Bede's charity

It seems a strange thing for me to tell the history of my life, for I am a person of no consequence at all, a poor farmer's daughter, and an unlearned woman, having only learnt one lesson well, and even that not well enough - that all things do most surely work together for good for any one, however poor and unlearned, who loves God.

The old house at home was fully one hundred and seventy miles from London, hard upon the borders of Wales, and there never was a waft of city smoke in the sweet fresh air. Even to go down to the nearest town, which was three miles away, you had to go through green woods and coppices of dark fir trees before you came in sight and sound of streets. My father, and his father, and his grandfather, had all lived on the same little farm---a farm of about two hundred acres of rather barren land, but with a right to keep sheep on the common, which stretched away to the foot of a solitary hill, rising straight up from the level land; almost a mountain, people said, and so, solitary and alone that it looked higher than it was, maybe. Sometimes when the clouds rested on the brow of the hill of a morning, quite hiding it from our eyes, I used to fancy that perhaps the angels were there behind the white veil of mist; or it made me think of Abraham going up the mount to offer up his son to God; and I wondered if he and his son and the altar were not all hidden from the sight of the young men who were staying down in the plain afar off. When the clouds hung there hour after hour thick and bleak, gathering all the darkness in the sky to themselves, I remembered the darkness covering the Mount Calvary, that the people in Jerusalem could not see the cross standing out against the sky. So the hill, solitary, and sometimes mournful in the gloom, sometimes glad in the sunshine, became one of my dearest friends.

I remember the house so distinctly! It looked old and grey, and seemed as if it were dressed in homemade country clothes, like my father, who always looked so different to the townsfolk when I went with him three or four times a year to market. The windows were small, and had little diamond panes in them, except that here and there, in the dairy and other places, there was lattice-work only, to give light and air within. The roof was pitched high, and thick tufts of yellow stonecrop gave it a curious colour in the sunlight. Strong tendrils of ivy crept in and out about the great timber beams, and climbed up into the gables, where there were scores upon scores of swallows' nests under the eaves, with young birdies twittering, and the old ones chattering and shrieking all the summer day. We seldom used any other door but the kitchen door, which opened straight into the fold, with the cow-sheds opposite, where morning and evening I milked my three cows, while the dairymaid milked her four. They were beautiful, patient, fond creatures, whose sweet breath filled all our rooms with the scent of it as they sauntered slowly along under the windows on their way in and out of the sheds. We had another door, which opened directly into the parlour out of the front garden; but that was seldom unlocked and unbolted, except when Stephen was at home for the holidays.

And the gardens! Even now, though it is thirty years since I saw them, I have only to shut my eyes, and they are there before me, just as they will be for ever in my memory, even when I am in the garden of God! There is the deep, winding lane, with high hedgerows on each side, running down towards Condover, where the church is. And I see the straight, narrow walk, edged with box, coming up from the wicket to the parlour door, with its little trellis porch covered over with honeysuckle, and with rosemary and lavender pushing their sweet flowers through the green laths. At every corner of the square grass-plot stood a dark, sombre, ancient yew. tree, trimmed, and cut, and trained into likenesses of the trees children have in their Noah's Arks. Ugly, some people, called them, but they never seemed ugly to me; and in the autumn, when the coral-red berries grew upon them, strung like beads on the dark green twigs, they looked as beautiful and as solemn as the holly and ivy looked at Christmas in the old church down at Condover.

But that was the front garden; the great house garden was behind, with the dog's kennel close to the gate, and the poultry shed opposite, where my hens and chickens were locked up at nights for fear of the foxes. There was a broad alley of grass running from end to end, with pleached fruit-trees on each side of it, and a narrow border of flower-bed, where grew all the old-fashioned flowers almost forgotten now. There were tall spikes of fraxinella, which I used, to press gently through my fingers to make them yield their sweetness as my cows yielded their milk, and great red roses, scattering their leaves upon the grass, and blue lupins and Jacob's ladders, with bees ascending and descending on them incessantly, and yellow and purple flags, and tall evening primroses, and white lilies, almost losing themselves among the lower branches of the apple trees. In one corner there stood an arbour, once for pleasure only, but now with rows of beehives on the benches, all but one single seat at the entry.

That was my favourite place for resting in the cool of the evening when the day's labour was ended, and the sun was sinking down behind the hill, making all the pointed tops of the pine trees on the brow of it stand out very clear against the golden light. It was so still up there that I could hear the low, quiet, strange tap-tapping which one can always hear going on within a beehive; and the sound of the wind rustling through the fields of bearded barley came across the garden like a sigh. Stephen said it was like the sound of the distant sea heard through deep silence. I used to feel as quiet and solemn there as when I sat in my old corner in the church at Condover, and heard the deep, thundering music of the organ, which made me tremble all through me. Those were happy days; and, as I said before, I feel as if I should remember my own garden even in the blessed paradise of God; and when I am walking there I can fancy that, maybe, the Lord will say to me, because He knows I remember it so well, "Margery, I was with thee there also; but blessed are they who did not see Me, yet believed."

There were no more than two great changes in my life during all the time I dwelt in the old farmhouse; I should have said three, and the third was the sorest. First, there was my father's second marriage, with his cousin, when I was ten years of age, having never known my own mother. The second change was my second mother's death, twelve years after, when she left Stephen to my care, bidding me ever set his interest and welfare above and before my own. I always did so; God is my witness. When I might have married and gone to a house of my own, my father would look grieved and sad at me and Stevie clung to me, begging me to stay at home for his sake.

So I let the chances pass one after another---for I had chance still all the country-side knew that I had resolved to keep single for my father's and Stephen's sake.

I said the third change was the sorest. When I think about the garden at home, it is always as it looked the night before Stephen went away. He was going to Australia. I scarcely knew how it had come about; but he had grown quite into a gentleman, with no turn at all for the poor, homely life we were living. I had persuaded father to send him to a grand boarding-school ten miles away, because he was clever and quick at his books; and now that he was over sixteen he could not come back to us, our common, rough ways, and the hard work on the farm. He was like a restless young bird whose wings were grown; you could not keep him in the narrow nest. And now he was going to spread his wings, and soar away very far out of my sight.

I was thinking it all over sadly enough, in my favourite place at the entry of the bee arbour, with my hands lying idly on my lap, when I saw Stevie strolling up through the long green alley, with the setting sun blinding his eyes, so that he did not see me. How handsome he was, with just the look of a real gentleman's son about him! I could not help being proud of his fine upright bearing, so different to the awkward, slouching walk of our country folk. I called to him very fondly and sadly, "Stevie! Stevie!"

He stood still for a moment to listen where the call came from; but he was forced to shade his eyes with his hand before he saw me. Then he came quickly, and threw himself on the grass at my feet, and laid his head on my lap. He did not often like to be petted, but he was going away so soon!

"Maggie," he said, "what do you want?"

"Stevie," I answered him, my voice sounding very low and sad in my own ears, "you'll be gone to-morrow, and I can't think whatever I shall do without you."

"Oh, you'll get along very well," he said; "there's father and the farm; you'll have enough to see after. Besides, you will have to write to me about everything, and you're not used to writing, so that will take a deal of your time. I want to know everything, you mind; how things go on, and how the farm pays. It ought to pay, Maggie, and I want it to pay. I want to be a rich man. It is of no use whatever to know all I know if I cannot be rich. That is why I am going to Australia. I intend to be rich; and what I intend to do I always succeed in."

"Stevie!" I said, meaning to tell him there were better things than money, but he stopped me.

"There now, Margery, I know exactly what you are going to say, but it won't make any difference. I must be a rich man. And, Maggie, dear, now I am going away I mean to spell my name different. It ought to be Bede, not Beade, with an 'a' in it. I should have done it at school, only the other fellows would have made fun. You'll direct my letters to Stephen Bede, Esq., won't you, dear old Maggie?

"You're talkin' nonsense, Stevie," I said, half laughing at his earnestness.

"No," he answered, coaxingly; "I'm quite in earnest. It is such a little thing to promise; and I'm sure it ought to be Bede. There's a dear, good, kind Maggie, please to promise."

"I'll think about it," I said, smiling no longer.

"Then," he went on, "there's another thing or two I want you to do. You have such a pleasant voice---pleasanter than any voice I ever heard, but you spoil the words so. You never put the g's to the end of them, and you never use any h's at all. Oh, Maggie! I wish you would only learn to speak properly, and not do a lot of little things which no ladies do. You are not like common farm-house people, not at all, my Maggie; but you are not like the ladies I know. And oh! when I come back a rich man, I should want you to be like them, and know how to talk, and walk, and sit down, and stand up like a real lady."

I sat silent for some minutes. Stevie was ashamed of me already! I knew very well I was not a lady, nothing but a homely country-woman; but I knew that I never could be one. Once, while the old rector was alive, his lady came to see us at the farm, and I thought of how she had stepped on tiptoe along the fold, and held her dress close to her, and chirped and chattered with a shrill voice, shriller than the swallows; and I felt sure I could never be like that. Everything seemed spoiled all at once; the light dying away behind the hill, the glimmering of the white lilies in the dusk, and the drowsy twitter of the birds falling asleep in their nests. It was the same as if we had been walking down a street with shop-windows on each side. I felt very grieved and troubled; yet I had something to say to Stephen; and there might be no other chance.

"Stevie," I said at last, stroking the boy's curly hair, "never mind about me not being a lady; but hearken to me. Very early this mornin', before the maids were stirrin', I woke, feelin' very heavy-hearted. I'd been dreamin' of you that you were a little baby again; and as soon as I awoke the thought came over me as you'd soon be gone away from me, almost as much as if you were dead. And I got up, and opened the window, and the sun was just risin' behind the fir coppice, and all the little birds of the air were singin', singin' as if their hearts were as light as mine was heavy. And underneath my window among the ivy leaves there was an empty nest, quite empty, only one little white feather lyin' in it, as if it had been left behind by the last little bird as it flew away. And I thought it would be like the house when Stevie was gone, with here and there a thing or two of his left behind; and, as for me, I'd know no more where you were gone than I knew where the linnets had flown to. So I was turnin' away very sad when I saw my Bible lyin' on the sill, and I opened it by chance to see what verse my eye would light upon. And the verse was this, "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right band shall hold me." That verse was for you, Stevie. You are goin' to the uttermost parts of the sea, but His hand shall lead you, and His right hand shall hold you. I was very much comforted; and you will remember it, my boy, promise me you will remember it."

I felt Stephen draw down my hand to his face, and kiss it; but he did not speak; and we sat together in deep silence, till we heard father calling loudly, "Margery! Stephen! come in to supper!"

I called back to father that we were coming, and then we lingered down the grassy walk, loth to leave the garden and go into the house. The colour in the sky over the sunset was a clear pure green, like the rainbow round about the throne; and the tall white lilies shone as if they gave light in the dusk. A belated bee or two flew past our ears with a deep busy hum, as if they must needs make a noise in the darkness; and in the fir coppice a wild wood-pigeon was Cooing to the stillness which was growing every minute. I stood quiet for a little while, pressing my hands upon my aching heart; but Stephen marched on, not seeing that I had fallen behind. He was too busy with the day that was coming when the sun rose again.

I stopped again to pat Nero's head, and see if his supper was all right, and then I went round by the fold, Stephen having gone in through the front door the cattle were being let out for the night, and each of them came lowing past me, as if waiting for me to call them by name. My father stood in the doorway of the barn, and I seemed to see him more distinctly than ever before; an old man with white hair and a ruddy face, dressed in a farmer's coarse homespun suit, with grey stockings of my own knitting, and thick, hobnailed shoes. A good farmer, and a good old man, I said to myself, but not a gentleman, Stevie! He was locking up the doors all round the fold, and when he had finished we went in to supper.

