Carola

In one of the London streets lying along the riverside there was, some years ago, a small shop, perhaps the smallest shop in London, for the tenant of it, when standing in the centre, could touch each wail with his outstretched hand. Over the narrow doorway, which with a window two feet wide filled up the whole frontage, was painted the name Matthias Levi; and in the window-sill and up each side of the window-frame were ranged old boots and shoes of every size, which old Matthias Levi had mended and patched, and was in this way offering for sale.

Small as the shop was, there was plenty of room within for a cobbler's stall, and there the old Jew was always at work, from time to time lifting up his bended head to take a kindly glance at the people passing along the pavement, or at the great waggons blocking up the narrow street. He was never seen without an old cap of brown seal-skin, in shape like a turban, which came down low on his high and narrow forehead, almost touching the shaggy grey eyebrows hanging over his deep-set eyes. All his teeth were gone, and his mouth fell in, but there was a placid smile resting upon it which had something of the charm of childhood. If a customer came in his wrinkled face beamed with pleasure; and he was as earnest in seeking out the best pair of mended shoes to fit his feet as if those feet were his own. Not a few children went into that little shop barefoot, and came out shod without Matthias being a penny the richer.

In one corner of his dark den a spiral iron staircase, no broader than a ladder, ascended to the room overhead. This was larger than the shop, for it extended over an archway, which led down between two warehouses to the riverside. It was the old Jew's living-room and bedchamber in one, and was but scantily furnished. In the corner of it opposite to the spiral staircase stood a ladder, with a trap-door at the top of it, leading to a garret above. This garret, which had no other way of entrance than through the Jew's shop and dwelling-place, was rented by him to such tenants as were willing to put up with this inconvenience. The three rooms were taken out of an old and dingy warehouse with a rotten-looking landing-stage on the river-bank, which had once probably been a busy spot, but which had now fallen into hands that did but little trade, and only kept the place in auth repair as prevented it tumbling into ruins.

The attic was still larger than old Matthias. Levi's dwelling-place, for it ran back towards the river, and had a low broad window looking out upon it. Half the panes were broken and stuffed up with old rags, very much obscuring the light as it struggled to reach the dark corners which were made by the tilted angles of the roof. In one of these, almost on the floor, was a low bedstead with a torn and dirty quilt covering it. The furniture was still more scanty than in the room below, for there was but one chair, one table, and one old box, and a shelf against the wall holding a little crockery and a tin saucepan, whilst a half-full sack of coals and a bundle of chips stood near the trap-door on a spot closely grimed with coal-dust. With the exception of this corner, which was plainly in a hopeless condition, the floor was tolerably clean, and such glass as was left in the window-frame was fairly bright.

There were two persons living in this garret: a woman nearly eighty and a girl not yet eighteen.

The girl had never known a time when she had not been left to herself. Her father died before her birth, and her mother had followed him before the child had memory to recollect her; the only trace of her existence was that she had called her baby Carola, probably because she had seen some barge with that name sailing past the window. The old woman, Carola's grandmother, had never quitted the garret where she lived since the child had been old enough to send out on errands, and this had come to pass at a very early age, for her wants were as simple as the furniture of her room. All she asked of life was a crust of bread and half a bottle of gin a day. As long as Carola could remember, these requirements had been duly met. Every other day the crooked, shining fingers of the old woman fumbled into a mysterious pocket among her rags, and produced the price of a bottle of gin and a loaf of bread. The loaf was chiefly for the girl, but the gin was altogether for the old woman. When these errands were done Carola was free to do as she liked, and go where she pleased.

It was an active out-of-door life, full of change and stir; in and out of the gin-palaces, with their crowds of drunken men and women, and-up and down the riverside, among cursing and swearing riverside dwellers. Nothing escaped Carola's quick eyes and ears; and every day was full of new interest to her. Of any place in the world beyond the two or three streets near her home she knew nothing, or that any other kind of life could be lived but that of the rough people around her. Her existence was, on the whole, like that of some wild creature; eating when she was hungry if she could get the food, and sleeping when she was tired if she could find a. corner to curl herself up in. At all times she thrust her little figure into every crowd, and stood in the front rank at every street sight. "Carol", as she was called, was a favourite everywhere, and continued to grow in favour. She never entered a gin-shop without having a dram pressed upon her; and the lads who rowed their boats fearlessly amid the confusion of steamers and barges on the river were always willing to take "Carol" with them. She knew all the evil from which most girls are guarded, and but little of the good in which most girls are cradled.

But, however ragged little Carola might be, her feet were always warmly shod, and however neglected by all else, old Matthias Levi did his best to guard her from harm. His heart was, in fact, bound up in her. She was as the apple of his eye, though in the frosty reserve which old age had gathered around him he was bound as in fetters of iron, and could neither talk much to her, nor was able to draw out the child's chatter. But as she passed in and out, ascending and descending his iron staircase, she was constantly under his eye, and often exchanged a few words with him. As Carola grew older and her grandmother more infirm, the discharge of the Sabbath duties fell to her. She was not more than eight years old when she began to light the lamp and kindle the fire for him on a Sabbath eve, when his law forbade him to touch them himself. And as she grew old enough he taught her, with some little austerity of manner, softened by a generous supply of sugar-plums, the Ten Commandments.

"They're good laws," he said, "and it 'ud be good for you to keep them, Carol; though you're not one of my people, my dear."

But as Carola went to and fro about the street, mixing with the lowest of the people, she found that not one of these laws was ever thought of. Yet there was something in the sound of the solemn words which stirred the depths of her childish heart. Every night she stood with her hands behind her in front of the old man, who laid aside his awl and needle to listen, whilst she repeated them in a clear, sweet, serious voice, before going up the ladder which led to her grandmother's garret.

For the only restraint in Carola's life was that of the necessity of coming home at nine o'clock, when Matthias Levi shut up his shop, and fastened the door with a heavy iron bar, as if all his shoes were made of gold. As the only access to the garret lay through his premises, Carola could not stay out later in the streets. Till the very last moment she would linger among her companions, loath to return to the dismal attic which was her only home; but when the clocks struck nine she had to flee, and rush, breathless with her running, into the dark little shop. How good this restraint was for her she did not know till many years had gone by.

Once a week the old Jew underwent a strange and solemn change in Carola's eyes. This was on a Friday evening, when he exchanged his seal-skin cap for a hat of a peculiar shape, and drew about his shoulders his white-and-blue prayer-robe, which his father had brought with him from Poland. She could hear him saying words she could not understand, as she peeped down at him from her trap-door in the ceiling of his room, and watched until the long prayers were ended, and the old man laid aside his Sabbath dress, and sat down in his old familiar guise.

"What do you do that for?" asked Carola one Friday evening, after an unusually long, prayer, as she crept half-way down the ladder, ready to retreat quickly if the strange old man was angry.

"They're good words as the wise men of my people have taught us to say," he replied.

"I used to know partly what they meant, but I've forgotten what it is, now I'm old. But they are pleasing to Him," he added with a mysterious gesture, as he lifted up his hand and pointed through the window to the small portion of the sky visible through it.

"Would they do me any good?" inquired the child.

"They're good words for man," answered Matthias with a grave dignity, "but woman no call to say them; and you're not one of our women. No, they'd do you no good, my dear, if I could teach them to you."

"Women that aren't Jews, does He like them?" asked Carola, pointing up to the sky.

"P'raps He do, p'raps He do," he replied in a caressing tone. "He loves the Jews, and has chosen them out of all people; but I think He'd love a little girl like you if you keep them ten laws I've taught you."

"Is it good to lie in bed all day, and drink gin?" she inquired shrewdly.

"There's nought against it in them laws," he said; "and it don"t make much difference to folks that are only English, and not Jews as well. But you take care, Carol, and keep all these laws, and p'raps you'll be reckoned as a Jew when the great judgment comes. I don"t know much about it, my dear, for I was not one of the wise men, and they never asked me to read in the Synagogue; but there's no harm done by keeping His laws."

Matthias had never said so much, or spoken so earnestly to her before; and Carola climbed back to the garret, and lay down beside her drunken old grandmother, firmly resolved to keep all those laws which Matthias had taught her. By dint of listening with all her might every Sabbath eve to the half-audible prayers mumbled by the old Jew, she caught up a few Hebrew words, which she used to repeat in a low whisper, standing at the garret window, and looking up steadfastly to the quiet sky which hung above the busy river.

Whilst Carola was only a little child the old Jew could guard her from many evils; but as she grew older his anxieties for her became graver. Fortunately, when she was about twelve years of age, a school inspector tracked the wild street-girl to her home, and insisted upon her going to school. Upon this, Matthias took her to a small Jewish day-school in the neighbourhood, where she quickly learned to read, and read with intelligence and ease. But, as soon as she could shake off these shackles, she returned to the free and dangerous life of the streets, with its constant changes and its exciting events. Many an hour the old cobbler, sitting at his stall, brooded painfully over the perils to which Carola was exposed. She was growing up into a beautiful girl, with fine dark eyes and an abundance of dark hair, which hung, tangled and unkempt, over a white broad forehead. She was getting ashamed and impatient of her ragged clothing, which hitherto had given her no concern, and nothing made her eyes sparkle with pleasure so much as when Matthias bought her some bright bit of ribbon or some cheap trinket from the Jewish pedlars who called now and then at his shop-door. It was very evident to Matthias that more lads hung about the place than when Carola was a mere child; and even his angriest remonstrances could not prevent the girl from standing at the street corner, laughing and chaffing with them. Worse than all, the girl was unfortunately growing fond of the spirits her grandmother lived upon; and of late she had come in more than once with an unsteady step and glistening eyes, which had struck horror into the heart of the old Jew, who was as abstemious as most Jews are.

"Oh, Carol, Carol!" he cried, one evening, with tears in his deep-set eyes; "whatever will become of you if you don't keep yourself from goin' bad?"

"Why, I'm keepin' all those laws you've taught me!" she exclaimed, turning round and gazing at him with a startled look. "I never swear, nor steal, nor nothin', like all the rest of 'em; and I stay indoors all the time you keep Sabbath, though it makes me mis'rable. If I'm goin' bad, it isn't much use to keep those laws."

"But you go to the vaults, Carol," he said anxiously, yet timidly; "and folks are fond of you, and they give you more drink than a young girl like you ought to have; and you run about the streets too much for a pretty girl like you. Stay at home more, my dear."

"Stay at home!" she echoed, with a wild laugh that was sad to him to hear; "stay at home with nobody but grandmother, and she lyin' in bed, and drink, drink, drinkin' all day! Oh, I'd soon take to drinkin' like her if I'd nothing else to do. I must run about the streets, Matthias. I couldn't live in that old hole and never go out, like her. I'd rather be dead and in the grave, I would."

"Couldn't you get some work to do?" he asked.

"She won't hear a word of leavin' her to earn money for myself," said Carola; "she cries and says I don't love her; and one of the laws says, 'Honour thy father and thy mother'. That means grandmother as well, doesn't it?"

Matthias bent his head gravely.

"So I mustn't disobey her," continued Carola, "and I'm mis'rable, and I hate myself in these dirty old rags of clothes, and I can't ever forget them, only when I just take a little drop to drink, and then it doesn't seem to matter so much, and I feel almost like a little girl again. But don't you be afeard for me," she went on, looking affectionately into the old Jew's dim eyes. "I know you'd be troubled if I went wrong, and I'll not go wrong no more than that, if that's wrong for a girl as isn't a Jew. Just that little bit of a way I'll go, but not a bit farther. And that isn't breakin' one o' the commandments, you know."

