment, then flushed, but answered fearlessly enough in her sweet calm voice, "Yes, Hetty dear, very much. I am not ashamed of it," she added, as if to excuse the colour in her face, "I should be more ashamed if I did not care for him;" then she laughed again. "I wonder if you will ever fall very deeply in love, you dear little dimpled Hetty. I am always telling Harry what a dear little wife you would make," and she put on that amusing air of patronage engaged girls and young married women love to assume.

"I believe he likes you--" Hetty began.

"That's what Stephen persists in," Margaret interrupted, impatiently, "and it makes me so angry! and I refuse to change my manner towards him, it is a lifetime old; why it might change his feeling towards me if I did, or make him think I'd changed mine towards him. We are, and always have been just like brother and sister."

"I understand you, Maggie," Hetty answered; "I always think I do somehow," she added thoughtfully; "though," she went on in an injured tone,