It was a very homely life we led in those days when father was alive, who liked to keep to all the old customs of his father. We never used the parlour but on Sunday afternoons; the rest of the week we all sat together, father and me, and the men-servants and the maids. Father sat in his own chair within the cheek of the chimney-corner; and I sat opposite to him in my mother's rocking-chair, and with a little round table beside me, whereon stood the single candle, which we reckoned to give light enough for all. Below me sat the dairy-maid; and below father sat the waggoner, and so according to their places, till the lowest servants, lad and lass, were together; and often I had to call them quietly to order. But when Stephen was at home he sat on my father's other hand, away from the men, and had a candle to himself that he might go on with his lessons. At nine o'clock I read a psalm and a prayer; and then all the rest went to bed, often leaving Stephen and me stooping over the fire, and talking late on into the night.

That night there was a kind of stir among us all, instead of the usual sleepiness. Stephen was going away in the morning; and there was a strange venturesomeness in such a boy daring to start off alone for so far-off a country as Australia, which nobody knew, and where we had no friends. None of us had ever been much beyond Condover parish, or down to the fair iii the nearest town; and everybody felt roused up and excited. Stephen himself looked the calmest, though his face was flushed a little, and his dark eyes glittered; but he took up a book as usual, and seemed about to forget us all in his reading.

"Put it away, Stephen," said father, laying his hard, brown hand on the open page; "it's the last night thou'lt be at home in the old house, lad; and I want to hear the sound o' thy voice to-night. Thou'rt a good lad, a very good lad; but a trifle too fine to be ground in our mill. Who'd ever have thought such a fine lad 'ud come o' the old stock?"

He spoke as if he was half proud and half regretful. I knew he was just as proud of Stephen, ay, and as uneasy about him as my little white hen was of her one duckling, when it would take to the water, in spite of all her cluck-clucking.

"He's a fine lad, and a grand scholard," said Jerry, the old waggoner, sitting next my father, and his voice sounded very thick and muffled; "he'll beat 'em all out yonder in Australy, he will, mester."

"Ay, ay!" answered father, "I don't fear he'll make his way, with all the learnin' he's got in his head. It's an old head on young shoulders, Jerry. But I'd rather he'd ha' stayed a little nigher home. There's London! If he'd only chose, he might ha' gone to his Uncle Simister, who has a shop there. They tell me London's the finest place in the whole world; and Uncle Simister's had a shop this forty year. He'd ha' been main glad of a fine young lad like Stevie to sell his watches and clocks to the grand folk. He wrote once, offerin' to take one of my children, thinkin' I'd a whole brood of 'em. That were a good openin' for Stephen."

I saw Stevie smiling quietly to himself, as much as to say he would never have been content, selling watches and clocks.

"I mean to do better in Australia, father," he said. "You'll see I shall come back a rich man, rich enough to buy up Uncle Simister. If his business had been as good as you think, he'd have made his fortune, and retired from it before now. A man doesn't go on slaving year after year after his fortune is made."

"He's a fine lad, and a grand scholard," said Jerry, looking with his dull, dim eyes into Stephen's face.

"Maybe thou'rt right, Stephen," said father; "maybe thou'rt right. It's thy own choice, any way; but it's costin' a sight o' money. If it hadn't been for Margery there, who's promised to take to all the dairy-work herself---and it's heavy work for a woman, heavier than thee ever put thy hand to, my boy; what with turnin' the cheese every day, and rubbin' it, and ironin' it, besides the makin' of it, it's heavy work I tell thee---if it hadn't been for Margery, I say, thou'dst never have won me over to say ay, and put down nigh upon a hunderd pound to back it. It's Margery's doin', whether it turn out ill or well."

"Why shouldn't it turn out well, father?" I asked, feeling very low.

"I don't say it won't, my lass," he answered; "thou'rt doin' it for the best, I know. It were thee sent him to boardin'-school, and made a gentleman of him; goin' in plain clothes thyself, all along, with ne'er a bit o' ribbon, or a flower, or a trinket, like other lasses. It's all thy own doin'; he's pretty nigh as much thy lad as mine If he comes back a rich man he must pay thee, for nobody else can."

"I don't look to be paid," I said, for I did not like to sear of payment horn anybody for love, unless it were love back again, and then that brings everything else with it. And sure Stephen would always love me! My heart was aching sore that night, though he was sitting then opposite me in the chimney-nook; but there were not many hours till to-morrow morning.

"I'll pay her!" ; he cried, eagerly; "she shall have silk dresses, and the best watch in Uncle Simister's shop, and servants to wait on her, and a carriage to ride in. Why, I mean to have Margery to live with me in London, if she'll only do two or three things she knows of. Even if I am married I shall have her to live with us, and take care of the house, and see after the children. That is one reason why I am going to Australia: I must be a rich man to pay Margery."

"I shouldn't wonder if thee gets a thousand pound," said Jerry, speaking slowly but loudly; for it was an immense sum to him, who had never had more than ten shillings a week wages, when he lived out of the house with his wife and children, and found himself.

"A thousand pounds!" ; echoed Stephen, with contempt; "why, I shall want a hundred thousand to do all I mean to do. You don't know what you are talking about, Jerry. There are farmers in Australia who went out as poor as me, and now they have as many as five hundred thousand sheep of their own. Try to think of five hundred thousand sheep, Jerry."

Jerry dropped his head upon his breast and shut his eyes. Even I could not think of five hundred thousand sheep. Father had never had more than a hundred and fifty, except one good lambing season, which Jerry had never forgotten, both for the extra labour and the glory of it, when the number of the flock rose to nearly two hundred. All the other servants were listening with open eyes, but they could not think of such a number. Stephen might just as well have said five hundred millions.

"How'll they all get washed and sheared?" asked one of them. The sheep-washing was just over, and his voice was very hoarse from a cold he had caught standing up to his middle in the sheep-pond. The shearing was coming on in a day or two, and no wonder that he thought of how they would ever get through washing and shearing five hundred thousand sheep. Stephen did not seem to hear the question, for he said nothing.

"Well, well," said father, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "washin' here or washin' there, it's all Margery's doin'. So keep that in thy mind, my son. It's little I shall have to leave her or thee. Times are hard and the land barren, and thou has been a heavy drain upon me, Stephen. Thou has never done a day's work for thy bread yet; but I don't grudge it, lad. If thou gets as much money as thou says out yonder, my money 'ill be well laid out on thee. So now, Margery, let's have prayer, for it's gettin' late, and we've a busy day before us to-morrow."

I could hardly bear that word "to-morrow"; but I knelt down, and, as soon as the scraping and shuffling of the chairs and feet upon the floor were ended, I read a psalm and a prayer. Stephen always stood, for he fancied that the quarries were never clean enough to kneel upon, and truly his clothes were always so much better than ours. But that last night he knelt down like all the rest of us. It was hard for me to keep back my tears and make my voice steady; and for a moment or two while I was silent the old clock by the stairs ticked very loudly. When we had prayer again to-morrow, Stephen would be far away from us, and how long would it be before he knelt with us again?

I scarcely knew how the time fled by the next morning. I was very busy up to the last moment, and then I felt Stephen's arms clasping me, and clinging to me, and his wet cheek pressed against mine. I saw him climb up to father's side in the gig, which was never used but on market-days, but now all the servants were gathered round it, and walked down with it, like a funeral train, along the stone causeway of the fold. I wondered that all the dumb creatures about the place should be barking, and lowing, and bleating, and cackling, just the same as if nothing at all was happening. Just a sight of him waving his cap to me I saw, all blurred and dim through my tears; and I heard the men shout good-bye and hurrah as they drove away down the lane. Then I went back into the dark, dark house.

It never seemed the same place to me again. The sun never shone so brightly of a morning, and the evenings , were long and dull. I was as busy as ever, nay, more busy, for, as soon as the dairymaid left, I took all her work upon myself. I had never done it before, and it was my own choice to do it now, that Stephen might have the chance he had set his heart upon. Father was a rough, hard-working man himself; but he had always been very tender of the women belonging to him, and could not bear to see them overburdened or overcome with many cares. Neither my mother, nor Stephen, nor I myself, had been expected to take the heavy work there is in a farm-house. We might make up the pats of butter, or break the curd in the cheese-tub; but we had never had to turn the churn or carry the pails of milk into the dairy. I had had hard work to persuade him to let me undertake these things, and now that Stephen was gone he often spared one of the men to do the heaviest parts; whilst he himself held the plough or drove the waggon, making light of the weariness and stiffness he felt when he came to sit down at night.

Still my hands were very busy, though my heart was heavier than I could tell. Everything seemed gone with Stephen. I could know nothing of him, save the few lines he wrote from Liverpool, for many a long month to come. I knew nothing about his life on board ship; I had never seen a ship, no, nor the sea, and I could not form any satisfying idea of it in my own mind. Sometimes, when my heart ached the sorest, I fancied, if I could only see the sea and the ship, which were carrying him so very far away from me, I could be more content. But I knew no more of it than of the life to come; nay, not so much, for surely I knew some little of that blessed place from my Bible.

Then I bethought me that I might study in Stephen's books, and so learn something of what he knew, and maybe get to speak and think and act like a lady, as he wished me. He had left a few books behind him, some in Latin and Greek, which were of no use to me, but others in beautiful English, very different from the common talk of us country folk. I think I learnt a little from them, and they helped to pass the time away; but I remained much the same as I had been before, a homely farmer's daughter, not at all fit company for grand people, like the rector and his lady.

I think father was happier, instead of sadder, after Stephen was gone. He often talked about him, but he never wished him back again. In some things men are so different from women. Perhaps I had not cared for him so much while Stephen was about; it is true that I had not thought of him so much, and now, though everything was very quiet and solemn about the old home, maybe he liked to see me watching for him to come in from his work, as I had never done before. Sometimes I read aloud to him, which I could not do whilst Stephen was learning his lessons; and often I walked with him round the fields of an evening, seeing how the crops were coming on, and how the cattle throve. I may as well say it here, that one of those who had asked me once to be his wife came again, for she whom he had married was dead, and he needed some one to look after his house and his motherless children. My heart yearned towards the little creatures, but it was not for long. I could never leave father, and so the last chance passed by for me ever to have a home of my own.

Yet, under all the solitariness and heartache, there was deep down a constant gladness, and a sense of not being left alone, which I am too ignorant to speak of fully. Many thoughts I had before Stephen went, solemn and glad thoughts, in the pew at church, and in the entry of the bee-arbour; and now they came to me oftener, till at times all my mind was full of them, as the hives were full of bees storing up cells of honey day after day against the winter. I do not know any words to tell of them, no more than I could make you see how the sun shone if you were blind, or hear how the birds sing if your ears were stopped. But those who can hear and see know these things without words.

There was no one to whom I could speak, to whom I should have liked to speak, of God, of our dear Lord Christ, and of heaven. No one seemed to think of such things; yet there were good folks down at Condover, who went to church pretty regularly, just as I did. But if the day was rainy, or father was loth to see me go, or there were cade [Left by its mother and reared by hand] lambs to see after, and only young servants to leave them to, I stayed at home, and read my Bible of a Sunday afternoon in the parlour. Towards the last father used to ask me to read out, and he would sit and listen with his hands upon his knees, and his white head giving a nod now and then when I came to a verse he remembered. Our old rector was dead, and another come in his place, who was set upon farming, and liked nothing so much as talking about crops and cattle; and the curate was a very aged man, too old to come out as far as our farm, but he was a very good and holy man, and maybe I might have talked with him had I ever seen him. But there we were, a long way from our church and clergymen; only those thoughts, which I cannot tell, made me feel as if God was never far away from any one of us.