So nothing could be done by Matthias for Carola as long as her grandmother lived, except to watch over her as closely as he could. There were no more peaceful days for him, except the Sabbath, when he knew that the girl was safe at home, in the garret overhead. Now and then he bought a book for her from the pedlars at the door, and was more than content when she shut herself up with it and never put it down, if it was an interesting book, until she had read it to the last page. But her absorbing life was, out of doors, and as soon as the Sabbath or the book was ended Carola darted out into the streets. Nor was Matthias sure that she would come back when the clock struck nine; she was growing tired of even this slight restraint.

But at length the inevitable end of the drunken old grandmother drew near; and Carola had to remain indoors day after day with the dying woman. The girl could not believe that her grandmother was really going to leave her, and to leave her alone in the world. No neighbour came in to help her in her duties, for to do so they must have passed through Matthias Levi's rooms, and as long as she could remember no stranger's foot had entered them. He fetched a doctor towards the end, for he knew there would be trouble and difficulty if this was neglected; but the doctor only shook his head, and said nothing could be done to prolong the life of the. wretched old woman.

"Give her anything she seems to like," he said.

There was only cue thing the dying creature craved for; and Carola went out late at night to the nearest gin-palace to buy a fresh bottle of gin. She had been sitting in the close atmosphere of the garret all day without food; only now and then sipping the gin-and-water she had poured at intervals down her grandmother's parched throat. The streets were quiet as she sped along them, for in a few minutes all the spirit-vaults would be closed, and those who were drinking late were still, inside their glittering walls, waiting to be turned out at the last moment. Carola's face was bathed with tears, of which she was half proud and half ashamed.

"Take a drop of something to comfort you," said the barmaid sympathisingly. Carola was in no hurry to go back. She felt reluctant to return at once to the dismal and lonely room, where there was nothing to look at but the shrunken and death-stricken face of her old grandmother. Yet she did not care to stay in the streets, dimly-lighted though they were, where she might be seen by any one who would jeer at her grief. When she had almost reached Matthias's door she turned down stealthily along the low passage which led beneath his dwelling to the riverside. The half-ruined landing-stage which was lying in the moonlight seemed to invite her to rest there a little while; and Carola sat down on a block of wood, round which still hung the frayed and ragged fragments of a cable by which boats had once been moored. The night breeze blowing across the river came fresh and cool to her heated face. It was past midnight, and the waning moon was rising into the sky and sending a flickering track of glistening ripples up to her feet. There was a gentle lapping of the water against the landing-stage which had a lulling and soothing sound. A good many vessels lay at anchor higher up the river with lights burning fore and aft; and down east some ship, in full sail, was going out quickly with the tide. But there was scarcely a sound to be heard except the low swish of the water at her feet. A few soft little clouds followed in the wake of the moon, all tinted with golden light; and the rest of the summer sky was scattered over with dim stars. They looked to Carola like eyes heavy with sleep that could watch no longer, like her own.

She might have dozed a few minutes; but suddenly she woke up and saw a boat passing across the long line of light across the river. It looked black against the silvery moonlight. There were two men standing up in it, and their dusky forms swayed to and fro in a fierce struggle. Carola sat still and looked on, as she had often gazed as a spectator on a street fight. The boat crossed the light and drifted on into the darkness, but having once seen it she could still see it, though indistinctly. In a minute or two one of the black figures disappeared, whether into the boat or the water she could not tell. Only one man stood there where two had been a moment before; but no shout or cry broke the stillness of the night. The man who was left took up an oar and paddled back up the river, passing her so closely and so slowly that she could see plainly who it was.

"Why, that's George Bassett." she said to herself, drawing back a little into the deeper shadows of the thick timber. He had been haunting her footsteps of late, and she did not like him; she would not have him find her there for worlds. As soon as he was fairly past, she crept silently along the passage and into the open street.

Matthias Levi was looking out anxiously for her, and shook his head sadly at her uncertain and faltering gait. Carola had been away nearly an hour; and he did not know but that the old grandmother might be dead. Though it was not the Sabbath, he had put on his old prayer-robe, that he might recite his prayers, with a vague reverence for the approaching presence of the mysterious angel of death, who came alike to Jew and Gentile. He hurried the girl up-stairs, and stood at the foot of the ladder, watching her climb up it with her unsteady feet and trembling hands.

"Tell me how she is, Carol," he said eagerly; "you're yourself enough to know how the poor creature is? You're not too much overcome to see how she is, my dear?"

Carola turned round, and looked down upon him with streaming eyes.

"You think I'm drunk," she said, "and it's mis'rable I am. Why can't grandmother go on livin' as she's always done ? I've never done aught to vex her. I've kep' myself good because you and her was for ever and ever goin' on at me. I don't know any other girl as good as me. Haven't I always kep' myself a good girl?"

"Yes, yes, Carol," he answered soothingly; "and if you'd never take any drink you'd be a jewel. And you are a jewel to me, my dear. Only, you go on now, and tell me how your poor grandmother is."

On the low shelf which formed the chimney-piece of the garret a candle was burning in an old gin-bottle. It had burned dull during the girl's long absence, and cast a mere glimmer of light on the yellow and sunken face of the old woman. Her head was tossing to and fro on the hard pillow, and her ragged grey hair lay in thin and tangled knots about it. But her dim eyes glistened a little at the sight of Carola, and at the strong scent of the dram which she hastened to give to her, lifting up the grey head tenderly as she held the cracked cup to her lips. With a satisfied sigh, the dying woman fell back as soon as the dram was swallowed, and Carola sank down on the floor beside the bed, watching the parched and withered face as it seemed to grow darker and colder every instant, in spite of her faithful gaze.

"There's money for you, Carol," she said, speaking with great difficulty, and in a whisper; "plenty o' money, nigh upon a pound a week. You're a heiress. Matthias is takin' care of it; and I've been a good grandmother to you. The money's all safe, and I've never drunk more of it than I promised. I've never been bad to you, have I, Carol?"

"No, no," answered the girl, sobbing.

"And now you're nigh on eighteen, and you're a good girl yet," she gasped; "you've never stole or gone wrong; and I'm not afeard to give account to them as left you with me. There's not a many girls as don't go to the bad, and you're a pretty girl; but you promise me you never will, will you, Carol?"

"Never!" said Carola fervently.

There flashed across her mind the recollection of how George Bassett had kissed her in the Street a day or two ago, and how she had given him a fierce blow on the cheek, which had left the marks of all her fingers. She would do it again, and sharper, if there was any need!

Will God Almighty be very hard on me?" exclaimed the old woman with a sudden cry of terror. She started up in her bed, and glared with sunken and bloodshot eyes into the black shadows under a gable of the roof.

Carola looked that way with beating heart and shuddering frame; but there was nothing she could see. The crooked fingers that had gripped her hand slackened their hold, and the worn-out body of the dying woman fell back on the bed. When Carola withdrew her fascinated eyes from the blackness of the shadows, she saw that her grandmother was dead.

The next Monday all the neighbourhood was astonished at the magnificence of the funeral which went from Matthias Levi's house. The old woman had not been seen for years, and very few of her neighbours knew anything of her, except that Carola had a grandmother, on whose account she neither went into service nor into a factory. The hearse that carried the coffin to the distant cemetery was covered with handsome plumes, and the horses that drew it ad the mourning-coach that followed had the longest and blackest manes and tails which had ever been seen in that street. There was no one but Carola in the great coach, for Matthias had not deemed it right, as a Jew, to be present at the funeral of a Christian, and there was no woman among her numerous acquaintances whom the girl cared to ask to go with her. She had slept the last few nights on the floor of the garret where the silent and motionless corpse was, and many questions had thronged to her excited and quickened brain. They were in her mind still as she followed the coffin down the cemetery paths, and watched it lowered into the grave. The chaplain read the Burial Service decorously, but officially, and was turning away, when the loneliness of the weeping girl, and her pale and tear-stained face, struck him, and he turned back again, after going a few paces, to speak to her.

"Is there no one to go home with you?" he inquired.

"No; I'd nobody else but her," she answered, pointing down into the open grave; "and I don't know nothin' about where she's gone, or however I'm to find her again when I die. Isn't there nobody as knows?"

"You should go to your parish priest," he replied, "and he will tell you. What parish do you come from?"

"I don't know about parishes," she said; "but Matthias'll know, I dare say."

"I've a book here," said the chaplain, "that will teach you more than anything else, if you will read it carefully. You can read, I suppose?"

He took out of his pocket a small Testament, with well-worn binding, and. leaves that were somewhat thumb-marked. Carola held out her hand eagerly.

"Are you poor?" he asked again, glancing at her handsome dress, and thinking of the plumed hearse which had brought the coffin to the grave.

"Oh, no," she answered promptly; "I've plenty of money. I've no need to cry for that; but I want to know all I can about what has happened to her, for it'll happen to us all, you know. There was somethin' in her that went out all in a moment, like when a candle is blown out. One moment it's all light, and then it's all darkness. Where does the light go to?"

"I have not time to stay with you," said the chaplain, who had another funeral waiting for him, "but you must go to your parish priest and ask him. And you may take this little book with you. You may keep it," he added; "it cost only five pence."

Carola turned slowly away, but when the chaplain was out of sight she retraced her steps to the open grave. The hearse and the mourning-coach had left as soon as they had set down their burdens, and there was no one to speak to her, or to distract her thoughts from the solemn questions which were in her heart. The deep gloom of the little funeral, its sable plumes, and the unrelieved blackness of the hearse she had followed, had depressed her spirits. It was all new to her. There was no cemetery in the crowded part of the city where she lived, and this was the first time she had stood beside an open grave; she had. not even seen a place of graves before, and all about her stood the white tombstones of the dead in thick array. Folks died, and were carried away. in coffins; that she had known from her infancy. But death had never touched her strong young life before; it 'had never come' home to her. And now the poor old bed-ridden woman, who had been content to lie still all day, slowly consuming her daily allowance of gin, was gone into that dark and dreadful, mystery. Matthias had told her last night, with a face of awe, that he could not say what became of people that were not Jews, and neither her grandmother nor she were Jews. What was the terrible place whither she must go when her own hour came?

It seemed most strange to Carola that the street should look just the same as usual when she returned to it. Her old companions were lounging at their doors and the children were playing on the dusty pavement as if nothing had happened. Only they looked at her with something like unfriendliness in their aspect, and not one invited her into any of the spirit-vaults near at hand. The costliness of her mourning struck a kind of awe into their minds, and they felt that a dress so handsome ought not to come into contact with dirty floors. Matthias was at work at his stall, and he only gave a brief glance at her pale face and reddened eyes as she went softly and sadly past him up the spiral staircase. His heart was heavy for her; but what could he say? what comfort could there be in the death of an old drunken Christian like her grandmother?

Carola ascended to the empty garret, which had never been empty before. She threw herself down on the bed, and broke into a passion of tears and sobs. Matthias had taught her early that she must honour the old grandmother in the place of her father and mother, who were dead; and of late years there had been a kind of pitying affection in her heart for this poor, helpless, drink-besotted creature, who was the only person in the world belonging to her, and who was so utterly dependent upon her. How lonesome this garret was without her! Now and then there had been a gleam of love for her, and pride in her, breaking through the stupid lethargy of the old woman's torpid brain; and Carola could not bear to think that never more would she see those bleared eyes light up for a moment or two at the sight of her, or feel the withered hand touch her cheek caressingly. She had seen this rare and kindly light gleaming through the old grandmother's eyes only a few minutes before the change came, when the glimmering went out suddenly into utter darkness.

The twilight had deepened into night before Carola roused herself; and bethought her of the little book she had brought from the cemetery. She lit the candle, and set the bottle which held it upon the little round table, and drew up her chair beside it. Matthias was still at work, and she could hear the tap of the hammer in the shop, for his door and her window were open. The street was noisy with the usual clamour, and on the river there was still the sound of belated steamers passing by to the City piers. She leaned her head upon her hands, and looked down with smarting eyelids on the little page before her.

Carola's lips moved inaudibly as she whispered each word to herself,"The Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter I. The genealogy of Christ from Abraham to Joseph. 18 He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary when she was espoused to Joseph. 19 The angel satisfieth the mis-deeming thoughts of Joseph, and interpreteth the names of Christ."

Carola could read well, but it was hard work to get through the long genealogy, and it conveyed little meaning to her. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob she had heard of, and David the king, and Solomon, and the carrying away into Babylon, or possibly she might never have gone beyond the first two or three verses. But the name of Jesus Christ was quite new to her; that was a name which Matthias could never have uttered. She knew nothing of Joseph and Mary; but the thought of an angel coming to Joseph in a dream was very pleasant to her. Perhaps an angel might come and tell her what she wanted to know. The second chapter promised to be still more interesting, as she again read the heading: "The wise men out of the East are directed to Christ by a star. 11 They worship Him, and offer their presents. 14 Joseph fleeth into Egypt with Jesus and His mother. 16 Herod slayeth the children: 20 himself dieth. 23 Christ is brought back again into Galilee to Nazareth."

The brawling in the street died away into deep stillness, and the tapping of Matthias's hammer ceased; and out on the river the vessels lay at anchor for the night; but still Carola's pale young face and reddened eyes bent over the little book, and her brown finger went from line to line, and her lips moved with the words she was reading, long after all these sounds were gone. She mis-called many of the words; yet the charm of the story held her as no story had ever yet done. Her bright intelligence pictured all she read. She could see the star shining, and the wise men looking up at it, and following as it went before them. She saw them entering the house and falling down on their knees before the young child and His mother; they were like Matthias with his Sabbath prayer-robe on, not like the men who were only English and not Jews. And the children being slain, and Rachel weeping, how plainly she could picture it! John the Baptist was a real man to her, almost as real as Matthias. But oh! how much there was she could not understand! Who could this Jesus be, whose birth was foretold to Joseph in a dream, and of whom the angels took such special care? The wise men called Him the King of the Jews; and a voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son." Matthias had never spoken of Him. And they had brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that bad the palsy; and He healed them all. No wonder that great multitudes followed Him; she could see closely packed crowds, like the crowds on Lord Mayor's Day, thronging through the streets. And now He is gone up on to a hill, and all the people are gathered thick about Him; and she herself is there in the front, and He opens His lips. What is He going to say?

What He said she could only partly understand, and she still needed some one to explain it to her. But after a while she came to a passage so plain that a child could see much of its meaning. "After this manner therefore pray ye," said Jesus Christ. "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."

Carola lifted up her bended head as she came to the word Amen. Oh! how far better this prayer was than the few Hebrew words without meaning which she had picked up from Matthias. She rose from her chair and went to the window, where she always stood to pray. She had forgotten her own sadness: her brain was too full of the new and strange things she had been reading. To-morrow she must learn every word of this beautiful prayer, which Jesus, the Son of God, had told her to say. The other prayers were good for the Jews, but Matthias himself had been doubtful if they would do her any good. But this prayer was in English, and must be meant for English people. She lifted up her eyes to the midnight sky, and said softly, "Our Father which art in heaven." It was all she could remember: but the tears sprang to her eyes with the warmth with which she said them, though they were no longer sorrowful tears. There was something so sweet and strange to her in those words, that she kept whispering them to herself after she lay down on the bed, until sleep came to her excited yet weary brain.

The next day Carola pored over her new book with the ardent intensity of an unoccupied yet intelligent mind. There was no dull familiarity, to make the marvellous story slip by unheeded or be read half-heartedly. She did not throw the incidents into a far-off past of many centuries, through which the book had gathered rust or mould. They were as fresh to her as this day's newspaper. She had not even an idea that Jesus, the Son of God, whose star was seen in the East when He was born, and who had done so many and mighty works, and said so many wise words, was dead. All the narrative was so life-like to her that she could hardly stay to read more before starting off in search of this Son of God. The crucifixion came upon her as an utterly unexpected and terrible grief. It stunned and bewildered her. There had been so much triumph and gladness in her heart as she read of Him working miracles and being transfigured before Peter, and James, and John, and entering into Jerusalem with the crowds shouting Hosanna, that, like the disciples themselves, she could not believe that He would really suffer His enemies to put Him to death. She read the words as if in a dream, and turned back to the beginning of the chapter with a wretched feeling of mingled dread and unbelief, and looked at the heading of it again. "1 Christ is delivered bound to Pilate. 3 Judas hangeth himself. 19 Pilate, admonished by his wife, 24 washeth his hands: 26 and looseth Barabbas. 29 Christ is crowned with thorns, 34 crucified, 40 reviled, 50 dieth, and is buried: 66 His sepulchre is sealed, and watched."

With an exceeding bitter cry, which went to the heart of Matthias as he heard it in his room below, Carola threw herself on her knees beside the window, and hid her face in her hands. Oh! how she had loved this Jesus, from the time He was a little baby with the wise men worshipping Him, all through His life among men, healing them, and teaching them, and talking to them in parables; loving them and blessing little children; and now they had put Him to a cruel death, and all was over! How could such a thing be ? The light that was in Him had suddenly gone out, and darkness had. come again. And this was the most terrible darkness of all; for in all the men and women she knew there had only been a very common, very scanty light, which could be puffed out like the flame of a little candle in a rough wind. But she had not thought that the light of life in Him could ever be extinguished in death.

The girl was faint and weary with borrow when she took up the Testament again, after an hour or two of bitter mourning had passed by she wanted to know what His mother and His disciples did when their Jesus was laid in a tomb with a great stone rolled over it. They had seen Him crowned with thorns, and crucified with wicked thieves, and heard the chief priests mocking Him; ah ! that was a thousand times worse than dying quietly at home on His own bed. She turned languidly to the nest chapter, and read how Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the sepulchre, just as she would go some day soon to visit the grave where her poor old grandmother lay buried. Then with a beating heart Carola seemed to feel the earthquake, and see the angel of the Lord coming down from heaven and rolling back the stone from the door of the tomb; and she knew, before reading farther, as if something in her own heart told her that Jesus, the Son of God, lay no longer in that stony sepulchre. The heavy load of sorrow which had weighed her down was suddenly rolled away, as the stone was rolled away by the angel. It was all plain before her, the open, empty grave, and the mighty angel saying, "He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

Never had Carola gladness like that gladness. She felt the great joy of the women who had gone to the sepulchre, without their fear. Like all unlearned people, she thought in pictures, not in words. Her imagination was not dulled by familiarity with what she read. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was a man dwelling in a London house, walking about London streets, sitting in a boat on the Thames, and standing amidst a crowd of the London poor and sick. When at last she lay down to rest, a confusion of strange fancies passed through her wakeful brain; and as she fell asleep a face came to her in her dreams such as she had never looked upon before, full of majesty and tenderness, with eyes that seemed to pierce to her very heart --- eyes clearer than the morning star, which she had sometimes looked at wonderingly. A crown of thorns was about the head, but the face was smiling upon her, and all about it was a light --- far brighter it shone to her in her dream than the light of the noon-day sun. And she said to herself, "It is the Lord!"

For three or four days Carola did not leave the garret; the wonderful book held her captive. Matthias, with mingled anxiety and relief, saw her staying in-doors at last; only, in fact, staying too closely in-doors. He bought dainty morsels from the street stalls for her, such as be thought the girl would like, and brought them to the foot of the ladder for her to come down and fetch them. She did not appear to be crying much, but she was very quiet. In truth, Carola was living in a new world, among quite new friends, and she hardly thought of Matthias, except unconsciously to make the old Jew a type of these men she was reading about. Very soon she found that the wondrous history which she had read first in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, was told again three times, in a different way, and with fresh circumstances in each story. She read them through eagerly, and went on through the Acts of the Apostles; but the Epistles baffled her. They were all words here, and no pictures. So she returned to the Gospels, and read them again, and yet again. St. Mark, with its swift and vivid lire, and slight realistic touches, pleased her most. It did not seem as if she could ever grow weary of reading the Gospels. But by-and-by it dawned upon her how much there was she did not understand; and as soon as this ignorance made itself felt, it filled her with anxiety and an overwhelming desire to know all she could about her Lord. For

He was her Lord. He had not lived and died for the Jews alone, but for everybody who believed in Him. Though He was a Jew, He had come into the world to save the world.

"You ought to go to your parish priest," the chaplain at the cemetery had said to her; he who had given her the book. This she would do at once; and in eager haste she dressed herself in the handsome mourning she had not worn since the day of the funeral. She descended the ladder into the room, where Matthias was ceremoniously washing his hands up to the elbow, before sitting down to the frugal supper. Her face was pale, but her dark eyes shone with suppressed excitement.

"I'm goin' out to find my parish priest," she said earnestly; "do you know where he lives, Matthias?"

"Priest! priest!" repeated the old man, in a bewildered tone; "there are no priests now there are no sacrifices; We call them Rabbis now."

"Yes, I know," she said, nodding her head emphatically "Rabbi! Rabboni! Mary called Him Rabboni when she met Him in the garden, and thought it was the gardener. Oh! if I'd only been there with Mary Magdalene! But of course I cannot find Him, because He was taken up to heaven, and a cloud hid Him out of their sight. I want to learn all about it, Matthias; I want to be a scholar. There's such a many things I want to know; and I can't live up there any longer, knowin' nothin'. And the gentleman that buried my poor grandmother, and wore a long white gown, told me I ought to go to my parish priest. It's him I want to find."

"I'm sure I don't know where you'll find him," said Matthias.

He looked fondly from under his shaggy eyebrows at Carola's eager and pretty face, but he did not comprehend much of what she said. Mary Magdalene was a totally new name to him, and a parish priest he had never heard of. If she had asked him where she could find a clergyman, his fears would have been aroused; and if she had pronounced the name of Christ, it would have been a sword piercing through his very soul. But Carola, in her new-born love and reverence, could not call her Saviour by name in the hearing of Matthias as yet. He knew there had once lived an accursed impostor, who called himself the Son of David, and claimed to be the Messiah, and who was said to be their god by the wretched thieves and drunkards and blasphemers among whom he had his dwelling. These people, who made night and day hideous with their crime and misery; were the only Christians he was acquainted with. He was kindly in his feelings towards them, and patient in his manner, pitying them, as some gentle and passive English Christian might pity and tolerate the degraded masses of some heathen population among whom he was compelled to dwell and gain his livelihood.

The one object of his life had been to keep Carola free from the false religion of these vile and miserable Christians. The idea had very early suggested itself to him, whilst she was a mere infant, that if he could get her to keep the Ten Commandments, and never join in Christian worship, the God of his fathers might accept the service, as being all that could be expected from the child of Christian parents, and would grant to her such favour in the world to come as the Jewish women might be reckoned worthy to receive. What that was he did not know, but be would do what he could to secure it for Carola. He could not make her a true Jewess --- that was impossible; but he would guard her from becoming a Christian; and he might find a Jewish husband for her. Carola's children should be Sons of Abraham. The unbroken seclusion and isolation in which the old grandmother lived had aided hint. No Christian teacher or minister had come into contact with the girl until the day she bad gone alone to lay her only relative in a Christian grave.

Carola did not tarry for any longer conversation with the old Jew, but passed swiftly on down the spiral staircase, and out through the shop-door. It was like leaving some quiet and peaceful sanctuary for the lonely garret had been full of holy companionship to her these days past --- and plunging into a wild world of debased and wretched life. The summer evening was close and thunderous, and the narrow streets were crowded with people driven out of doors by the heat. The heavy atmosphere was laden with foul and sickening smells, in spite of the nearness of the river, or partly, it may be, in consequence of it. Children were crying, women quarrelling, and men swearing. Carola felt a strange sense of repugnance, almost amounting to terror, as she passed through the familiar scene. It was as if she had been away into the kingdom of heaven, and had been thrust back to hell.