At length we heard from Stephen---nearly ten months after he had left us, for in those times it took longer to go to Australia than it does now. I have all his letters still, and could copy them word for word, but no one wishes me to do that---though I read them over and over again, and never read anything so good and clever in the best book he left behind him. The last sheet of his letter I will give you.

That was very kind of Stephen; yet he little thought how useless silk gowns would be to me, and how I would rather have one smile or a kiss from him than the finest silk gown ever made. There was what he called a P.S. to his letter.

I kept this letter between the leaves of my Bible, where there was a flower or two which Stephen had pressed between them when he was a child; they had been there ever since; and now and then, as I looked at them in church, the tears would gather under my eyelids, and I did not like to wipe them away, lest the neighbours should wonder whatever Margery Beade could be crying for.

So the years went on, bringing seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, according to the promise of God. The years seemed very much the same, with little change in them, save that father grew older; and I also, I suppose, though I did not know or feel it. I had entered into a quiet and peaceful time. All the house seemed quieter than of old. The old servants remained about us, and my maids did not seem to wish for change, but stayed on year after year, doing their work orderly and well. There were no holidays now, with Stephen coming home and going about the farmstead with the look and the step of a gentleman.

We had letters from him about twice a year; those were our events. He was getting on steadily in the far-off country, dwelling still with Mr. Garnett, the lawyer, who seemingly had adopted him for a son. The country was so very far off that I never thought the letters came too seldom; for it was surely a marvellous thing that they could come at all in safety over so many thousands of miles. The postman, who so rarely turned in at our foldgate---except at Christmas to ask for a Christmas-box---brought these precious letters, and I used to watch for him, when I had written an answer, at the garden-wicket, looking down the lane to Condover, and saw him put it into his pouch, and carry it away. I did not know in what manner, or by what means, it would reach Stephen.

But at length, though the harvest came, it was but scanty. Our land lay high, and the soil was barren; and if the harvest was late, and the winter came on quickly, our corn was sometimes not garnered before the autumn frosts grew keen. I remember one harvest, after there had been much rain, and after that a sharp frost, we had to kindle fires in the corn-fields, both to light us at our work and to do something towards keeping away the sharp cold. I even see father still at the head of his team, leading them from sheaf to sheaf, with the red light of the bonfires shining on his white head and anxious face, and on the scanty load of corn, all glistening with hoar-frost. Three harvests running were bad, and the stock did not prosper. We lost our calves and our lambs; and hard work it was to make up the rent twice a year. Father was an aged man, and his spirit quite broke down under these trials.

"Margery," he said one evening, while the men were foddering the cattle for the night, and we were sitting alone in our chimney-corners, "hast thee ever thought what we'd do if we had to leave the old place? I were born here, and married thy mother here, and nursed thee on my knee in this place. It 'ud break my heart to leave it, and have to sit in any other chimney-nook."

I saw his mouth quivering and his hand shaking as he tried to kindle his pipe at the embers in the grate, and my heart was very sore for him.

"If it be the will of God, it must be good," I said.

"But it canna' be the will o' God," he answered, fretfully, like a little child that wants comforting on his mother's lap; "the Almighty canna' ha' got any grudge agen me, as He wonna' leave me a-be to die in the old place. I say, Margery, the Almighty hasna' any ill-will agen me."

"No, father, no," I said; "God Almighty is love. Whatever He does is very good. He has no grudge against any one of us."

"Then He'll let me a-be to die in my own bed," said father; "I'll take that as a sign as He has no ill-will agen me. But, Margery, did thee write to Stephen, and tell him how bad the harvests were, and the stock barren, and the grass-lands poor for the milch-kine?"

"Yes," I said, reluctantly. "I wrote after last harvest."

"And hasna' there been time for him to write agen?" asked father; "he might send back that hunderd pound I gave him. He's been getting on rarely, he says, and he's hard upon three-and-twenty now, Margery; a young man, not a lad like he were when he went away. If it's as fine a country as he says, he could spare that hunderd pound back again, and that 'ud set us up again. I'd not be fearsome then of dyin' away from the old place. Dost think he'll send it? How soon will we hear, Margery?"

I did not want to answer, for father had set his heart upon Stephen being able to help us, and it seemed cruel to dash down his hope. But he said again, in a fretting voice, "How soon can we hear, Margery?"

"I have heard, father," I said; "Stephen's answer came this morning."

"And what does the lad say?" cried father, his voice trembling; "has he sent us any help?"

I drew the letter from my pocket, and laid it out on the table, under the light of the candle. It was not a very long letter this time, but it was beautifully written, not at all like my poor cramped handwriting, or father's, which nobody could read. I read it aloud slowly and distinctly.

"A fine letter; a very fine letter," said father, as I folded it up again; "he's quite a scholar, is Stephen."

He always liked listening to Stephen's letters, and would hear them over and over again. But I did not want to read that letter any more to-night. There was something in it that made me feel chilly, as if an easterly wind was blowing somewhere through a little chink. I could not say exactly what it was; for it was only reasonable of Stephen to hesitate about sending us the money; and I had not positively asked for it. But it was just that feeling of chilliness creeping through me whenever I read the words that made me not wish to go through it again that night.

"That's a good thought about your Uncle Simister," said father, after thinking it over quietly, "but I hanna' heard a word from him these twenty years. I were never a good hand at letters, like Stevie. But I donna' like what Stevie says about us all bein' old and worn out. The buildin' is old; there's the barn with hole after hole in the roof, and the sheds are fallin' bit by bit. But, bless you, my lass, Jerry and me are as sharp as ever we were; quite sharp and peart. It's nothin' but poor harvest and barren stock as has brought us so low. Stephen's only a young lad yet. But for that about Jerry and me it's a fine letter, Margery; and it's all thy own doin', my lass."

Father sat chuckling over the letter almost like a child. He looked very grey and ashen-coloured in the dim light, and his voice quivered, as well as his laughter, as he went on glorying in Stevie's fine letter; whilst I pondered over it, always with a growing sense of chilliness.

For three weeks longer father went on with his daily work. It was November now, and the fogs were thick of a morning, but out he started at dawn, he and Jerry, tottering about the fields in the damp and cold. I had never noticed before Stephen's letter came how very old they both were; for they had grown grey and bent so gradually that it was like night coming on, it is dark almost before you know that the sun has set. Father had been going down the hill so long that I had not thought how near he must be to the valley; and it seemed to me that he had fallen suddenly into it when, all at once, he gave up his work, and lay down in his old bed, with faded green serge hangings, where his father had died before him. That was three weeks after Stephen's letter reached me, and before I had answered it, telling him how bad things were with us. It was a slack time on the farm and in the dairy, so I could watch beside father, never quitting him day and night.

"Margery," he said to me the last evening that ever he lived in this world, as I sat on the low rocking-chair, which had been carried up from the chimney-corner in the kitchen, with the little round table beside me, and a candle upon it, just as he had seen me sitting opposite to him every night since Stephen's mother died---"Margery, my lass, thee has had a hard life, I'm afeard."

"No, father," I answered, smiling at him, though tears were in my eyes; "it has been a good life, a happy life."

"Eh! but most lasses 'ud call it a hard life," murmured father; "never a bit o' pleasurin', and neither husband nor chick nor child. I'm fearsome as I've done ill by thee, never makin' thee welcome to go to a house o' thy own. Old folks are selfish, Maggie; they'd keep their lads and lasses about them till they die, and then they are like nestlin's without a nest. Stevie was a wise lad for hisself. What's goin' to be done with thee I canna tell."

"Never mind about me, father," I said.

"Margery," he said, after a while, his eyes shining very bright under his grey eyebrows, "the Almighty's gem' to leave me to die in my own bed. He's got no grudge agen me, thee sees?"

"Were you afraid of Him, father?" I asked. "Did you think He was goin' to be hard on you?"

"I thought maybe He's like landlord," answered father; "he'll turn me out when the time comes, however old I am. But He isn't goin' to turn me out. He knows I'd never turn away poor old Jerry; and isn't there somethin' in the Bible about bein' done by as we do to others?"

"He will never turn away them that go to Him," I said---"them that look to Jesus He will in no wise cast out,"

"That's how I come," he said, very solemnly---"through Him as was the Good Shepherd, and went after the poor lost sheep till He found it; and it stands to sense,

Margery, that the Almighty 'ud never drive out the sheep again from the fold after Jesus had all that pain and trouble to bring it back. No, no; He hasna' got any grudge agen us, not any one of us, has He?"

"Not one," I said; and I could say no more.

"If He'd let me be turned out of the old house, and die in a strange place," he went on, "I should ha' taken it as a sign He had ill-will agen me; but dunna thee take it as a sign o' ill-will, my poor lass. Thee'lt have to go, for certain; but thee wunna fret agen the Almighty?"

His voice was very troubled, and he looked, anxiously into my face. I knew that signs were nothing, and that if father had died in the workhouse, among paupers, God would have loved him all the same, and Jesus would have prepared a place for him quite as good and beautiful. He died upon a cross, with two thieves beside Him, and a crowd of people scoffing at Him. What death could be like His?

"I hope I'll never fret against God," I answered, looking him full in the face. "I'm not afraid of any-thin' He gives me to do or bear. Anythin' will be good enough for me; and there's nobody else for you to trouble about except Stephen; and you're not afraid for him, father?"

"No, no; not for Stephen," he said. "He's had his share, and he's a clever lad, God bless him! But thou'rt not clever, Margery, and there's nothin' left for thee, not a stick or a stone. I canna see what'll become of thee; but the Almighty knows."

"Yes; He knows," I answered very peacefully, for it did not disturb me at all, and I wanted to see father also at peace.

"But suppose He means thee to be very poor, and beg thy bread?" he said, uneasily.

"Father," I answered, "I can never be poorer than Him who said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." Sure, I need never be afraid of bein' worse off than Him."

"Ay, but I wouldna' like thee to be as poor as that," he said, groaning.

"No fear of it," I answered, cheerfully. "I'm strong and active; but if it even came to that, father, the servant shouldn't look to be better off than his Master, should he? don't be fearsome for me; there is Uncle Simister and Stephen to care for me. don't fret yourself for me, father."

There were not many more hours for him to fret about anything. Before the sun rose the next morning the grey change had come over his wrinkled face, and he spoke no more, only lay with his hand in mine, till that went cold, and fell out of my fingers. There was no one with us; but never had I felt so closely the presence of One who said before He went away, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." He had come; and though my eyes could not see Him, I knew He was there, just as one knows in the dark night that home is all about us, and those we love close beside us, and that nothing but the light is needed for us to see it all. Upon father's eyes the morning was now breaking; and he would see Jesus standing on the shore, and he would know that it was Jesus.

Four months longer I had to stay in the old place, for the notice to quit served upon my father did not run out before Lady Day; and the new tenant would not be ready to enter before that time. I suppose I might have gone if I wished; but who then would keep order upon the farmstead, and superintend the usual winter's work both indoors and out? Besides, I was glad to stay, though the place seemed desolate indeed, now father was gone. But there were the old servants---Jerry and the rest of them; as long as I stopped I could find work for them, and I had money enough to pay their wages.

In looking over the old-fashioned desk in father's room I found his will, dated a few weeks after Stephen left us, in which ho made me sole executrix, and bequeathed to me all the goods he should possess at the time of his death. I had never looked into this desk before, for father had always kept it carefully locked; and I felt half afraid all the time lest I was doing something wrong, something to be ashamed of, if he came in, and found me turning over his papers. There I found my own mother's wedding-ring, with a lock of her hair, cut after she was dead; and an old clasped pocket Bible, and on the front leaf were written all the births and deaths in our family. The last entry was the entry of Stephen's departure, as if father had known that the separation would be as complete as death, so far as he was concerned. Some of my tears fell upon the page and stained it; but I left it for Stephen to enter father's death when he came back. It was a very small funeral; for we had no one of kin to us except Uncle Simister, and I never thought of asking him to come all the way from London for a funeral. There were two or three neighbours, who came up from Condover, and Jerry and I. We two walked home alone when all was over, across the fields where father had been thousands and thousands of times, till it seemed as if he must be there now, only the fog hid him from us. Then in the evening I sat quite alone in the parlour, for it was even a more solemn day than a Sunday; and I wrote to Stephen, telling him all that conversation I had with father the night before he died, and putting in a few words at the end, to say I had found father's will, and everything was left to me. I thought there was no need to trouble him now about the bad harvest, and the rent not being paid. There would be enough to pay all our debts when everything was sold at Lady Day.