There were numbers of people anxious to speak to her, for she had been missing ever since the day of the funeral. There were young men, too, who had been watching for her to appear again, to exchange with her more of their low, rough jokes and their half-savage attentions. But what change had come over Carola? Her pretty face was pale and grave, and her feet went swiftly on their way, as if she was deaf and blind to her old acquaintances. Was this the romping, hoydenish hussy whose tongue had been so sharp, and whose spirit had been so bold among them as long as they could recollect? If George Bassett was here, he would not let himself be kept at arms' length as they were.

Carola sped on as if she was passing through fire. She looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, for there was no one here who could help her to find the parish priest, or would if they could. But presently she came upon streets where she was not known. An elderly policeman was sauntering along on his beat, and she ventured to ask him.

"Parish priest!" he repeated; "perhaps it's the Rector of St. Chad's you mean. You go down yonder street, round the corner, till you come to a big church. The house lies just behind it, in a corner of the old churchyard."

It was with a trembling hand that Carola lifted the great knocker on the Rectory door, and let it fall with a single yet loud rap that made her heart leap. It was answered instantly, and she entered a large square hail, with benches set on two sides of it, on which some women were seated, waiting for their turn to see the busy Rector. She watched them go into an inner room, and come out one after another, until she herself was called in.

The Rector was an elderly man, with a worn and overworked look, but his eyes met Carola's gaze with an expression of very benevolent interest, which deepened somewhat as he saw how young and eager was the face of the new-comer. She had lost her tremulousness in her earnestness, and she did not wait for him to speak to her first.

"Are you my parish priest," she asked, "as I ought to come to?"

"What parish are you in?" he inquired, with a kindly smile, full of encouragement to the eager girl.

"Oh!" she cried, with clasped hands, "I don't know nothin' about parishes; and I don't hardly know nothin' about a priest. There were wicked priests as had my Lord crucified; but you couldn't ha' been one of them, I'm sure. P'raps you knew some of them, though, and I want to know all about it. I want to go to a good school and learn everythin'. S'pose you aren't my parish priest, you could tell me to a good school."

"Where do you live, my girl?" he asked. There's sure to be a school near your home."

"Oh! I must get away, right away," she said, almost sobbing with eagerness. "I couldn't live there any longer, now I know what my Lord was like. He wouldn't like me to stay there. I want to learn about Him and the disciples, and Mary Magdalene, and all the men and women as went about with Him. There's such a many things I can't understand, and nobody to tell me. And I wish to do everythin' exactly as He wants me, so as to be ready when He comes back again. Oh! I shouldn't like to miss doin' anythin' He wanted done."

"Little by little Carola, standing before him, with her grave young face growing brighter as the Rector listened so attentively, told her story to him, and showed him the wonderful book which had held her captive ever since her grandmother's funeral. The Testament was so old a book to him that he merely glanced at it in her outstretched hand; and with almost a shock of disappointment she put it back into her pocket.

"Do you mean that you never heard of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ before this?" he asked.

"Never!" she replied.

"Nor of God Almighty?" he continued.

"Oh, yes!" she said; "but He is the Lord God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob; and this is my Lord. I've kept all the Ten Commandments ever since I can remember; but I was as mis'rable as the rest of them almost; and that made me take to drinkin".

"But now I can't live any longer among folks as drink, and swear, and steal. I want to get away as far as ever I can, and live with folks like John, and Peter, and Mary, and Martha, and all of them. I don't mind what place it is, so that the folks are like them in my book."

"That would be a place hard to find," said the Rector to himself.

At length he sent Carola away with a promise that he would come himself the next day, and see how true her account of herself was, and speak to Matthias Levi of her desire to go away somewhere into the country.

"It was quite dark when she reached home again, and the streets were a little clearer. But she rushed into the little shop where Matthias was watching for her on the door-sill as if it had been a city of refuge; so fearful was she of being caught and held by one or other of her former comrades. The face on which the light of his lamp shone was radiant with hope, and a gentle smile of inward delight lit up the swarthy features of the old Jew as he followed her up the narrow spiral staircase into his living-room.

"I've found him!" she cried, standing with her foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, and pausing before she went up into her garret.

"I've found my parish priest, and he's a good man, and he'll come and see you tomorrow. He's goin' to find a place in the country for me, where I can learn everythin', and where the folks are good and don't drink or swear, or do anythin' bad."

"That 'ud be a good thing, Carol," said Matthias.

"But his heart felt very heavy, as he brooded over the news when Carola was gone. To lose her would be like losing sunshine and eyesight both. It was all the joy he had in life to see her coming and going through his rooms, and to listen eagerly to every word she spoke whenever she chose to stay with him a few minutes. But he had of late been very chary of making any claim upon her time or affection, lest she should grow to hate the wrinkled old man who tried to exercise any authority over her. The girls of her class would not brook any restraint, and he had left her as free as the air; but he was bound to her. Every word she spoke to him, and every sign of love or trust she showed, was a priceless treasure to him.

He awaited with deep anxiety the arrival of Carola's parish priest. The title had conveyed but little meaning to him; but as soon as he saw the Rector of St. Chad's he knew at once that he was one of the hated ministers of the despised Christian race among whom he dwelt. He felt towards him as much repugnance, mingled with dread, as some mild Christian trader might feel towards a heathen magician, who wished to take from him one of his dearest possessions.

"You are a Jew, I believe," said the Rector courteously, standing just within the door of the little shop, in which there was but bare standing-room.

"Yes," replied Matthias from his cobbler's bench, "I'm a Jew."

"And a young Christian girl is dwelling here under your roof," he went on, "and, I presume, under your guardianship. Is she any relation of yours?"

"No," he answered. "I'd give all I have in the world to make her one of our people, but she isn't. She's the grand-daughter of a man who once did me a great service, and his wife and Carol have lived in my attic for many a long year. Carol was born there, and she's never lived anywhere else. I suppose as she isn't a Jew, she'd be called a Christian. All the folks about here are Christians."

"He glanced out into the Street with a look of contemptuous pity; and the Rector sighed deeply as he also looked at the open vice and misery that were but too plainly to be seen.

"Yes, the girl ought to get away from here," he said, "and I have thought of a school in the country that would exactly suit her case. It will be far away from her old haunts and companions. I understand she has some money that would meet the expense, or partly meet it?"

"Who says she has any money?" asked Matthias. "We're poor folks! just look round you, sir. Do we look like rich folks?'

"It was the girl herself who told me so," he answered. "She says her grandmother told her on her death-bed that there was nearly a pound a week for her, and that you took care of it, and would pay it to her."

"Has she anything to prove it?" inquired Matthias, casting down his eyes, for he felt as if the cunning of this question bordered on dishonesty and falsehood.

"Not that I know of," answered the Rector, who, in fact, had been very doubtful of the truth of Carola's statement.

"She has only the word of an old woman who drank all day long, and wasn't in her right senses," pursued Matthias. "She can't go to that school if she has no money, I suppose?"

"No," said the Rector; "but I might get her a place as a servant."

"How much money would it take?" he asked.

"At least 40l a year," was the answer; "for it would not do for the girl to have any holidays and come back here. She would be quite unfitted for living here again."

"She would never come back," said Matthias, almost with a groan. "She'd never live here again, and I should see her no more, no more for ever!"

"There was a profound sadness in the old man's tone and manner; but the Rector was thinking too exclusively of Carola to notice him. Though, if he had noticed him, he was so much accustomed to think of all Jews as cunning and avaricious, that the sadness would only have aroused his suspicion that there was some money in the question.

"I must think it over," said Matthias finally, "and I'll send Carol to you when I've decided what I'll do."

It was a troubled day and a sleepless night that the old Jew passed through after the Rector's visit. Carola's fate seemed left in his hands. It was true that he had charge of about 1,500l which Carola's grandfather had entrusted to him, and which was invested in the Consols under his name. The old man had scraped together this little fortune as a marine store-keeper, but upon his death-bed was so fearful of leaving such a sum to his wife or son, who were both confirmed drunkards, that be resolved to give it over to Matthias during his own life-time to be invested in Consols. Matthias Levi was well known to him, and was under some obligation to him, and so firm was his trust in the Jew's fidelity that he had placed the whole sum in his hands, and made him trustee of it as long as his wife lived. The trust had been faithfully discharged throughout the lifetime of Carola's grandmother, who was the only person acquainted with the circumstances. There was no bond or paper of any kind in existence; and the secret was now entirely in his own keeping.

All day long and through the night Matthias turned the question over and over in his bewildered and sorrowful mind. If the old grandmother had but lived a few years longer, till be had found a Jew to marry Carola! But now, should he let her go, she would certainly become one of the despised and doomed Christians, losing thereby her dubious chance of being regarded worthy of the future fate of a Jewish woman. Might she not have gone whither Sarah, and Rebecca, and Rachel had gone? For Carola had never been baptized; but if she went among Christians they would baptize her, and she would be lost to him for ever I That was the sting of it. To be lost for ever! In this world and the next ! All the bonds of morality taught in the Ten Commandments would be loosened in her, for were not the besetting sins of the Christians drunkenness, and blasphemy, and theft, and vice such as made him shudder as he fancied Carola being plunged into it? No, he could not let her go among the Christians.

But then there came the conviction that he could not keep Carola if she chose to go. She had already outgrown her childhood; nay, many of her street companions had lost their girlhood, and had entered upon a hard and wretched womanhood. The strong, free spirit of the girl would not submit to his control. She would leave him if her mind was bent upon it, and go away into this terrible world of Christians penniless and friendless if he did not remain her friend. That would be too dreadful.

And if he took advantage of his secret, and withheld from her the money that was rightly her own, how could he himself lift up his head before the Judge by whom actions are weighed? There was a passage in the Hebrew Bible, heard many long years ago, but as keenly in his memory as if he had listened to them only a few hours ago---"What does God require of thee, O man, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" He had loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God; and, now the temptation had come to do unjustly, was he to yield to it? Would it be doing justly to keep this money from Carol, even for a time?

When he had put up the heavy bar on his shop-door at night, as carefully as if he dwelt in some country where Jewish homes are assaulted and sacked by the mob, he went to his old desk, and from a secret drawer took out a worn and yellow paper, that was all he possessed to represent the sum of money invested in the Consols. There was no name on it but his own. He was a poor man; his love of mercy had stood in the way of his enriching himself. But these hundreds were indisputably his; no person in the whole world could question his claim to them. He did not really covet them. If Carola had remained with him, he would have rejoiced that they were hers. But they would separate her from him altogether. To go to that school would unfit her for this place, so the Christian priest confessed. But if she went sway penniless, as a servant, why, then his old house would be the home to which she would turn in any hour of difficulty or distress. Moreover, she would discover how cruel Christians were to friendless and penniless folks; and she would perhaps come back altogether, glad to find a refuge in the dwelling of one of God's own people. This last thought was one that sorely tempted him, and would not be driven away from his troubled mind.

He could not bring himself to speak to Carola till late the next day. It was the beginning of the Sabbath, which, now the summer was come, began at a late hour; and Carola came down out of her garret to light his lamp and prepare his evening meal. She was too careful to wear her heavy black dress in the house, and she was dressed in the shabby patched gown which had been her best before her grandmother died. Her face was pale and wistful, but there was a tranquillity and sweetness, a look of happiness in it such as he had never seen there before. He watched her in silence as she went softly about his room, his whole heart yearning in unspeakable tenderness towards her. He felt almost as if she was dead, and he was mourning that he had not done all he could to make her life with him happier.

"Carol", he said, in a tremulous voice, "do you want to go away and leave me?"

"Oh, it's not that!" she answered gently, with tears in her eyes, "but I want to learn all I can about my Lord. You know all about your Lord God, and you say your prayers to Him, and keep His Sabbath and His laws; and I want to do the same, and learn what my Lord would have me do."

"Who is your Lord?" he asked in a voice more tremulous than before.

"The Lord Jesus Christ", she answered in a low yet joyous tone.

The blow fell heavily. Already, then, she had been drawn away and enticed into the fatal worship of the impostor! All his hopes withered, as if a hot east wind from the desert had suddenly beaten upon them, and scorched them. He closed his eyes, and saw his beloved one whirled away from him in a raging torrent of sin and misery. He had done his utmost to save her, and all had been in vain. An unutterable anguish took possession of the old man's soul, and he hid his face in his hands and groaned aloud; then he felt Carols hand laid tenderly on his shoulder, and heard Carol's voice speaking softly in his ear.

"Oh, and He was a Jew like you!" she said, "only He was the Son of God --- your God! and He came to save us all, not the Jews only. And the priests had Him crucified; and He was buried and came to life again, and went up to heaven. I have read it all in a book. You never knew it, or you'd have told me, I know. For you thought your God didn't care for folks that were only English, and not Jews. But my book says God loved the world, and sent His Son to save all the world. I'll run and fetch the book, and read it to you; for it's all in English, only I can't understand it all."

If any one had been pronouncing his sentence of death, Matthias could not have shuddered more to hear it than he shuddered at hearing these words from Carola's lips. The blasphemy of them pierced through to his inmost soul. He lifted himself up from the seat into which he had fallen, and there was the terrible calm of despair in his face and voice as he looked steadily at her.

"He is the accursed one!" he cried loudly and sternly.

For a minute Carola gazed at the old Jew with an expression of amazement, which gradually changed into terror. It flashed across her mind that this was how many of the Jews had spoken of the Lord whilst He was among them. 'He hath a devil, and is mad,' they said. And Matthias was on their side. Matthias would have been among those who cried out, 'Crucify Him! crucify Him!' There was an extreme bitterness in the thought. A torrent of tears came to her eyes, and she turned swiftly away to hide herself from this enemy of her Lord, lest he should curse Him again.

"Oh, I love Him who died for us!" she cried as she left Matthias standing motionless, as if he had been turned into stone. "I love Him so as I could die for Him!"

There was no longer any question about the money with Matthias. Carola was already a Christian, and nothing he could do could save her from her doom. He told her the next day, without remonstrance or reproach, that she might go to the Rector of St. Chad's, and tell him he would allow her 45l a year till she was twenty-one, and then the money which stood in his name in the Consols should be transferred to her.

Before the next Sabbath came Carola was gone, and he was alone.

Carola's new life was exactly the reverse of the old. At a boarding-school in the outskirts of a small country town, among girls who were the daughters of tradesmen and of small farmers, all the circumstances of daily life were utterly different. A fine network of rules and customs such as she had never dreamed of encompassed her. The Rector of St. Chad's, who had sent her there, had deemed it best not to say much of her former position, and had warned her not to talk of it herself. The school was well chosen; a good homely place, where a plain and solid education was given, with no ludicrous attempts at gentility. Carola was not to waste time in acquiring a smattering of any accomplishment; but her voice was to be trained for singing, and she sang well.

She had never seen the interior of a church in London, and when she entered the long aisle of the parish church, with its arched roof resting upon polished columns, and saw the tinted light that shone through the painted windows, and heard the deep and solemn tone of the organ, her heart beat last with delight.

"Why is it so beautiful?" she asked; "is it because they love Him so? That makes me very glad."

But it was the same when she saw a little chapel standing alone amid the fields. It was not so grand and beautiful a place as the church, but if they who built it built it for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, that too made her happy, and it was a pleasant place to enter.

By-and-by she began to understand many things about the life of Christ that she could not have learned for herself, and she could place the incidents of that life into more harmonious order; but, there remained a freshness and power in it which those around her, too long accustomed to read it with wandering minds, did not share with her. Shades of doctrine, which her teachers saw only too keenly, were altogether imperceptible to her. She wished to obey the precepts of Christianity with a literalness and simplicity which perplexed and embarrassed them; and there was a strange directness and fervour about her love to Christ, which set her, as it seemed, almost at variance with those about her.

It is true that something of this freshness and vigour of feeling wore away as years passed by, and the story of Christ's life grew more familiar to her. But still she had made the discovery of Him for herself; and there was too deep a fund of joyousness in that discovery to allow her to fall into the listlessness of so many Christians. The sun had so shone in upon her darkness that she could never more love darkness rather than light.

As time went on, Carola scarcely cast a glance backward. She was of a nature that lived intently in the present, and this was so full of new interests and occupations that she seemed to have no time to recall the past. Moreover, there was nothing to link her with it. Matthias reckoned her as dead to him, and held no communication with her. He punctually paid the interest of her money to the Rector of St. Chad's, exacting a receipt from the ladies who kept the school where Carola was; for he had no faith in a Christian, and especially in a Christian clergyman. But no message from him reached the girl; and though now and then, as she read in the Testament how the Jews denied their Lord, and persecuted Him, and at last crucified Him, a sad memory of Matthias, who would have done the same, crossed her mind, she willingly banished it, lest any feeling of personal hatred should mingle with her indignant borrow at their crimes.

As for Matthias, his heart seemed to be dead within him; though he still sat at his cobbler's stall, and many a barefoot Christian child went away shod from his shop-door, with no more money dropped into his till. It was almost mechanically that he continued to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with his God; there was no more a happy consciousness in him that he was doing so. Day after day he saw the never-ending flood of wretchedness and crime from which he had done his best to save Carola, as though he stood upon the brink of a darksome pit, and knew that she was lost there, though out of sight. Her garret was empty, for he would never let it to a stranger; and the Christian woman whom he was compelled to have to wait on him on the Sabbath kept it clean and habitable, but he could not bring his mind to enter it. Sometimes during the long and dreary Sabbath hours he fancied he could hear the old grandmother and Carola talking overhead. But it was only a dream; and when he roused himself, how silent and empty was all his life!

A stealthy feeling of triumph moved his cold heart when he heard of the death of the Rector who had stolen Carola away from him. Not that he expected to find her again; he did not even hope for it. She had become a Christian in spite of his precautions, and was lost to him. But his foe was dead, and could exult over him no longer. When Carola was twenty-one, he transferred the money in the Consols to her name, and felt as if the last interest that tied him to earth was gone.

A few days after old Matthias Levi had transferred her little fortune to Carola she entered upon a new life. The post of village schoolmistress was offered to her through her governesses, and she accepted it gladly. It was a small endowed school, founded by a certain Lady Hazelmount, more than a hundred years ago, with a salary of 50l. a year and a cottage and garden attached to the schoolhouse rent-free. The Rector of St. Chad's had, before his death, recommended her to the office when it should next be vacant, and the vacancy occurred just as Carola was twenty-one.

She awoke with the earliest gleam of dawn on the morning after the long journey that had carried her down to Hazelmount. There was at first no sound to be heard save the rustling of the ivy-leaves round her open window, a sound more soothing than is dead silence; and she might have fallen asleep again but for the sudden crowing of a cock, which seemed to awaken a hundred chirping little birds under the eaves of the thatched roof. Very soft and sleepy the twittering was at first, but as the light grew stronger all the many cries and notes of country life resounded through her quiet chamber, and Carola made haste to dress herself and see what her new home was like.

A short flight of stairs led her down into a large old-fashioned kitchen, with a low ceiling, crossed by massive oak beams. A broad deep window of lattice-panes stretched across the one side of the kitchen, and on the window-sill stood a blue jug filled with tall white lilies, which just caught the first rays of the rising sun. The quarried floor was of dark red, and the oak chairs and table, and the long dresser near the window, were almost black with age. An eight-day clock, a hundred years old, was ticking softly in a corner. The tender sunlight was flickering here. and there through the quivering ivy-leaves, and filling the pleasant room with a cool and subtle cheerfulness. Carola looked round with a smile of utter contentment. She had never seen a place like this before; never before had she felt as if she had a home. She breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction though the tears started to her eyes --- "Jesus Christ and His mother could have lived here", she said to herself.

The thought made it seem a holy place, without taking away from its homeliness. Yes, Mary might have,sat there, in the tall old arm-chair in the chimney-corner; and the Lord, weary and wayworn as He often was, could have rested on the oaken settee, with its high back, which screened the chimney-corner from the door. Oh! if she could but have ministered to Him as the women did! If she could but have washed His feet, arid wiped them with her hair, and kissed them with many kisses! Or, if He would have asked her, as He asked the woman of Samaria, to bring Him water to drink! She had never seen a place before where she could fancy Him living at home as He might have done here, in this spotlessly clean and solemn yet cheerful room. The thought of it made her wondrously happy as she crossed the quarried floor with quiet steps and threw open the latticed casement.

"How lovely it is!" she breathed, half aloud.

The cottage stood on the slope of a hill, and, as far as her eager eyes could reach, there stretched a vast plain of meadows and corn-fields, losing themselves in a hazy distance, yet with faint forms lying across the dim horizon, which might be either low soft clouds or far-off mountains. Near at hand the hedgerows were full of fine oak and elm trees, still in full leaf, but with shining gossamer webs woven round them. The sun was touching all the landscape with its earliest and tenderest rays, and low-lying beds of mist, brooding over the hollows, gleamed of silver in the light. A narrow lane ran past her cottage, and on the other side of it was a corn-field, with the corn gathered into brown shocks, which cast long shadows across the yellow ground; whilst the restless leaves of a row of aspen-trees glistened and danced in the morning breeze. As she leaned through the window, scarcely breathing for very gladness, a lark began to sing so suddenly as almost to startle her with the flutter of sweet song that fell upon her ear. Carola listened as if she bad never heard a bird sing before.

"Yes, certainly He might have lived here", she thought; "and yonder is the corn-field where He walked with the disciples on the Sabbath day. And it is my own house", she added, as she turned away from the open window.

Home was a thought entirely new to her. She had been happy at school, working hard to gain the knowledge she longed for; but it bad been too full of little rules and regulations to possess the freedom of a home, and Carola had always loved freedom. It was very pleasant to her, lonely as she was, to set about her morning's work, kindling the fire, and hanging the kettle on to the chain and hook which fell from the chimney. The housewifely instinct stirred pleasantly within her. She had never tasted a meal so delicious as the breakfast she ate with her door open, and the little birds hopping fearlessly on to her door-sill to pick up the crumbs she scattered for them. How good it was to have a home, especially such a home as the Lord Himself might have lived in.