There were very few letters in my father's desk; and among them I found the one Uncle Simister had written years ago, while my second mother was alive, and when I had no share in anything that was being done. I had heard it talked of many and many a time, but I had never read it before; for my father had never cared to see anybody open his desk. This was what was written within.

"Why," I thought to myself, "is this all the letter father thought and spoke so much of?" The date was many years back, and I knew it had never been answered. Uncle Simister might be dead; and, after all, it was only a man-child, as he called it, that he wished for. It seemed scarcely worth while for me to write him a letter, though perhaps I might by-and-by when there was a convenient season.

That convenient season never came; for writing was a great difficulty to me. You must not suppose that I am writing all this history of mine with my own hand. No; I am sitting in a pleasant chair in the sunshine, with my hands folded at rest upon my lap: and I have but to speak the words with my lips, and they are written down in a fair clear hand, such as I could never write. If Phoebe had been with me at the farm, a long letter would have gone to Uncle Simister; but, besides the difficulty, there seemed really no time for letter-writing. Though the farm was going into other hands, that did not keep the lambing season from coming on as usual. I was just as anxious and tender as ever over the young things brought in out of the piercing east wind. And I watched the slow sprouting of the green corn in the brown furrows, just as if I should see it ripen and be gathered into sheaves. I knew I should have to go away when Lady Day came; but if God brought the leaf-buds, and the snowdrops, and the building of nests, and the birth of young creatures before me, just as in other spring-times, why should I shut my eyes and heart sullenly against them?

But Lady Day came, with the sale of the stock, of my favourite cows and my hens, that all knew me so well they seemed to look for me to notice their calves and chickens; and every piece of the house-furniture, except an old sampler of mother's in a black frame, and a portrait of my father, cut out in black paper and pasted upon white. These the auctioneer put on one side, as not worth offering to the buyers. It was a stranger day than the day of father's funeral. There were the neighbours feeling at the feather-beds, and holding up the linen sheets against the light, and ringing the earthenware to see if it was cracked, and going in and out just as they pleased. I felt like being in a dream, which came to an end only when the sale was over, and every one gone, leaving me in the empty, empty house. I was to sleep there alone, on a bed on the floor of my old room, soiled with the tread of strange feet, and spoiled of everything which made it look like home to me. Oh! if Stevie could but have been nearer to me at that time!

I awoke with the first grey of the dawn; for the curtains had been sold from the window, and the light shone full upon my face, so that I looked up to it at once, and saw it like the light in a mother's eyes. I rose up in a moment, as if I had been called, and opened the lattice-window overlooking the grassy orchard, where I had played when I was a child. I leaned out there for a long time, watching the light strengthen, till it touched the leaf-buds on the trees below me. The dainty freshness of the morning air, so different even in the country to the weary air of noon, played about my face and my smarting eyelids; for I had been weeping bitterly before I fell asleep. Soon the birds began---at first with a little twitter, as if waking up reluctantly from their rest---and then singing as if all their happy songs had been frozen up during the frosts of winter, and were now bubbling out like a little brook ~thawing in the sunshine. My own white hen---mine yesterday---was astir among the roots of the trees seeking food, and cluck- clucking to her yellow nestlings. "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!" said my Lord Christ; and again, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings? and not one of them is forgotten before God." So the sun rose, moment by moment, very quietly, and I thought how vainly would any one try to stay its rising, and how we must give ourselves up to have the light shining all about us, whether we be glad or grieved. Then I heard the waggoners calling to their horses, and the creaking of the fold-gate as it swung on the hinges; but there was no lowing of cattle, and, except my little white hen, which the farmer who was coming after us had bought, there was no busy cackling of poultry. All the old familiar voices were gone, never to come back to my ears: Stevie's clear young voice, and father's call, and all the other sounds which had wakened me morning after morning. I sank down on my knees, and hid my face on the sill, saying nothing, but listening rather to the still small voice speaking to my heart.

Then, kneeling there, I saw that whether I took this trial rebelliously or submissively, it would remain the same: I could no more stay it than I could stay the rising of the sun. I was like a tree rooted up, and the soil about to be filled in and smoothed over where I had been growing. I might become a tree of the Lord's planting, in some other corner of His garden, or I might lie there where I was, to crumble into decay. I had my choice to make; and I made it there before I rose up from my knees.

The sun was glistening upon every dewy leaf on the orchard-trees before I raised my head, and I went down stairs, and through the kitchen---a bare and desolate place---and passed on into the garden, where everything was unchanged. There was a venturesome bee or two, tempted out of the hive by the fitful warmth of the spring day, wandering disconsolately about in search of honey-flowers. The east wind was tarrying somewhere, and the south wind was blowing softly amongst the trees. Against the faint blue of the sky stood our mountain, still with streaks of white snow lying here and there on its slopes, and looking more solitary than ever in its chilly paleness. I looked at it long this morning; for was it not like me, alone, and pale, and cold? Yet the sun was rising on us both, warm, and strong, and full of comforting life.

I sat down in the entry of the bee-arbour, close to the hives, about which they had wrapped some bands of crape when father died, which were now brown, and worn into shreds. Before long I heard the garden-wicket click, and I saw old Jerry come shambling up the path, with his white smock-frock on, and his worn-out felt cap slouching over his face.

"I wanted to speak to you, Miss Margery," he said. "What may you be thinkin' of doin', if I may be so bold?"

"I hardly know yet, Jerry," I said.

"You'd never be thinkin' of goin' into service, miss?" he asked.

"Not about home," I answered, feeling all at once a shrinking from becoming a servant; though even He took upon Him the form of a servant.

"If it 'ud been about here," said Jerry, "I'd ha' asked 'em to take me for nothin' save my keep, and I'd ha' done scores o' things to save you, miss, beside makin' it more home-like for you. But if you're goin' to leave this place, I reckon you'll be goin' to your Uncle Simister, as lives in Lonnon, and is so well-to-do, as old master used to say. He'd be mighty pleased to see you, I'll go bail. You're no lass for folks to turn up their noses at, Miss Margery. Maybe some o' the grand folk in Lonnon 'll be for weddin' wi' ye. They couldna' do better, and they might do worse, as old Jerry could tell 'em."

It was the longest speech I ever heard Jerry make. But I could not give him an answer all at once. My mind was almost made up to go to London; but I wanted to see all I could both for and against it.

"I think I'd be best away from here," I said, after a while. "There's Uncle Simister, and he's the only relation I have, except Stephen in Australia. But it would take a deal of money to go to London, and I don't rightly know how to get there."

"Parson 'ud tell ye the road," said Jerry; "and me and the other men ha' clubbed together, and here's over twenty shillin' to help ye on it. God bless ye, Miss Margery! Take it kind, for it's offered kind. Ye've been mighty good to we; and we'd like to be a bit good back again."

I felt a sob rising in my throat; for the men were but poor labourers, and likely to be thrown out of work now. Jerry was putting into my hand a bit of paper tightly screwed up; but I pushed it back again very gently.

"No, no, Jerry," I said; "I'm not so hard pressed as that. I've enough money to take me to London, if I make up my mind to go."

"Take it kind, for it's offered kind," repeated Jerry. "Me and the other men won't take it back, Miss Margery. Ye'll want a mint o' brass to take you all the way to Lonnon."

He pressed the money into my hand, and started off in an awkward run down the garden to escape from me. But he did not know how he had lightened the heaviness of my heart. With new courage and new strength I put on my black bonnet and shawl, and went down to Condover to ask the rector how I could get to London.

He too was kind---kinder than I could ever have thought. I had scarcely spoken to him before, for our farm lay quite at the far end of the parish; but he seemed right pleased to tell me all I wanted to know; and when I curtsied to him, saying, "Good-bye, sir," he shook my hand heartily, and said, "Good-bye, and God bless you, Margery Beade!"

I stayed for a day or two to help to settle the newcomers in our old place; for the wife was sickly, and there was a brood of little children. But the last night came at length---the last night and the last morning.

So in the chill of a spring dawn, whilst the grass and the moss on the roof were still white and glistening with a light hoar-frost, I left home---the only home I had ever known. The men had gathered together at the fold-gate, just as when Stephen had gone, to bid me good-bye; but there was no shouting of "Hurrah!" ; One of them had taken my box down to the inn the night before, and I had only my basket to carry; but Jerry was bent upon going with me through the woods to the highway, where the coach was to take me up; for there were no railways at that time in our part of England, and I had thirty miles to go by stage-coach before I could get into a train for London.

For near upon two miles our road lay through woods of fir-trees, and oaks, and beeches, already budding with soft, bright little buds. The narrow footpath, winding in and out among the trees, and almost losing itself where they were thickest, was green with new moss and grass; and down about the brown roots of the trees young primroses were beginning to uncurl their crisp leaves, and set free their pale new blossoms. Up on the topmost branches of the larch-trees where the earliest and the latest rays of the sun shone, there was here and there a crimson flower, like a ruby set among the fresh green of the new needles. A thousand yellow tassels hung upon the willows and the nut-bushes, waiting for the sun to dry up the tiny drops of frost still clinging to them. Every sound and sight was as dear to me as ever the garden of Eden was to Eve; and I was leaving them, perhaps, like her, never to come back again, though no cherubim nor flaming sword would be placed before them to keep me away. The world lay before me, as before Adam and Eve; but it was only out of the garden they were driven. They dwelt still in the land of Eden, whilst I was going whither I knew not.

We reached the highway at last; and heard the ringing of a horn from the coach which was coming to carry me away. I had only time to take Jerry's hand between both of mine, and press my lips to his withered cheek, which I had kissed so often when I was a child. We did not expect to see one another again in this life; but all was like a dream. I lived as in a dream at that time; nothing surprised me, nothing overcame me. I was like a child being led blindfolded over a rough road, but guided by a strong hand which I knew would never fail me. So we said good-bye to one another, Jerry and me; and I saw him looking after us bareheaded, till the coach passed out of his sight.

It was late at night before I reached London, having journeyed all day at a marvellous speed: for I had never travelled either by stage-coach or train before. I was told that it was London, and I stepped down on to a smooth platform where there seemed hundreds of people hurrying to and fro. I went to the van where I had seen my box put in, and watched trunk after trunk tumbled out carelessly before my own came to sight. Then I stood beside it, not knowing what to do. The bright spring morning had turned into a day of drizzling rain, and I could see it falling in thick slanting lines against the gas-lights, whilst I shivered in the keen draught of the easterly wind. At length every one else had gone, and I stood almost as lonely and solitary as in the garden at home, when a stranger came up and spoke to me.

"Are you waiting for anything or anybody, ma'am?" he asked, civilly enough.

"Sir," I said, "I wish to know of some quiet place where I can stay till mornin'. I'm a stranger here, and I'd thank you kindly to tell me of any such place."

"There's heaps of places," he answered: "you've only got to take your choice. I'll call a cab for you. Hollo, cabby! here's a fare for you."

Then there drove up a carriage, such as the young rector and his wife might have rode in; and the man opened the door for me to step in before I could speak a word. It was so different from the old gig at home, that I stopped with one foot on the step.

"I'm no lady," I said, looking earnestly at the two men. "I'm nobody but a farmer's daughter; with not over much money."