Her work as schoolmistress was not to begin till the harvest was over, but Carola found plenty to do, and the day passed quickly by. The corn-field before her house was a busy place, and now and then she paused to watch the waggons coming and going, and the band of harvest-men lading them, whilst little knots of women and children loitered round the gate and under the hedges. Towards evening, when half the field was cleared, they were allowed to enter and glean the stray stalks of corn, and Carola could no longer keep herself away from them. The thin film of school-girl shyness which had crept over her during the last three years was dispersed at once. Bare-headed, as she had used to run about the streets of London, she stepped out of her cottage, and crossed over into the crowded corn-field. The old impulse to be in the front of any gathering of her fellow-creatures was astir again.

it was a very busy hour, for the sun would be a long twilight under the harvest moon, night would come before the field was cleared. The village folk had little time for more than a word and a smile as their new schoolmistress passed to and fro, helping the feeblest and the youngest to make up their tiny shocks of corn. Babies, wrapped up in cloaks and shawls, were lying under the hedge, most of them sleeping, with their thumbs in their little mouths; but Carola came upon one that was fretting with low, languid wailing and sobs, unheard by its busy mother. she picked it up with a strange thrill of tenderness, for oh! how long it was since she held a baby in her arms! Soothing it very gently, she strayed on towards a closed gate, over which she could see the setting sun going down in a clear sky, with a soft green light lying all around it. Almost unconsciously to herself, Carola's sweet ringing voice was heard over the busy corn-field, singing as the lark she listened to in the morning had sung:-

The first two lines she sang alone, standing with the glow of the setting sun shining on her uplifted face; but then the familiar hymn was taken up by the deep voices of the men at the waggon, and the women who were gleaning lifted themselves up to join in it, and the children shouted it out with delight. A finely solemn feeling fell upon them all; it was almost like being in church, the women said to one another afterwards. When the hymn was ended, and the new schoolmistress came down the field again, still carrying the baby in her arms, she had won the hearts of all who were there.

Hazelmount was so small a village that the news of what the young schoolmistress was like, and how she had sung the Evening Hymn in the corn-field, spread throughout it that evening. The men who carried in the last load spoke of it to Mrs. Arnold, of the Grange, as they sat slowly eating their supper, which had been spread for them on a long table in the farm-yard under her own superintendence. She had been too much occupied all day to pay her intended visit to the new schoolmistress, whose cottage had been made ready for her by herself and her servants the day before. The coming of a schoolmistress was always a little event in Hazelmount; and what. the men said of her heightened Mrs. Arnold's curiosity. But her husband and her son would tell her more when they came in from the field.

They came in shortly after their harvesters. Both of them were tall, strong, handsome men, with a masterful air about each of them, as if there was no one with any right to dispute their authority. The son stooped down to kiss his mother, and she stroked his arm with her hands fondly.

"Well! and what is our Miss Fielding like?" she asked, somewhat eagerly; "and what is this I hear about you all singing 'Glory to Thee' together in the field?"

"She's as pretty a young maiden as any twenty miles round", answered her husband, "and she sang the hymn as naturally as a bird. She was singing to a baby she'd picked up under the hedge, and it sounded so hearty and so true we couldn't help joining in. It seemed just a right thing to do, and not a soul of us but was the better for it. We'll get her to sing for us at the Harvest Home."

"And what do you think of her, Philip?" asked Mrs. Arnold.

"Oh, she has a good voice", he answered carelessly.

But he did not tell his mother that he could still see Carola standing bare-headed, with her rapt face towards the setting sun, singing out of the pure gladness of her heart, and that the sweet, joyous tones of her voice were still ringing in his ears. She had not noticed him among his men; how should she, when he was working as hard as any, in a dress very little different? But he should not get the thought of her out of his head until he had seen her again.

The little hamlet of Hazelmount was not altogether a common country village. It lay at the gates of Hazelmount Park, and every cottage in it was built in a picturesque style, and surrounded by pretty gardens, that the eyes of the owners of the Park, or those of their numerous guests, should not fall upon anything to shock them. There was no public-house in it, and only one little shop, in a cottage down a by-lane. The parish church was a mile away, but there was a highly decorated private chapel at the Hall, the road to which ran through the Park and past the village school; with a chaplain's house half-way between the Hall and the school. Hazelmount was built at the end of a long inland cliff of red sandstone, with the fresh air of thousands of meadows blowing across it whichever way the wind blew. There was no town nearer to it than Market Upton, which was seven miles away, and which was itself only a small country town numbering fwe or six thousand inhabitants. No manufactories were within thirty or forty miles of it, and the nearest railway station was four miles away.

The Arnolds of the Grange had lived there from generation to generation. The Hall and the estate had passed away from the old family of the Hazelmounts, and had been bought by a rich manufacturer, whose widow, Mrs. Stewart, was still in possession of them. But the Arnolds, though tenant farmers only, held their old farm, with no fear of being disturbed, and inscribed their names in the parish register as their forefathers had done for hundreds of years backs It was the same with many of their labourers, whose names, usually attested by a cross, could be traced in the register of births, marriages, and deaths as far back as the name of the Arnolds. The labourers who tilled the fields and tended the cattle lived and died, like their masters, under the same old roof-tree beneath which they were born. The ancient half-timber farm-house, with its dependent cottages, was like a strong old oak, with its branches; and the human beings dwelling in them came and passed by as the leaves came and went in their seasons.

It might have seemed, but for the sweet winds blowing all about it, that the air of the little hamlet was heavy and tainted with the deaths of so many untold generations of men and women; and that the cottages, so often visited by the last enemy, would strike a chill like that of a tomb; but the dead were as much forgotten as last summer's leaves. The sun shone as merrily for those who were in the land of the living, and the corn grew as thickly in the furrows where so many departed forefathers had sown and reaped, and the thick trees sheltered the harvesters as kindly, and the earth and all that is therein was as fresh and fruitful and as joyous as it had ever been in earlier and younger times.

The very core and heart of the little hamlet was the Grange; and the rulers of all its concerns and affairs were the Arnolds. There was no other farm in it, and Mr. Arnold was looked upon as the best farmer for many miles round. He was the agent of Mrs. Stewart, who was generally absent from the Hall, where he was almost master. The great kitchen at the Grange, which was large enough to hold all the population of Hazelmount, was the common council-chamber and assembly-room of the village. Men and women and children brought their troubles and their wants there, sure of a patient audience from the master or the mistress. This was so natural a custom that the latter would have felt aggrieved if their humble neighbours and dependants had sought help and counsel elsewhere.

Mr. Arnold, like his fathers before him, was churchwarden; and neither he nor his wife nor son was ever absent from their great square pew next to the reading-desk in the parish church. They were men much in earnest about doing their duty both towards God and man, and they were held in high repute as men of honour and integrity. Mrs. Arnold went somewhat beyond this in her religion. Though she could not induce her husband to deviate from the customs of his forefathers, by having family prayer at any other time than Sunday night, she read some chapters in the Bible to herself morning and evening with scrupulous care; and as long as Philip was only a boy she had required him to read with her. She made a point of going through the Bible from beginning to end once a year; and she had accomplished this feat thirty times. When any of their cottagers were ill, she visited them daily, and read to them suitable and impressive passages of Scripture; sometimes with an inward thrill of emotion which made her feel that there was something more in the familiar words than she had yet laid hold of. It is natural to any community of human beings to seek a spiritual guide; and for many years Mrs. Arnold had been the spiritual guide at Hazelmount, as being the one among them who stood in the closest relationship to the unseen world.

No stranger had settled in Hazelmount for many years; in fact, there were no other dwellings than the cottages of the farm labourers, and a few of the workpeople belonging to the Hall gardens and the Park. The only persons from outside the old timeworn circle of village life were the mistresses of Lady Hazelmount's school, who came and went away again after a longer or shorter sojourn in the place. They had been a class of well-conducted common-place young women, who felt themselves above the cottagers, and were looked down upon as social inferiors by the families of well-to-do farmers in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Arnold, in the absence of any lady at the Hall, stood in the place of a patroness to them. She was invariably kind, and supplied them with frequent welcome presents of farm-house produce, which materially added to their salary; and Mr. Arnold was liberal in his presents to them; but there had been no attempt on either side at intimate social intercourse. The schoolmistresses had found the place too dull and lonely for them, and they had seldom stayed longer than one twelvemonth.

Early in the afternoon of Carola's second day in Hazelmount, Mrs. Arnold went down to the school-house. The school itself was a large and lofty room built with thick stone walls, and with a window of stained glass in the high-pitched gable; but the old-fashioned cottage beside it was half of timber, with a thatched roof overrun with ivy. The door ~vas open, and as Mrs. Arnold walked slowly up the narrow garden path she could see Carola sitting in the pleasant kitchen, so lost in the reading of a book that she had time to notice the new schoolmistress well before she was seen herself. It was a sweet young face, she thought --- a pretty face, prettier than any she knew for miles round, as her husband had said. There was a subtle feeling of discomfort and dissatisfaction in her mind. Mrs. Stewart had engaged this Miss Fielding at a distance, and sent her down to Hazelmount without asking her opinion. It was true she had excellent testimonials; one especially from an old friend of Mrs. Stewart, a clergyman in London, who had died. recently; but still Mrs. Arnold wished, almost unconsciously, that she was of more mature age, or possessed as few personal attractions as her predecessors.

But there was not much time for these reflections, for at the first sound her footsteps made as she approached the open door Carola lifted up her head and hastened to meet her, with a warm flush and a smile of welcome on her face. She clasped Mrs. Arnold's outstretched hand in both of her own, and gave her a half-shy kiss, then drew back a little and looked into her face with tears sparkling in her eyes.

"Oh! I know who you are!" she cried; "you are Mrs. Arnold, and everybody says how good you are; and if you had not come to see me soon, I should have come to you. You were kind to me before you knew me, for it was you who made this place so beautiful for me. Almost all the pretty things in my new house came from you. And oh! how beautiful it is here, wherever I go. I have never had a home before. If there is ever anything I can do for you, how glad I shall be!"

Carola spoke rapidly and eagerly, though in a low and half-timid voice, and she looked entreatingly into Mrs. Arnold's face, as if anxious to win her favour. Mrs. Arnold was almost ashamed that she could not give the impulsive girl a warmer welcome; but the secret dissatisfaction she felt made her manner colder than was usual.

"You can teach the children well", she said in her quietest tones; "that will repay me."

"But that, of course, I shall do for my Lord's sake", answered Carola, "because that is what He has sent me here to do. If He had asked me what I would choose, and if I had considered it for years, I could not have thought of any place more beautiful than this, or any work better than teaching little children. It is so good of Him to send me here!"

There was no doubting the sincerity and simplicity of the fervent voice and earnest face, and Mrs. Arnold felt that the young schoolmistress was saying exactly what she thought.

"I can talk to you about our Lord Jesus Christ", she went on, "for everybody says how good you are, and how it is you who teach them about God. I shall do all I canto work for my Lord; but some day there may be something I can do for you, and then I shall feel as if I belonged to you. I have no friend in the world belonging to me, and I want to find a home and friends here. Will you not care for me, and love me a little --- by-and-by, perhaps?"

"My dear child", answered Mrs. Arnold, "of course I will care for you."

"Then I shall be perfectly happy", said Carola, "And ever since I knew about Jesus Christ I have not had a day's trouble; not one day's real trouble. That is three years ago. And now He has sent me to this place, where there seems to be no hard trouble for anybody. Life is very easy here, and very pleasant. You all know one another like brothers and sisters, and nobody is hungry, or ragged, or drunken, or miserable."

For in Carola's memory there was a black background, towards which she seldom gave a glance, but which was there nevertheless, and gave all the more glow and light to this new life of hers. It was like the dark and heavy background of some old picture, which serves only to throw into relief the loveliness of some face looking out of the dingy canvas at us; if the face was gone, who would throw away a glance at the obscure painting? Carola sighed softly as she spoke of being drunken and miserable.

"But we all have our crosses and our trials", said Mrs. Arnold.

"Oh! these are nothing", cried Carola; "they can be nothing to people who know about Jesus Christ --- to those who know that when He went away He sent them another comforter to abide with them for ever. It is people who don't know that have hard troubles, too hard to bear. There is nobody to make us afraid here; there is nothing to make us forget God. It is almost like the Garden of Eden when the Lord God walked in it in the cool of the day."

"Yes; and the tempter was there", said Mrs. Arnold gravely; "and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. it is the same thing here. You will soon find the tempter at work, and man trying to hide himself from God. We all do at times, my dear."

"Are you sure I shall do it some time?" asked Carola. "I don't know much yet, and I've only known about Jesus Christ for three years; but I've never wished that He could not see me. Oh, I could not bear to think that!"

"You know very little of real life", answered Mrs. Arnold. "You are young, and you fancy these feelings will last for ever; but they will die away in time. Your mind will get full of other things."

She was about to say that when Carola married her household cares would engross more of her time and thoughts; but she checked herself; she would put no notions about love and marriage into the girl's head.

"Oh, I cannot bear to think it!" Carola exclaimed; "it would be like losing everything again. It would be worse than not knowing it, to forget it. To think that my Lord should have lived in this world, and died on Calvary; and me to forget it! No, no; that is impossible! I cannot forget it, because the Spirit is to teach me all things, and to bring all things to my remembrance, whatsoever He said to us. How could I forget when God's own Spirit, is reminding me of what my Lord has done? I wish sometimes He would set me something hard to do; something painful; something like the crown of thorns, and the cross. If I could do anything painful to myself, it would make me more like Him."

"The time will come", said Mrs. Arnold.

There was a faint stirring of trouble in Mrs. Arnold's heart as she went homewards Carola was altogether so unlike the other schoolmistresses who had been before her that she could not dismiss the thought of her. There was a charm about her fresh young enthusiasm and her vividness of speech which she could not resist. The girl did not speak of her Lord as of one who had died long ago, and gone back to the heaven from whence He came, but as of one whom she knew personally, and whose footsteps she was really following. And she took it for granted that she as a Christian felt the same. There had been something very spirit-stirring in her eager tone and words; and Mrs. Arnold's heart warmed towards her at the recollection of them.

But if there was a charm for her in the girl's pretty face, and sweet voice, and fresh enthusiasm, what might there not be for Philip? He was her only child, and the deepest desire of her heart was to see him well and happily married. No girl came into the circle of their acquaintance without being closely observed, and there was scarcely any end to the qualifications necessary in Philip's wife. It was simply impossible that he should marry a village schoolmistress.

The secluded little village, usually jealous and curious enough of any stranger, accepted Carola without a question. She had been chosen by Mrs. Steward to be the schoolmistress, and that was sufficient guarantee of her suitability. But before long it came out that she possessed a fortune of her own, and her claim upon their respect was doubled. They had never had a governess before with an independent income; and no better proof was needed that this girl, who had no home or friends, came of a good parentage. Mr. Arnold, who, as agent, had many chances of investing money profitably, proposed to her to put out the money at a higher interest.

"But I don't want more money," she said simply. "I have more than I can spend now. There is nobody poor here, for they have all enough to eat and to wear. I could not spend it if I had it."

"You may want more money by-and-by," said Philip Arnold, with a light on his face as he looked at her. "Couldn't you spend more upon yourself? Are there no trinkets or fine clothes such as girls like that you could spend money on?"

"I don't think I could," she answered smilingly. "How should I look with fine clothes on in my schoolroom or my kitchen? Besides, I don't care to be higher in the world than Mary was, my Lord's mother. She was poor, you know, but not very poor. I think she might have lived in a house like mine; and I should choose to live as she lived as near as an English woman can. And there were Mary and Martha, who prepared the supper for our Lord and served Him at the table, and Peter's wife's mother, who ministered to Him herself. I think l must be more like them than if I were richer, and I'm glad to have it so."

"Then you have no ambition," said Philip; "you don't want to rise in the world?"

"How could I?" she asked. "Didn't our Lord say, 'Whosover of you will be chiefest shall be servant of all?' Oh, you don't know; I am more than content to be as I am!"

For a moment a shade passed over Carola's face. She felt they did not understand her, though they regarded her with such friendly eyes. To care little for money, to have no wish to rise in the world: that was a childish view to take of the Christian religion. It was all very well for this young girl, who knew nothing of real life, and fancied she could live as the birds live, secure in the care of that God by whom the sparrows were not forgotten; but such a view of religion was impracticable for men of business, whose forefathers had been thrifty farmers, and had left them money, which must be made into more money. They were doing it honourably, and no man could reproach them with doing a shabby thing, not even the small meannesses that many other Christian men of business permitted themselves.

The time passed by very happily for Carola. When the harvest was over, the nutting and the black berrying began; and she wandered along the lanes, that were filled with autumn scents, treading on a carpet of moist brown leaves, whilst the band of merry children, delighted to have their new schoolmistress as a companion, dragged down the bramble-bushes and the tall hazel shoots, and brought to her the finest of the fruit. When the winter came, she would often make her way across the fresh furrows where the corn was newly sown, to visit the boys who were scaring away the hunger-stricken birds, lest they should feel lonely at their work from dawn to dusk, short as the days were growing.

So busy she kept herself that there was not an idle moment in her day. Before long her pleasant kitchen became the favourite resort of the villagers --- a common meeting-place such as they had not had before. For there was no public-house in the hamlet, and the master's large kitchen at the Grange was something of an audience-chamber. But in Carola's cottage there was always a cheerful fire burning, and there was a warm welcome to whomsoever knocked at her door. She was glad to see them, and they felt it. Sometimes there was singing, if those who came could sing, and sometimes she had a book to read in her dear, natural voice, which all could understand She could cut out clothing, and turn old things into new; and if one could only find her alone, how full of sympathy she was when all their thoughts and troubles were falteringly told! The schoolmistress's house became a rival of the farmhouse, and Mrs. Arnold, when she drew aside the thick curtains of her sitting-room window, could see the lattice casement all alight, and knew that some of the people, who in former days brought their troubles to her, had carried them to their new friend.

"It is pretty to hear her talk o' Jesus Christ," said one of the old women to her; "she do talk of Him as if she'd known Him. It's like hearin' o' somebody that lives close by. And everything make her think of Him, the hens scrattlin' on the ground, and the flowers in the gardens, and the great white clouds, ay, and the sparrows fightin' under the eaves. I niver thought as He'd lived just like us."

"Yes, she's full of fancies," said Mrs. Arnold ungraciously. For it was a hard thing to see those who had once looked up to herself for spiritual guidance and consolation flocking around this young girl, and repeating her words one to the other as if there was some special sacredness in them. There was a change in the village. It had not been an ideal village in former times, though no great crime or vice was likely to happen in it. There had always been village squabbles and jealousies; the men had got drunk occasionally, though it was more than a mile to the nearest public-house, and the women had been idle and thriftless, spending their time in unfriendly gossiping. Mrs. Arnold had seldom been asked to teach any but the sick and dying, for religion had seemed a thing fit chiefly for those who were about to quit this familiar life. But now it was becoming the subject of every-day talk, and the wonderful life of Christ was being thought about and pondered over in quite a new manner. The old family Bibles, which had lain dusty and unopened on the shelves or the window-sill in the cottages, were being read, sometimes by the children who went to school, but quite as often by their parents. They were beginning to realise that the Lord had been a working man as poor as themselves, and that the Testament was a book for working people. A new and keen interest was awakened in them.

"It was a new thing, that would not last very long," thought Mrs. Arnold. Was it a comfort to her to think so? She did not dare to ask herself the question. But it was a comfort to find Miss Fielding so busy and so absorbed in her work as to be unable to give any special attention to her son Philip. There was not a trace in her manner of seeking admiration; she was as simple and frank in her tone to him as she was to Jack Windy-bank, the waggoner. But though Philip spoke of her as indifferently as he had been used to speak of the schoolmistresses, he spent an hour or two now and then in her cottage of an evening when there was some singing going on. Even Mr. Arnold would turn in, and linger there, finding it a pleasant change from the monotony of his own fireside.

"What is it you see in that girl?" Mrs. Arnold asked one evening, when her husband came in with a bright look of pleasure on his face, after leaving her alone till supper time was come.

"Well, she's pretty and kindly," he answered, "and full of life. It's pleasant to see a young creature as full of life and energy as that. She's a little hasty in her temper, but then she's quick to be sorry for it. She keeps them all alive in her kitchen, I can tell you. Ah! Mary, my dear, if we'd only had a girl of our own like her!"

"I think all men are foolish," she replied sharply. She had been about to say fools, but checked herself, for that was too harsh and petulant. "I suppose," she added in a lower tone, "you would not like Philip to make her your daughter?"

"No, no; that would never do," he answered, "Oh! that would never do. She's a good girl, and pretty, but she's not Philip's equal. Philip must look higher than that, very much higher. If I saw anything of that sort going on, I should put a stop to it."

A year passed by, with all the changes of the seasons, and Carola had not been absent for a night from her new home. It had grown dearer to her every day, the first spot on earth that had been dear to her. It was known by all about her that she was an orphan, and had no friends, having come direct from school to take her present post; but she had not spoken of her past life, and no one had felt curiosity enough to ask her any questions. As for herself, the past had been cast so completely behind her that she had well-nigh forgotten it. Her life was too full, and her interest in the present too deep and absorbing, to allow her to look back into a past that was utterly set aloof from her.

The harvest was gathered in again, and the busiest season of the farmer's year was over. Great ricks stood in the stack-yard, which lay immediately behind Carola's cottage --- near enough to allow Philip Arnold to hear her voice singing or to catch sight of her figure flitting past the window as he loitered along the narrow paths running between the ricks, keeping out of her sight and his mother's. His love for her had been growing slowly and secretly, though he could see no one hopeful point in it. There was no assurance in his heart that she cared for him; at times he even told himself that her mind was too full of other things to give him a thought. It was a wayward fate that had sent her to Hazelmount, for if he had never seen her he might have married well and prosperously in his own station. He did his best to conquer this perverse and secret love.

For if he spoke to her of it it might drive her from the quiet home where she was so happy. It would make him unutterably miserable to bring trouble upon her. Even if she cared for him, trouble must come of it, for his father and mother would never give their consent to his marrying beneath him.

Beneath him! The young man's heart rose in revolt. It was he who was beneath her. There was nothing be could offer her which she would care to accept. What were riches, and lands, and store of this world's goods to her, who cared not at all to be richer than her Lord was ? Poverty had greater attractions for her than wealth. If she did not care for him personally, there was nothing belonging to him to tempt her.

He could have wished himself a poor man for Carola's sake, almost; but he had been brought up to think much of his position and the money that was accumulating for him. Re knew how many thousands were profitably invested as his future inheritance; for his father liked to talk of the different investments he made, priding himself upon his shrewdness and knowledge of the money market. It was a very subtle worship of mammon that had taken possession of them both. But Carola's vivid and picturesque convictions of what Christ's disciples must be was piercing through the thick scales that encrusted his conscience. Only a little while ago, when he heard her speaking familiarly, as she always spoke of people in the New. Testament, of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, asking what was lacking in him to inherit eternal life. Philip Arnold had confessed in his heart that he, too, would have turned and gone away very sorrowful, but unwilling to sell all and follow Christ. Yet he could almost wish himself a poor man to win Carola's love.

It was early in November, and the yellow leaves were falling fast and thick from the trees at every gust of wind, when Philip rode down the lane past the school-house one morning. There was a meeting of the hounds on the other side of the Park, and a day's hunting was before him; though the busy and monotonous hum of a steam threshing-machine sounded from the stack-yard. His father, who had long since given up hunting, would look to the day's work. Philip had seen his mother watch him out of sight, with an expression of fond pride on her grave face; and surely Carola could not but look at him favourably to-day. He saw her afar off, leaning against the gate through which he must pass, and watching a group of merry children at play. At the sound of his horse's feet she looked round, and made haste to open the gate for him, holding it open, with a smile upon her face. How pretty she looked in the soft sunlight! Though she would have held the gate open, and looked as pretty, if Jack Windybank had been riding through on one of the waggon-horses. That was the vexation of it. But as he drew nearer he saw the smile fading away into a wistfulness that was almost sadness. Was it possible she was afraid of some accident befalling him in the hunting-field ? He had heard other girls express such fears when they had been visiting at the Grange; how pleasant it would be to hear them from Carola's lips!