"Never mind, ma'am," said the driver. "I'll do it as cheap as e'er a man on the station. P'raps it's nothink but a shilling fare. Where do you want to go, ma'am?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I want a quiet decent inn, not too dear."

"Ay, ay, ma'am!" he said, slamming the door so sharply that it made me start. Then he mounted to his seat and drove away, carrying me with him.

It was past eleven o'clock. Father, and the men-servants, and the maids had been in bed and asleep these two hours, and all the house at home was shut up and quiet. But what was I thinking of? Father was dead, and Stephen was far away, and the old house at home was ours no longer. I was a stranger and alone in the streets of London. Many a shop was open still, and there were large windows glittering with the light within them at every street corner. A great number of people were out, though the rain was falling fast; and I saw young children pattering along the wet pavement barefooted! Not one or two, but several little children, barefooted on such a night as this! My heart ached at the very sight of them. I did not think to see barefooted children in London.

The cab stopped after a while at the door of an inn, where two men, thin and very sallow-faced, came out instantly into the rain, with no hats upon their heads, to help me to get out, and to take charge of my basket and my cloak, which I would rather have kept on my own arm. How far away I was from my own country, where everybody knew me to be only Margery Beade!

I followed one of the men, without speaking, up a long, narrow flight of stairs, till I found myself upon a landing at the door of a very large room, all in a blaze of light, with a number of small tables in it set out for dinner. Though it was so late at night, almost midnight, there sat groups of people, eating, drinking, talking, and laughing, as if it were still early in the evening. My head was aching already, but it went giddy at the sight of it. Nobody seemed to see me; nobody stopped in their rapid talk to look once at me. I might have been quite invisible, save for a smartly dressed, but weary-looking young woman, who stood at my elbow, and asked me again and again what I would like to have.

"I couldn't eat a morsel here," I said. "Please to show me to a quiet, clean room: only it must not cost much."

My limbs felt stiff and aching, for I had been sitting still all day cramped up in the railway train. I found how stiff they were as we went up one flight of stairs after another, till the young woman showed me into a dark little room, very scantily furnished. There was no window belonging to it, except the three lowest panes of the window which lighted the room above; and it had a very close, musty smell, which made me almost gasp for breath. I sank down on a chair set beside the bare wooden dressing-table, where I could see my face in the small looking-glass---such a face! Pale, travel-stained, weary, with the white cap in my bonnet already soiled. How different I used to look at home! Stephen would not know me again. The girl, who was turning down the bed, and shaking up the pillows, glanced at me from time to time pityingly.

"You're up from the country, ma'am?" she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"First time you've been in London, I suppose?" she continued.

"Yes," I answered again, with a somewhat sorrowful voice.

"I used to live in the country myself," said the girl, sighing; "but you'll get used to it, ma'am. You'll feel better in the morning; so if you won't take anything, I'll bid you good-night."

"Stay!" I said, yet feeling almost ashamed of it. "I wish you'd kiss me, and say good-night." I felt all at once a great hunger for some outward sign of love, My heart rested upon an unseen perfect love; but just then I yearned for something that made me seem less friendless in this great city. The girl looked astonished, and hesitated as she gazed into my face. Then her lips parted into a smile, though the tears came into her eyes, and she put her arm round my neck and kissed me.

It was a comfort to me, though maybe it was a weakness. I suppose few people at my age go suddenly from such a still, quiet place as our old farmstead---which was even far away from any village---into the very crush and throng of London. I took out my night-dress, which had been bleached upon the orchard grass, and scented with rosemary and lavender; and the sweet smell brought it all like lightning, as clear and vivid, to my mind. There was the close, suffocating room, with its dingy bed, and dirty flooring; and my memory brought to me the fresh, sweet breeze, and the flowers, and the fields, which seemed so very far off in the past, though I had only left them that morning.

There were noises about the house long after I was in bed, which kept me alert and wakeful. Somewhere not far off there was the clatter of an endless washing-up of dishes, and the clicking of knives and forks dropping one by one into a box, till there seemed to be thousands upon thousands of them. Towards morning a dead stillness followed, anti I slept a little; but as soon as a glimmer of daylight shone upon the three panes of glass I got up and looked out. They opened upon the roof, and I could see, as far as my sight reached, nothing but roofs and chimneys, begrimed with smoke and dust. It was a vast city, a wilderness of dwelling-places, through which I might have to wander in a solitary way, finding no place to dwell in.

Well, well! I was faint-hearted that morning. I went down early into the large room I had seen the night before, and found that I was again invisible, except to the tired-looking men who were waiting upon the people. I had reckoned upon seeing a pleasant, friendly-spoken landlady; like the landlady at the Sun, where father put up on market-days, who used to ask me into the bar, when I went down two or three times a year to do my shopping, and take ever so much interest in what I had bought. I had thought how I would speak to her about my plans, and ask her if she knew anybody who wanted a country housekeeper; provided my Uncle Simister did not wish me to live with him. But there was no such person to be seen. I sat down at the table nearest to the door, for I had not courage to walk far into the room; and a young man brought me the breakfast I asked for.

Till then I had not quite resolved upon going first to Uncle Simister; but as there was no landlady for me to talk to, I could not see what else I could do. I made a few inquiries from the girl I had spoken to the night before, and started off to find out his house amongst the twisting and winding streets, all crossing one another, and turning first to the right hand and then to the left. The din and uproar stunned me; thousands upon thousands of wheels were rattling over the large paving-stones; and the yelling of street cries was utterly distracting. I had never thought that the world itself could hold so many people. I felt myself out of keeping with the eager, bustling crowd, all moving so much quicker than I was; for I was not used to hurry, and, maybe, the carrying of milk-pails and baskets of butter and eggs upon my head had given me a slow and measured walk, unlike that of the London people. In what I was different I could hardly tell, but I felt different; and many a person I met looked steadily at me, as if they could see what a stranger I was to those busy streets.

I must have gone far out of my way before I found Ludgate Hill, and walked slowly up it, with the great church of St. Paul's before me; its roof high above all other roofs, and its dome standing out clearly against the sky. But I did not look up much at that, for my heart was beating fast with anxiety, and my eyes were searching everywhere for Pilgrim Street. I could not find it on either hand; and though many persons were passing to and fro, they all appeared too busy for me to venture upon asking any one of them. At last I saw three little children dawdling down the hard stone flags, thin-looking and ragged, but staring in at the grand shop windows without any shyness, such as I felt. The eldest was a boy, about nine years old, with nothing on but a torn shirt, and a pair of trousers so large for him that he had turned up the legs, and tied them round with a bit of string. I thought it looked very strange to see such children gazing in at the grand jewellery, and at the costly silks and satins in the shop windows. The boy saw my eyes fixed earnestly upon them, and he pulled one of the others by the arm.

"See! There's a lady smiling at us," he said.

"My boy," I said, taking a penny from my purse, "do you know a street called Pilgrim Street about here?"

"Do I?" he said; "I should think I do! Any chap with his eyes in his head 'ud. know Pilgrim Street."

"Show me where it is," I answered, "and I'll give you this penny."

He darted away in an instant across the street, through all the throng of carriages, twisting in and out among them, and then stood on the other side, beckoning me to follow him.

But it was like a rolling river between us, and we stood on opposite sides.

I can see him now, his bright, eager face, dirty and grimed, but with a very pleasant smile upon it. He would have been a handsome boy if he had been a gentleman's son. My heart warmed towards him at once; for it was the first face that had smiled at me since I set my foot in London. Presently he came back, and stood at my side till the course was a little clear, when we ran across, his hand in mine.

"Here's Pilgrim Street," he said, turning down a narrow archway between two shops, just large enough for one carriage to pass. At the back of the archway was a very winding street, turning here and there; with houses whose tops almost touched one another, or at least seemed to shut out the sky. It was quieter than in the larger streets, and I could hear my own voice again.

"Here's your penny, my boy," I said. "Tell me what your name is."

"What do you want to know for?" he asked, sharply.

I scarcely knew what to say. If any of the children from Condover ever came up to the farm, I always asked their name; but then I knew something about them all. There was no good in asking this London lad.

"I ain't afeard of telling you," he said, looking long into my face. "My name's Corporal, and my mother's name's Bell. I'm Corporal Bell for long, and Cor for short."

"But Corporal isn't your crissen-name," I said; "you must have some other name."

"I ain't got no other," he answered, steadily. "Corporal Bell for long, and Cor for short."

"I went on slowly along the stone pavement, which had made my feet ache again, and the boy followed me.

"Are you looking for anythink?" he asked.

"I'm looking for a watchmaker of the name of Simister," I answered.

"And why couldn't you ha" said so afore?" said Cor; "he's a friend o' mine.

Leastways, I'm the wery lad as cleans his boots and his front for him. I should think I know him; I do. It's close by here."

It was my turn to follow now, for the lad pattered on with his bare feet before me, for a very short distance, and then pointed to the window of a watchmaker's shop. It was a little place, with small dusty panes in the window, across each of which hung a row of watches, mostly of silver, and very old-fashioned, as I found out afterwards---for I was too anxious to notice them then, and I knew little enough about watches. I could see a small, spare man bending over his work till he showed the bald patch at the top of his head; he had a magnifying glass, and was holding a watch close under a jet of gas. But as I stood before the window looking in, he lifted up his head, and a curious, wrinkled face, like the carved oak faces in the church at Condover, peered out at me.

"He's a wery good watchmaker," said Corporal Bell, eagerly. "If I'd a watch I'd allays let him mend it."

I opened the closed door very hesitatingly, and went up to the little counter, leaning with both hands upon it; for I was all trembling, and could not speak a word. Uncle Simister stood on the other side looking up at me, for he was a head lower than me; but he had keen eyes, and kept his glass up to one of them in some strange way, till he suddenly let it fall by a movement of his eyelid, which startled me.

"What is it you want, madam?" he asked, in a sharp, rasping tone.

"Uncle Simister," I said, in a faltering voice, "I'm Margery Beade, and my father is dead, and I'm come up to London to you."

He was startled in his turn, and fixed his eyeglass again into his eye, looking at me as he had been looking at the watch when I saw him first through the window. The ragged boy at my side also gazed with wide-open eyes into my face.

"Margery Beade!" ; he repeated, slowly: "but it was a man-child I wrote to your father for; and that's many a long year ago. I hate women; they are always chattering and gadding about, and going into hysterics. They are dirty, too; making a dust wherever they go. There hasn't been a woman up my stairs these twenty years. I daresay you wear those long, draggle-tailed petticoats the women love so much."

He tilted himself up on tiptoe to look over the counter; but my skirts were country-made, and only came down to my ankles.

"Uncle Simister," I said, "I did not come to be any burden or trouble to you. I am strong, and can earn my own livin'; but you're my only relation, save Stephen; and he's far away. I came to you because you're mother's brother; but if you hate women, I'll go away."

I was turning away, very cast-down and heavyhearted; but Cor caught my dress in both his hands, holding it very tight, so that I could not move.

"Stay!" cried Uncle Simister, "stay, Niece Margery. I'm a philosopher, and hate women; all philosophers do. But you did not choose to be a woman, poor thing! and you're the very image of my poor sister, and you're of my own blood: so you must not go away like that. Bless you, Margery! I haven't seen any one of my own blood these thirty years or more."

He had come briskly round the counter, and stood before me, bent and withered with old age. I felt my love go out towards him, and I stooped down and kissed him, as I would have kissed father. A deep red flushed over his face, but he did not seem angry. He opened a door at the back of the shop, which was at The foot of a flight of stairs, leading to the floor above; and telling Cor to put the chain across the door, and shout if any customer came, he took me up into his home, which was to be mine for many years to come.