"What is the matter?" he asked, taking off his hat, and bending down to her; "what are you thinking of?"

Carola cast down her eyes, and a slight flush suffused her face, but she looked up again frankly and answered him unhesitatingly.

"I was trying to think," she said, "if our Lord was holding this gate open for you to pass through, what He would think about what you are going to do. You know He and His disciples were working men, and they had not time to go out for pleasure. But they would think about it, of course. Would He be grieved as you passed by ? There is nothing about it in the Testament, I know; and I am only a girl, and very likely to make mistakes. But it will be on my mind all day."

"But you would take all pleasure out of Life," he said, almost angrily.

"Should I?" she asked wistfully. "I should riot like to do that, for I am so happy myself. And I hope you will enjoy it, and have a very pleasant day," she added, looking at him again with a bright flush and smile.

But how could he enjoy the day with her words ringing incessantly in his ears, and her sweet and serious face haunting him ? It was in vain to tell himself it was only a girl's fad, the notion of one who led a very narrow life, and saw everything from a fanatical standpoint. It was a manly sport. His mother was one of the best women living, and she never said a word against it. What ailed him that the words of an ignorant girl, who had never been away from school, should spoil his enjoyment?

He was fifteen miles away from home when the day's run was over, and his horse was too fagged to carry him back. He put him up into a stable, and waited for a train that would take him to the station nearest to Hazelmount. He had four hours to make away with at the inn where he dined; they were slow and dreary hours to him. He could not but feel that if he took Christianity simply and literally, as Carola seemed to think it necessary to take it, his existence would be all changed to him. How many trivial things, making up a large sum of daily life, would become impossible to him! Really to do what the teachings of Christ demanded, to become the salt of the earth, to be the light of the world, whether he ate or drank, or whatsoever he did, to do all to the glory of God; why, what an astonishing, what a terrifying change it would require in him! He fancied he could hear Carola's clear unfaltering voice saying, "One thing thou lackest; go thy way, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and take up the cross and follow Christ." His spirit died within him at the thought of such a claim and such a sacrifice. "One thing thou lackest! one thing thou lackest!" rang through and through his brain.

He was glad to leave the train and start on his midnight walk homeward. It had been uncertain whether he would return that night, and no one would be sitting up for him, but the key, of the kitchen-door would be left for him with Jack Windybank, who slept in a loft over the stables. He was in no hurry to reach home, and he loitered along under the dark sky, with the hedgerows on either side of him as black as ebony. All the desolate country was as silent as if every creature was dead. Part of his way lay across a heath, all the little by-paths of which were as familiar to him as his old fold-yard, but to-night his feet stumbled among the tufts of heather sail he was walking on strange land. His thoughts were so busy be could pay no heed to his footsteps.

He was still more than a mile from home, and the long inland crag lay dark against the sky in front of him, when suddenly a fine thin tongue of flame darted into the air, flickered for a moment, and then, died out. His eye caught it instantly on the horizon, and he stood still for a minute gazing at the point where it had flashed and vanished. But now a second flame, and a third, leaped upward against the blackness of the night, and with the quick promptings of terror he hurried on swiftly, There was a small thick coppice to pass in the Park, and he tore his way through the underwood which hid the fire from his view; but, coming out upon the road along which he had ridden in the morning, he saw the gate Carola had held open for him, and behind it Carola's cottage forming a background of leaping flames.

How far off it seemed as he sped along, and how silent and still the night was I There was no stir of any one coming to her help. The whole village would be asleep at this time, and the school-house, standing alone at the end of a lane, might burn to the ground before any one knew of it. He remembered that the steam-engine had been at work all day, and no doubt a spark from it had fallen somewhere on the damp thatch and smouldered there. All the stack-yard was in danger, and so scarce was water on the brow of this hill, nothing could be done but stand by and see it burn. But Philip was thinking only of Carola. Could he get to her in time? What hindered him that he ran so slowly?

When he reached the porch all the roof was alight, --- the roof underneath which she was sleeping. The door was fast, so she could not have made her escape; but it resisted all his efforts to burst it open. He had uttered no shout whilst he had been speeding to her help, and he could not spare breath now. It was too late for any one to help but himself. If he could not save her in a minute or two, there would be no hope for her.

He ran round to the school-house door and flung his whole weight upon it; it gave way before him, but the dense smoke that filled the place almost suffocated him. He groped his way through the thick folds to the inner room and reached the foot of the little staircase. The current of air from the open doors fanned the smouldering thatch at the head of it, and there lay Carola insensible at his feet.

To catch her up in his arms and make his way back to the open air was the work of an instant; and scarcely had he carried her out of the deadly peril before he heard the shouts of people waking up to the discovery of the fire. All the village seemed running to them; but his strength was gone, and now that she was safe he felt himself trembling in every limb. Yet he held her fast in his arms till his father, who was the first to reach them, could take Carola from him. "Take care of her, father," he said, gasping for breath; "she is dearer to me than my life."

"It is of no use fighting against fate," thought Mrs. Arnold, as she received Carola, cold and shivering, from her husband's arms. There could be no more sleep that night for any one in the farm-house, for the stack-yard must he closely watched, and every hand be ready, lest a fire should break out anywhere. The pits were full of water, but they lay at the bottom of the hill, and the machinery for pumping it up was slow and heavy. There was no chance of saving the school-house, but fortunately the wind blew away from the stack-yard, and the firebrands of burning thatch fell harmlessly into the fallow fields on the other side of the cottage. Nothing was left of Carola's first home but the thick stone walls.

"I would rather it had been anybody else," said Mrs. Arnold, when Philip and her husband were lingering over their early breakfast, after all danger was over.

"No, my dear, no," answered Mr. Arnold; "there's not a girl that would make us a better daughter. And if our boy here loves her better than his life, don't let us spoil the matter for him. I never thought to say I'd take a schoolmistress for my daughter-in-law; but I've watched her closely, and they'll be happy together, as happy as you and me."

"But perhaps she will not have me," said Philip, with an anxious glance at his mother's clouded face.

"No danger!" she said fretfully; "if she was a girl I should choose for you, your equal, Philip, perhaps I should think her a little indifferent in her manner. But she will jump at you; oh, yes! a girl in her position, after saving her from such a horrible death too!"

But Philip Arnold soon discovered that he could base no claim to Carola's affection on having rescued her from death. It was evident she did not hold her life very dear to her; there was in her something of that contempt of death which made the early followers of Christ meet martyrdom joyously. Probably she had never heard any speculations about the hereafter, and had no idea except that which Paul had, that "to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord." She listened to Philip's account of how he had forced open the door and found her lying insensible at the foot of the staircase, with wonder at the strong emotion the recollection of it produced in him, for his voice faltered and his hands shook as he spoke of it.

"It would have been such a terrible death," he said, shuddering and drawing nearer to her.

"I did not think of that," she answered; "it would have seemed terrible to you, but oh, how much I should have known by this time! Perhaps the first thing I should have seen would have been the face of my Lord. I suppose I must have been very near dying, but I did not know it at the time, for when I awoke, almost suffocated, I crept downstairs at once to find the door. But if you had not found me I wonder where I should have been now?"

"Are you sorry, then?" he asked.

"Oh, not I" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "I am glad you saved me; I am thankful, very thankful to you. Of course, if God wishes me to be here, I am glad to be here, but I am not afraid of going away, you know. You need not have been very-grieved if you had not been in time to save me."

But the thought that he might have been too late to save her almost unmanned him. He left her abruptly, and went away down to the ruined cottage, wondering what would have become of him this day if he had been only a few minutes later in reaching it a few hours ago. One necessary result from the conflagration was, however, full of pleasure to him: Carola must find a home under their roof until the place could be rebuilt. The schoolroom, which was built altogether of stone, with a roof of red tile, had not been destroyed by the fire, and might in a few weeks be ready for occupation again, but the half-timber cottage could not be rebuilt till the spring came. Until then Carola must live at the Grange, and if he could not win, her by that time there would be no hope left in him of ever doing so.

It was an unutterable delight to Philip to see her going to and fro about the house, taking her full share of the household cares, and busying herself in the. winter work of the farm. For Carola could not hold herself aloof from the life around her, and this new chapter of farm-house doings was crowded with interest to her. December is always full of work, and the days are short; and Mrs. Arnold had often sighed for a daughter who would take some of the burden of house cares off her shoulders. There could hardly be a better daughter than Carola; and Mrs. Arnold half-grudgingly admitted it. Nor could she detect in her any lurking coquetry of manner with regard to Philip. If she had been a girl whom she wished to see his wife, her fears would have turned in the direction that she was indifferent to him.

The days and weeks passed by quickly for Carola, who, to her own wonder, felt herself as much at home in the great rooms at the Grange as she had been in her little cottage. There was not, perhaps, the same freedom; but there was an atmosphere of love and care surrounding her which she had never felt before. She could not help seeing that Philip's face brightened at the mere sight of her, and that Mr. Arnold looked at her with tenderness. As she had lost all her little possessions by the fire, except an old brown Testament, which she had caught up hastily as she made her way through the smoke, he never returned from market without bringing her some article which he fancied she might want, and which he gave to her with a fatherly delight. It was a new thing to Carola to find herself the object of so much thought and affection.

Life here, at the Grange, was not quite as narrow as at the school-house. There were visitors coming and going, whose conversation was of other things than the simple talk of the cottagers with whom she had chiefly associated. An election for the county was going on, and many political questions were discussed among the farmers who came up to the Grange to hear Mr. Arnold's opinions. The newspapers that arrived daily were full of interest to her, bringing intelligence as they did from all quarters of the world. She began to realise how large the world was; and how vast its concerns. The little narrow sphere of thought in which she had been moving was extending in all directions; and she stood looking out at the dim and limitless expanse with wondering eyes.

The school-house was ready by Christmas, and school was to begin again as soon as the new year came; though the blackened walls of the cottage still stood bare under the grey skies. On Christmas Eve Carola went down to look at some decorations the village children had put up, and when they were gone she entered the little ruin, which looked, as desolate as a greater one could have done. The roof was gone, and the clouds driven by the wintry wind swept over the open space, whilst the keen air blew in through the broken casements. She stood sadly on the blackened hearth, with the charred fragments of the thick oaken beams overhead fallen about her. The old oak chair in the chimney corner and the settle opposite it were destroyed, and all the small household treasures were gone. They might be replaced, but her first home could never be the same again. It was only a little ruin, and no great calamity had befallen any one; but in her heart there was a vague; and indefinable sadness. This would be her home again no more.

She was shivering as much from sadness as from cold when she turned back into the schoolroom, where a large fire was burning in the wide grate, filling the dusky room with flickering light. But the room was no longer empty as she had left it, for Philip was standing on the hearth. The thick wall had been between them, but he had been standing opposite to her, and facing her, in the warmth and light of the fire, whilst she had been lingering on the desolate hearth on the other side.

"I came down to see if there was anything you wanted," he said, as she came towards him.

"No," she answered softly, "I only want my little home again, just as it was before; and that can never be. It can never be the same again."

"Nothing is ever the same again," he said. "Do you think if you had died that night life would ever have been the same again to me? Listen to me for one minute. I know I'm not as good as you, but I love you. I've had a happy life, God knows; but to-morrow will be the happiest day in it, if you'll promise me-to be my wife. Only promise."

He looked across the hearth at her with an eager face, but he did not take a step nearer to her, so fearful he was of startling her; and she stood mo