There were no more than three rooms; a kitchen, scrupulously clean; a small bedroom, and a very small closet, where stood a low, narrow bedstead, leaving scarcely space to move about in it. Uncle Simister pointed this out particularly to me.

"I bought it for the man-child I wrote to your father about," he said; "but if it's good enough for you, and you can put up with an old philosopher that isn't used to women and their ways, you may stay instead. And I don't say that I shan't be glad to have you, if you're only quiet and clean; for I'm growing old, and want somebody to take care of me. I've thought sometimes of taking Corporal in: but it's venturesome, and he's too young. Not that a woman can take care of anything properly. Look at a woman with a watch! She's sure to spoil it. Women's watches are always stopping, and breaking their springs, and going too fast or too slow. I hate selling my watches to a woman."

I was as glad to find a little place for myself in the great wilderness of London as the swallows were to find their old nests under our eaves at home. I was glad, too, to be dwelling with one who was of kin to me. I knew Uncle Simister would be grieved if I left him alone in his old age, though his words were rough. Cor went back with me to show me the nearest way to the inn, and to find a cab to bring my box away; and then he rode outside by the driver, making triumphant gestures to other ragged boys along the streets.

That night I wrote to Stephen, telling him that Uncle Simister had offered me a home, and that I should remain with him, unless he had need of me himself in Australia. I felt settled after that, and fell quickly into Uncle Simister's ways, keeping his small house as clean as ever it had been before, and striving my utmost to take care of him. We lived very silently together; for, at times, days and weeks would pass by and we scarcely exchanged a sentence with one another. I believe he thought that he must keep up his character as a philosopher.

Any stranger looking on would have said my life was gloomy; but how can there be gloom when the whole heart is full of light? There seemed to be always a secret with me; a secret which I half knew, though the other half was hidden, only so slightly hidden that I could almost guess it. Very humble, and quiet, and poor was my life; but so was His, the carpenter's Son. If the Bible did not tell us He was poor, I should have known it from His own words. Who would have talked about putting new pieces upon old garments, or about sweeping the house diligently, if He had not seen His mother doing it? So whilst I was busy over these things, and a hundred household works like them, I knew that He knew exactly all about them, and that made them sweet to me.

But there was not enough work for me in Uncle Simister's little dwelling; and I could not sit still doing useless things, which some women take a pleasure in. Besides, my eyes grew weary with the nearness of the walls, and my limbs ached for want of exercise. So when all was done for the day, I used to put on my bonnet and shawl, and go wandering out, up and down, up and down the streets. Not the fine streets where the shops were full of rich things to stare at; but the dark, narrow, noisome streets, lying back behind the grandeur and the wealth. I think these drew me to them. Now and then there was a chance of doing something; there were children crying whom I could comfort; or a poor woman heavily burdened, part of whose load I could carry. I had no money to give; and I could not find fault even when drunken women reeled past me and would have fallen heavily to the ground if I had not caught them. I was heart-sore for them---heart-sore. But how could I blame them for flying from the misery and the dirt in which they lived, if they could forget it only for an hour? Now and then I spoke a word to them, gently and sorrowfully, and they listened. But I do not know that I did any good among them. Only those streets, foul and noisome, and swarming with miserable fellow-creatures, drew me to them, rather than the grand and handsome streets, where carriages rolled by constantly.

But there is no, doubt I did good to Cor. I cut down some of Uncle Simister's cast-off clothes, and made him a decent suit for Sundays, and stitched a couple of shirts for him, and knitted , two pairs of socks. He was a steady, brave little lad, never missing to come for his morning's work of cleaning uncle's boots, and brushing down the front of the shop. Very soon he had told me all about himself; of the shifts he and his mother were put to for food and lodging; and of the strange sad things he saw in the wretched lodging-houses where they slept. I began to teach him to read, for he was very quick, almost as quick as Stephen; and then we went on to writing, and so on, through many months, till he knew all I could teach him.

But all this while there came no tidings of Stephen. I did not grow anxious before I had been with Uncle Simister nearly twelve months; for Australia was so very far away, letters could not come and go quickly. Yet when month after month passed by and I had written many letters and received no answer, I began to be troubled, and to grieve for him as for one who is dead; carrying about with me at all times a secret sorrow, which, like the secret joy I had, was but half known to me, yet the other half could easily be guessed. Stephen was lost and gone to me; he could not be still alive, or he would have written to me from that far-off country.

How often I carried this burden with me into the great church of St. Paul's, which was close at hand, and which became to me a quiet resting-place, like the garden at home! There, under the high roof and in the dim light, with the hum of the city all around me, like, yet altogether unlike, the hum of the bees in their hives, I would pace slowly to and fro, up and down along the aisles, as if they were the pleached alley with its grassy path, instead of the hard marble under my feet. But always I stayed my steps before a monument of black folding doors with angels guarding them, yet waiting as if to throw them open as soon as the sound of the archangel's trumpet rang through the sky. Upon the one door were these words, "Until the day break and the shadows flee away" and I bore them ever in my heart, for were we not all dwelling in the, shadows, and waiting for the breaking of the morning? Not in darkness, yet in shadows; for the light that shines about us is but as moonlight fit for feeble eyes like ours, which are often bedimmed with tears; very soft, very full of peace, very tranquil; but not like the glorious morning sunlight when it comes like a flood over the pale sky and the shadowy earth. Upon the other door of the tomb was written, "They that dwell under His shadow shall return." Yes, even the grave, with its black darkness, which no sight can pierce through but a little way, even that is but His shadow, and the dead dwell there as those who are weary with the heat of the day rest under the shadow of a great rock. And they will return when every shadow, even that of the grave, has fled away; they will return with joy and singing, and with everlasting joy upon their heads.

I did not take all that trouble for Cor without growing very fond of him. That is in the nature of things, I think, for I never troubled for any one or any creature yet without feeling my heart yearn over it. So one morning when I saw him look downcast, that is, as downcast as a boy of his age can look, I could not help noticing it.

"Is there anythin' the matter, Cor?" I asked.

"It's mother," he said; "she takes on so, and ses she ain't going to live much longer. She's wery thin, Miss Margery, and her bones stick out as sharp as sharp can be; but, bless us, there's folks going about as are only skin and bone. Folks oughtn't to die o' thinness, ought they?"

I did not know what to say, for I had never seen Cor's mother. That was when I had been only a few months at Uncle Simister's, and I'd not seen much of the poor people; save wandering about their alleys, and passages, and courts, and longing to pick up all the young children and carry them away to the fresh green fields in the country. But I offered to go and see Cor's mother; and went with him that afternoon, down street after street, all narrow and smothering and ill-smelling, till we reached a house in a courtyard, and he went on padding with his bare feet up a stair-case, where I had to keep my clothes well away from the wall, lest I should never be able to wear them again. I wondered where the boy was going to when he began climbing a ladder, the top of which went, through a square hole in the ceiling of the house; but I followed him, and came into a low bit of a garret, with nothing but the tiles for a roof, and no part of it high enough for me to stand upright in. There was no window, but a board at one end kept out the cold wind as well as the light, which came through a little opening in the gable end of the roof. Cor took it down, and I looked about me. There, under the tiles and upon a heap of rags, lay a woman wasted to the bone, with burning eyes, which met mine like some wild creature caught in a trap and writhing to get away. I'd seen that look often when the servants had caught any poor thing, and I could not bear to see it, even when the creature was but some mischievous vermin.

"Here's Miss Margery come to see yer," said Cor, pulling me forward, the woman's eyes flaming all the while, as if she would spring upon me was she strong enough.

"Is there anythin' I can do to help you?" I asked, looking pityingly down upon the poor miserable creature; and, seeing that she shivered with the cold, I took off my woollen shawl and laid it over her, tucking it in at the feet and sides to keep the draught out. She never took her eyes off me all the while.

"Cor," I said, "run home again and bring me my cloak."

He was off in an instant, and I sat down beside the woman on the floor, and took her hand into mine. Like a skeleton's it was; and though she was shivering with cold, it was as hot as fire.

"I'm going to die," she said, in a hoarse whisper; and still that hunted look was in her eyes.

"Are you afraid of dying?" I asked.

"Afeard!" she said, almost shouting the words; "I'm scared to death. That's what I'm a dying of---being afeard to die."

So I sat there talking to her, talking quietly, as sometimes a mother talks to her frightened child when there is a terrible thunderstorm in the night; and Cor's mother listened like a child, holding my hand in her burning fingers. After a while she said, in a softer voice:

"I'm not scared now; tell me more about Him."

So I told her the story of that poor woman in the city, who was a sinner, and did not dare to come before His face, but stood behind Him weeping, and washing His feet with her tears; though He did not seem to take any notice of her at first. But when she did not grow vexed and go away, but still washed and kissed His feet, He turned Himself towards her, and said, "Her sins, which are many, are all forgiven, for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."

Cor's mother lay listening---listening as if she was afraid of losing a single word; and I knew that Christ was listening too. She drew my hand up to her feverish lips, and then spoke in a low, solemn tone.

"Would He ever let me wash His feet?" she asked.

Then I knew that the tears which were rolling down her cheek slowly fell, as it were, drop by drop upon His feet. He had come to her, and was waiting to feel the tears and kisses of her repentance and love; and there was an unspeakable joy, such as no words could tell, filling all my heart.

But presently was heard Cor's step upon the ladder, and he came in with my cloak, telling me that Uncle Simister wanted me at home. I gave them a few pence which I had in my pocket, and told Cor what to buy; and then I left them, promising to go again in the morning.

Morning came, and Cor came as usual, but his eyes were very red, and his mouth quivered like a baby's. I called him up-stairs, where I put a basin of coffee on one side for him; but I knew at the first glance of him what was the matter.

"Mother's dead," he said, trying not to sob aloud; "she told me to tell you she wasn't scared. P'raps she'd find Him where she was going, and He'd let her stand behind Him, and wash His feet. I don't know what she meant, but she kept on saying that."

There was not much to be done in the matter of Cor's mother's funeral. The parish buried her; and the boy was left alone in the world. After that he seemed to belong to us altogether---not that we could provide everything for him; but Uncle Simister gave him a shelter at nights, in a little place under the stairs, and I made most of his clothes, and now and then gave him a good meal. He got work as an errandboy, too, for he was a clever lad; and at last, upon our recommendation, a doctor whom we knew took him into his service. So Cor was provided for.

How fast the years run by as one grows older! It is as if we were in a chariot drawn by swift horses, that know they are nearer home, and quicken their pace to reach it earlier. I began to see many white hairs among my brown ones, and a number of fine wrinkles all about the corners of my eyes. There was even a greater change in Uncle Simister, for his sight had failed him, and his hands were too trembling to do their work. A young journeyman, of the name of Moss, had taken charge of the shop for some time; and Dr. Clarke came every other day to see uncle.

"I shan't have a farthing to leave you, Margery," he said, one day, almost under his breath, as if he scarcely wished me to hear.

"Never mind, dear uncle," I answered, cheerfully. "I'm not afraid of setting down my foot on any step of the road that God orders for me."

"I'll speak to the doctor," he murmured, with a look of disquiet.

Dr. Clarke generally came in the evening, and he often tarried a long while as if he liked to talk with Uncle Simister. He settled himself by the kitchen fire that night as if he meant to stay some time.

"I'm in trouble about Margery," uncle began. "A woman's like a watch, and needs a man to carry her, and wind her up, and regulate her speed, and see to her main-spring. I've had so much to do with watches that I didn't want anything to do with women. They're all alike; but Margery's like those great church clocks, that can be wound up once a year, and then left to themselves; and they go on as steady as the year itself. Still, doctor, she'll want winding-up now and then, when I'm gone; and who's to do it?"

"Have you made your will?" asked the doctor.

"Yes," he answered; "but there's nothing but the furniture to leave her; that will help to furnish a room for her, and bring in two or three pounds. But she's getting on in years, and isn't over strong."

"How old are you, Margery?" asked Dr. Clarke.

"Forty-five," I answered, quickly; for only that morning I had been looking at the dates in father's pocket Bible.

"I'm afraid your arm will never be of much use to you again," he said; "you'll not be able to do much for a living. Have you no other relations?"

It was my arm that had first brought us to know Dr. Clarke. I had hurt it---I did not know how---and Cor persuaded me to go to a doctor. I went out, and wandered about the streets, till I saw his name on a door-plate. He came to see me pretty often, but he could not do much for me. I had torn the ligaments of my right arm, between the shoulder and the elbow, and they never knit together again; so it grew weaker and weaker every year.

"She had a half-brother in Australia," said Uncle Simister; "but she hasn't heard a word of him these ten years and more; we think he must be dead. He's as good as dead to her, anyhow."

Even after all this time it cut me to my heart to hear Stephen mentioned. It was a hundred times worse than if we had known how and where he died. The doctor sat looking into the fire very thoughtfully.

"Why!" he exclaimed at last, striking the arm of the chair with his open hand, "there's Bede's Charity; it's the very thing. I know one of the trustees well, and you are a freeman of the company."

"Ay! and little good it's been to me," said Uncle Simister.

"But it may be of good to her," said the doctor, taking his pocket-book out to write my name and age down. "Let me see; her name is Margery Bede. Why! it's the same as the charity. That's very curious. You must be related to the founder."

"No," I answered, "we spell it B-e-a-d-e; and my people always lived in the country, far enough away from London."

"I thought the charity was only for widows and daughters of freemen," said uncle.

"That's of no consequence," replied the doctor; "leave that to me. I owe you a good turn, Simister, for finding me that boy, Cor Bell. I've taken him into my surgery, and he's studying away like half a dozen of the young blockheads at Bartholomew's. If he goes on well, I'll see him through the hospital."

"He's not my boy," said uncle; "he's Margery's. I thought I was doing very well by him, letting him clean my boots and the front. But Margery took him in hand, and taught him to read and write, and knit stockings for him, and made him some decent clothes, and pushed him on in every way. Cor is Margery's boy."

"Oh! we must get her on the Charity," said Dr. Clarke.

"Well! if any woman ever did deserve any charity she does," continued uncle. "I begin to think as the Almighty didn't deal unkindly by us men, when He made women like Margery. I wish sometimes as Solomon could have known her, and heard what he had to say; not but what she has her faults. I've had my notions at times as heaven wouldn't be such a superior place to go to, if all the angels are women, as you see them in pictures, with big curls down their backs, and long gowns trailing about them. But then the Bible always speaks of angels as men, young men that never grow old. Which do you think they will be, doctor?"

"I've never thought of it," said the doctor, smiling.

"I shouldn't mind just a sprinkling of women like Margery," said uncle, in a feeble voice, and leaning his head weariedly, with shut eyes, against the back of his chair. The doctor looked at him earnestly, felt his pulse, and turned away with a grave face.

I felt a strange heart-sinking, and I could not ask him a word, though he spoke to me, as if to answer a question.

"Yes," he said, "he'd better go to bed. And I'll send Cor in to sit beside him all night. But recollect you must not sit up as well; one is enough, and you will have the nursing by day."

Cor came in about half an hour; a tall, well-made young stripling, with blue eyes, and a bright, energetic look about his face. He was wearing a quiet livery; and under his arm he carried three huge books, which had come out of the doctor's library. He lifted his forefinger to his forehead first, as a sort of bow to me, and then he came and took my hand between both of his, and stooped down almost as if he was going to kiss it.

"Miss Margery," he said, "the doctor tells me I'm to come every night, and sit up with the old master, while you get your rest. He's lent me some books to keep me awake; such stunning hard ones, with such awful long words in. He says I shall be a doctor myself some day. Wouldn't that be a lark, Miss Margery?"

He had not quite left off his street slang, but he could talk better than that when he chose. Now he caught himself up, and coloured; then laughed at himself quietly, and prepared to follow me into Uncle Simister's room. I saw him sit down to his studies, with the curtain drawn, to shade my uncle's eyes from the candle which lighted him. There was a fresh, eager, young face on one side, and the withered, sunken drowsy face on the other side of the curtain. From the old man hope was gone, and the relish for life was gone; but presently they would be given to him again, and grow for ever. Somewhere I have read, "The oldest angels before the throne are the youngest."

Hard at work sat Cor all night long, and for several nights, beside Uncle Simister's death-bed. But the end came at last. We could hear the clocks ticking in the shop below, and a solemn smile stole over his face as he listened, hushing me if I tried to speak or move. Then he whispered, "God bless you, Margery!"; and I was once more alone.

Everybody was every good to me, but Cor was my greatest comfort. He and the doctor between them saved me all care and trouble; and both of them followed Uncle Simister to the grave. After that I remained a few weeks quite alone in the quiet house. Mr. Moss, who had been our journeyman for some months past, had taken to the business, such as it was, in the hope of improving it; but he was not ready to come and dwell in the house. He had been living with, and helping to maintain, a widowed aunt, Mrs. Moss, with a young child, her niece, Phoebe; but he hung back from bringing them to live in the small rooms, which had been scarcely big enough for uncle and me. But not long after Mrs. Moss was appointed to an almhouse in Westminster, and was very glad to remove to it, and leave her nephew free.

It was just then, so nicely do God's works fit in, that Dr. Clarke came in one evening to bring me some good news.

"Margery," he said, "one of the almswomen on Bede's Charity is dead---died a day or two ago; and I have pushed forward your claim. You are going to be put on to the charity in her place; and so have a sure provision as long as you live. It is only a small one, I'm sorry to say."

"Sir," I said, "I'm right thankful to you and to God. It will be enough if it is what He sends. I must have gone back to my parish but for that."

I thought of the workhouse in one of the streets of the market-town where father had always gone once a week; and I felt as if I could not bear to go back to my native place as a pauper. The Beades had been decent farmers for many a generation back, and I was the only one left of them. For surely Stephen must have perished in that far-off land. No! anything would be better than going home to enter the work-house there! It may be that God saw a pride in my heart that needed rooting up.

"Well!" ; said Dr. Olarke, "it is only six shillings a week, Margery, and nothing more. How ever you can live upon that I cannot see."

"There are thousands of people in London that live upon less," I answered. "Never fear for me, sir; I shall live well upon six shillings a week. I've furniture enough to furnish a room, and Mr. Moss 'll give me somethin' for the business. You know uncle's left everythin' to me?"

The doctor smiled to himself. I daresay he thought everything was but little. Yet it was a good deal to me; for I found a pleasant room down in Westminster, to be near Mrs. Moss and the little girl, Phoebe, who had taken wonderfully to me; and I had plenty of things to furnish it comfortably, without laying out a penny of the money Mr. Moss gave me for the stock and business. It was not much---about five-and-twenty pounds, after uncle's few debts were paid; but that was a nest-egg, as poor Stephen used to say, and it was laid by for a time when I needed it more. Yet He, the Lord Christ, never had money laid by; for Judas had the bag, and bare what was put therein---Judas, the traitor and the thief.

My home in Westminster was in as quiet a street as any to be found there. It was the back attic room, in a house where the other floors were used for offices. Mrs. Brown, the woman who had the care of the offices, had the upper floor for her own use, and lived in the front attic herself, while I paid her a rent of one and sixpence a week for the back room unfurnished. The furniture I had kept of that which was Uncle Simister's was all I needed. The little bedstead he had bought for Stephen years before I saw him; a small oak table, the very pattern of one that had belonged to my mother; a three-cornered leather arm-chair, and a few other things, partly necessary, and partly kept for memory's sake, made my room look very snug and pleasant. Cor coloured the walls, and stencilled a pretty pattern of leaves and flowers round the top of them just under the ceiling. He made, too, a box for plants that just fitted the window-sill outside, where the flowers caught all the early and the late shining of the sun. It was far more cheerful and open than our close little house in Pilgrim Street. From my high casement I could see the Abbey and the Parliament House, with a glistening of the river in places; and I had a great open field of sky to look at, always changing, blue sometimes, and sometimes with a glory of clouds about it, and sometimes grey and gloomy; yet not the sky---that never changes, but is always pure, and clear, and bright, only our earth-born clouds, whether thick and murky, or all flecked like rainbows, make it dim to our eyes at times.

Down below, not many streets away, was the row of almshouses where Mrs. Moss and Phoebe lived. That, too, was a comfortable dwelling-place, though I did not like it so much as my own, with its wide look-out. But here were we two helpless and almost friendless women, getting on in years, with no strength for work, who would have been a burthen to our friends, or be driven into the workhouse in our old age, if it had not been for the provision made by those who were now dwelling in the golden streets of the city of our Father's house. I used to hope sometimes that they knew, those unknown friends of ours, whose charity was feeding, and clothing, and sheltering us, how different our lot was to what it would have been but for their ancient kindness and thought towards the poor. Some day, I thought, I shall see them, maybe; and how glad I should be to tell the founder of Bede's Charity what he had done for me. I hoped, I say, that they were allowed to know how their charity was passed on from hand to hand; so that one generation tells the next of God's goodness and mercy by the way.

Very tranquilly, and in peace with God and man, I lived there many years, watching Cor and Phoebe grow up, just as I used to watch the young things in the spring---the lambs, and calves, and colts growing up at home on the farm, only those two grew so much more slowly and deeply. They were both set upon reading and learning, something like Stephen; for neither of them had money to spend on pleasure-seeking, or fine clothes, or any of the things which fill up the minds of many young creatures. So they, cut off from all such pleasures, felt for something else to satisfy them; and so found and caught at those many free gifts of God, lying all about us if we had only time to stoop and gather them up, like the small, round things, as small as hoar frost upon the ground, which the Israelites called manna.

Every day seemed to make Cor more and more of a man. Dr. Clarke took him into his surgery, and he left off his livery, and began to study harder than ever; having his master's promise that he would see him through all that was necessary to make him a doctor. There were many expenses attending it, and Cor had no friends in the world but Dr. Clarke and me; and I used to marvel sometimes at the change in him, recollecting how I had found him at first, ragged and barefoot, lost, and, as it were, swept away with the rubbish of the streets, but now fairly on the path to become a clever man; perhaps even one of the great and rich men in the great and rich city where he was born. But just as Cor was ready, as Dr. Clarke said, to walk the hospitals---though what that means I do not altogether know---a great blow fell upon him, and through him upon me. Dr. Clarke died suddenly, so suddenly that he had not time to sign a will, which had been lying ready for months past, in which he had left 500l. to Cor to provide for his studies. But all was of no use now; Cor was thrown back again in life, with no friend in the world but me. Truly God's ways are not like our ways, Poor, poor Cor! My heart aches still at the thought of his deep disappointment, and his great grief for his master, who had always been so kind to him, and who had meant so kindly by him after his death. There were two things Cor could do. He was a handsome, tall, well-made young man, and many a grand family would have taken him as footman, to stand behind their carriages when they drove in state in the parks, and to wait upon them in their splended houses. But Cor shrank from work like, that, which would be doing no good to any person in the world; it seemed to him an unmanly life---a life made up of trifles. One other thing he could do; he had learned to make up medicines, and a druggist in the east end of London offered to take him into his shop, but at a very low salary. The customers were mostly poor people, nay, the very poorest of the people, who came there when they could not afford to go to a doctor. There was much work and little pay, but nearly everything he did would be for the good and benefit of his fellow creatures. That was the life Cor chose when God put those two before him to choose from.

After that I did not see him so often as before; but every time he came to visit me I marked a growing change in Cor. It was the change from a somewhat thoughtless, self-sufficient youth into a grave and earnest-minded man; walking as near as he could to the Lord Christ, who was indeed holding fellowship with him, and keeping him back by a gentle, unseen, but never an unfelt touch, from going far astray. He had taken up his cross as soon as he found it lying in his path, and had gone forth to follow Christ, thinking that He was a long way, even hundreds of years, before him; but the Lord had turned back for him, and was walking side by side with him to bear the heaviest part of his cross. That was a happy change for poor Cor!

Yes; I know I am looking back, and it may be I speak of those far-off years more happily and thankfully than I should have done at the time. It is like climbing up the slopes of that old, solitary hill at home, and looking down from the height of it upon the windings of the country lane which brought me to the foot. It looks a quiet lane, with green hedgerows on each side, and shady trees arching overhead, and I remember the violets, and anemones, and blue-bells growing on the banks, and the tall shoots of the wild rose-briars waving and bending in the wind, and the gay, blithe songs of the thrushes and linnets; but I forget the muddy and stony places in the road, and the stinging gnats, and the brambles catching at my clothes. Perhaps it is so; perhaps the poor little cares of the day fretted my heart now and then, and my ill-temper sulked at times against my gracious Father; but He was ever as patient with me as the mother who lifts her little child's feet over the stony and muddy places, and kisses the pricks of the brambles on its little hands. I think both the child and the mother have a closer sense of love between them, than if they had been carried easily along the road in a carriage.

By the time Oor was four-and-twenty Phoebe was rather more than seventeen, as pretty a girl as any one in London, with a colour on her cheeks something like the paler roses in the old garden at home. The very sight of Phoebe made me glad. And she came often to my pleasant attic, and went long walks with me, till she became almost as much my child as if I had been her own mother. She had picked up a good deal of learning here and there. Cor had taught her what he knew of Latin; and the schoolmaster of the school belonging to the almshouses had given her lessons in music arid French; and the girl was very eager to learn. But now that she was seventeen she grew anxious to maintain herself, and be no longer a burden upon her aunt and cousin, the Mosses. So she was very happy when she met with an engagement as daily governess, to teach five children, mend their clothes, walk out with them, and be with them from nine in the morning till six at night, for which she was to receive ten shillings a week, paid weekly, so that the holidays did not count as anything. Was it good pay? We did not ask that; we were only too glad for Phoebe to earn her own living now she and her aunt were rich. They had sixteen shillings a week to live upon, and a house rent free.

Scarcely had I finished watching the studies of Cor, and Phoebe's lessons, which were like the budding and blossoming of young trees, than I began to see the dawn of a quiet, deep love for Phoebe in Cor's heart, growing as the morning grows, which no force can stay for a moment. He was as dear to me as she was. But what hope could there be for two penniless and friendless young creatures like them? Besides, there was Mrs. Moss to consider, and she was not a person you could set on one side. She prided herself on being of a genteel family, and Cor was only a waif of the streets.

It was a very long time before Cor gave me a hint of what he felt; but I knew his secret perhaps before he did. I saw his grave face light up with a shining brightness at the sound of Phoebe's voice or step; and I watched how his eyes followed all her movements, and his ears were deaf to everything else while she spoke or sang. For Phoebe sang like a linnet, with merry little trills, and a plaintive note here and there, all wild and natural, and at times so gladsome as to be almost sad; like the evensong of birds when they perch on the highest twig of their home tree, and sing goodnight to the setting sun. Poor Cor would sit and listen to her without stirring, as if the least movement would startle her away; and then she would finish with a laugh, and turn to pick off the withered leaves from my trees in the window, her pretty head showing clear against the sky, and Cor's eyes fastened upon her, as if he dare not look away, lest he should lose sight altogether of her sweet face. That was how things went on for a year or two before Cor spoke; and I could not find out what Phoebe felt. She had a gay, playful manner, which many a person would have called flirting. But Phoebe was no flirt, though the assistant-schoolmaster would walk home with her from church on a Sunday; and every one in the choir where she sang paid her a great deal of attention, and was ready to do anything to win a smile from her. I did not think there was much chance for Cor. He could not meet her very often, and she never mentioned his name, let him stay away as long as he would. Besides, whenever she spoke of him she called him "poor Cor"; and I did not like to hear that word from her lips, though I had fallen into the habit of saying "poor Cor" myself. Yet why should I call him poor, who, going about his daily work, was closely following the Lord Christ?

"Miss Margery," said Cor, one evening, when he had been listening and listening for Phoebe's step upon the stairs, and it did not come, "I've been thinking a great deal about my poor mother lately."

I had never talked much to Cor about his mother; for her memory was but a shame and a sorrow, now he was getting free of the streets and their training. His face flushed a deep dark crimson, very different from a girl's blush; this was full of pain and grief, and there came a dimness into his young bright eyes.

"What makes you think of her, Cor?" I asked.

"Many things," he said, mournfully. "The women that come for drugs, and those I see about the streets. I feel as if I'd give half my lifetime to have had a woman like you for my own mother! It seems so strange that such women should have children given to them!"

"Cor," I said, "wait till you see her in heaven; you would not change her for me then."

He shook his head; and just then there was a little rustling of the wind that made him hold his breath, and listen again for a minute. But it was not Phoebe coming.

"Miss Margery," he went on, "being her son, I have no right to hope to win anybody's love, have I?---at least anybody that is worth winning. I cannot forget what I was born to. It is you who have made me what I am. It is all your doing."

His voice was sorrowful; and all at once there came across me that night at home before Stephen went away, when father said almost the same words about him. Poor Stevie has been lifted up above what he was born to, and gone away and been lost! But for me, he might have stayed at home, and toiled, and lived as his forefathers had done before him. This was the only sorrow and doubt of my life. Had I done a wrong to Stephen? Had I done the same wrong to Cor?

"Ought I to have left you where I found you? Are you less happy and less useful as you are?" I asked.

He fell down on his knees before me, and laid his face on my lap. I pressed both my hands on his bowed head, praying God to bless him. I could not speak aloud, for my heart was full of Stephen---full to overflowing---my boy, who had since gone away across the sea, and been lost to me ever since!

"Miss Margery," said Cor at last, "I love Phoebe."

"I knew it, my poor Cor," I answered; and he raised his head to look into my face. His was kindling with eagerness, and anxiety, and expectation. He thought I had more to tell him; but I had not. But my face said more than my mouth would have done; for he forgot himself, and was filled with care for me.

"You are ill, Miss Margery," he said; "and here I've been troubling you with my folly. What can I do you? Sit still here while I make you some tea."

"No, no, Cor," I said: "I was only thinking of my poor Stephen, who was lost in Australia. You were telling me you love Phoebe. Why, I knew that months ago."

"And does she know it?" he asked, eagerly; "and will she ever love me? Does she know who I am? Does she know that I have not even a name to offer her? Did she ever hear you call me Corp'ral?"

"Have I ever called you that, Cor?" I asked.

"No," he said; "but look here, Miss Margery. I say I am what you have made me. I owe myself to you, and I am glad of it. If I never know what a good woman's love is except yours, I shalt thank God every day of my life that I ever saw your face. No, you ought not to have left me where you found me. I am both a happy and useful man; not happy just now perhaps: but I shall be when I've got over it, supposing Phoebe does not care a straw for me. You'll always be the same for me; you'll never change towards poor Cor Bell."

"Never!" I said. But just then we heard a merry little laugh, and through the nick of the door, which had been pushed a little way open, noiselessly, we saw Phoebe's face sparkling in upon us, with the dimple in her cheek as deep again as usual. Cor's face flushed all over, and his eyes brightened like the surface of a pool when the sunbeams fall upon it, and he sprang to his feet; but he was too shy to venture to open the door wider.

"You were talking secrets," said Phoebe, pouting a little, and staying where she was. "I shall give you my message, and run away again."

"No, no!" ; cried Cor, in a half-frightened tone. "I am just going away, and then you'll have Miss Margery to yourself. Do come in."

"I cannot come in," she said, petulantly. "Mr. Russell is waiting in the street for me, and I must make haste. Margery, Cousin Moss hopes you will go and have tea with aunt and me to-morrow at your uncle's old house. I promised you should, for I knew I could make you go; and it's the first day of my Easter holidays. So good-night and good-bye, dear Margery. Good-night, Mr. Bell."

She was gone before either of us could answer, and we heard her light footstep running down the two flights of stairs into the street, Mr. Russell was the assistant-schoolmaster, a clever young man, and one who could marry any day he chose. Cor's face grew pale and grave; but he did not mention Phoebe's name again. Neither was he in a hurry to go, as he had said to her. We sat talking together long after it was quite dusk in my little room; but I did not draw the curtain across the window, for through it the almost full moon, and an evening star above it, were shining with as friendly a light as ever they had shone through my window at home. To-morrow, as Phoebe had said, would be the first of the Easter holidays---the day before Good Friday. Phoebe's holidays lasted a whole week, during which her employers saved the amount of her salary. I sometimes thought how much more she would have enjoyed them if she were not losing her week's income. Ten shillings were so little to them, and so much to her.

It was partly with a thought of Phoebe that Cor proposed to come on Good Friday morning, and go to the Abbey Service with me. However, he left me at last, giving my hand a hearty clasp, which my fingers could not return, though my heart went out towards him. I called after him down the stairs to ask him to look in at Uncle Simister's old house to-morrow evening, and walk home with Phoebe and me, if he could spare the time; and his voice had a cheery ring in it as he called back, "Ay, ay, Miss Margery!"

Then I stood looking out through my closed window; for I was too old now to fling it open as I used to do when I was young, though I liked to watch the clear, bright moon, with its little faithful star shining beside it in the sky, as much as in those old times. Though my body had grown worn out enough to have aches and pains such as I had never thought of then, my heart was fuller than ever of love for all the beautiful works God has to show to his children. Besides, I was thinking of how the same moon had looked down hundreds of years ago, through the thick branches of the olive-trees in Gethsemane, upon Him, my Lord and Master, who was forsaken, denied, betrayed, and crucified! What was any loneliness or poverty of mine compared to his? Had He not found a home for me, though He had no shelter for Himself? Had He not given me friends, though His own disciples forsook Him and fled? Who had forsaken or denied me? Where was my cross? Christ read the answers to these questions in my heart of love and thankfulness to Him which was all open to his sight. After that I went on thinking how the soft light of the moon was falling upon the roofs all around me, just as it had shone upon the roofs in Jerusalem, under which Caiaphas was sleeping, and Pontius Pilate, and the chief priests; God giving them sleep, though before they slept again they would have lifted up their hands to take away the life of His beloved Son. The women, too, the mother of our Lord, and Mary and Martha at Bethany, under the same roof as their dear Lord Christ, how were they sleeping, knowing nothing of what was going to happen the next day! I wondered if Judas, the traitor, slept and acted over in his dreams the shameful part he was to take in earnest when night fell again upon the earth. Did he picture himself, with the lighted lantern in his hand, threading in and out amongst the trees till he found the Master, and so drawing near to Him to kiss Him with his faithless lips, with the red glare falling on his own traitor's face? Did Judas dream of it beforehand, and see that blessed face all wan from the agony, and those reproaching eyes, dim and sunken with watching and weeping? It was his last sleep; for Judas would never sleep again.

Then I remembered it was the last sleep of my Lord also, the last night that He would lay His weary head down upon a pillow, and close His eyes heavy with fatigue and care. A day of sorrow and a night of wakeful anguish, and then the crucifixion lay before Him, and He knew it, saw it clearly and distinctly, but surely He slept that night; for "God giveth His beloved sleep."

All this while upon the roofs of London, just as upon the roofs of Jerusalem, there was brooding the soft, silent moonlight, like God's silent love brooding over the evil and the good.

As I turned away from the window to the fire, which had bu