"Oh, whatever is going to happen? I can't see anything at all!" she cried.

"I am going to wave my golden wand," answered the slow and solemn voice of the Indian priest.

As he spoke there was a vivid flash of light. Little Grace gave a violent start, and rubbed her eyes; and then—and then she burst into tears.

For what do you think that sudden flash of light had shown her?

It had shown her that she was back again in the shabby little home she had known so long; that her mother, pale and ill as ever, was just awakening from her sleep; that her father had returned and was lighting the lamp; that the little carved figure of the Indian priest was sitting motionless before the temple on the doors of the Magic Cabinet; and, showing her all this, it also showed her that she had been fast asleep and dreaming.

It was too hard to bear. To think that the wonderful power of the magic priest, the beautiful fairy-like country, the dear old home, her mother's health and happiness, and her father's book,—to think that all these delightful things were only parts of a strange dream was a terrible disappointment to Grace, and she cried as if her heart would break.

"Why, darling," said her father, crossing the room and lifting up the little girl in his strong arms, "is it as bad as all that? Can't you bear to part with the old cabinet, even for mother's sake?"

"It's—it's not that," sobbed Grace, hiding her face on his shoulder. "I—I wish we could keep the cabinet; but it's not that. It's my dream."

"Your dream, dear? Well, come and tell mother and me all about it."

Mr. Goodman sat down in a chair beside his wife, and when she could control her sobs, Grace told them the whole story of her strange journey to the other side of the Magic Cabinet.

When she had finished her father said: "Well, darling, it was a very pleasant dream while it lasted; but beautiful things can't last for ever any more than ugly ones. It is no wonder that you should have had such a dream after all our talk about Uncle Jacob's fancies, and the Buddhist priest, and the good fortune that was supposed to come to the owners of the Magic Cabinet."

"Yes, I'm not surprised about all that, especially as Grace has always made-believe about that funny little priest," said Mrs. Goodman; "but I can't think what set her dreaming about a knob inside the cabinet."

"Oh, that's not only a dream," cried Grace. "I have often seen the little knob, and I have pushed it and pulled it, but I can never make it move."

"Why didn't you tell us about it? I'm sure I have never seen it," said her mother.

"Come and show it to me now," said Mr. Goodman, putting Grace off his knee, and taking the lamp from the table.

Grace, followed by her mother and father, crossed over to the corner in which the Magic Cabinet stood. The lamp was placed on a chair just in front of it; and then Grace, with rather a reproachful glance at the figure of the Indian priest, twisted round the little gold bar, and opened the two ebony doors.

"There!" cried Grace, stooping down, "I can just see the knob; but you can't get low enough. You can feel it, though, if you put your hand into this corner."

Guided by the direction in which her finger pointed, Mr. Goodman thrust his hand right back into the darkest corner of the cabinet; and presently he said, "Yes, I can certainly feel something hard and round like a little button. But I can't move it."

As he spoke he pulled at the little knob with a force that shook the cabinet in its place.

"Push it, father!" cried Grace eagerly. "That's what I did in my dream."

Mr. Goodman obeyed, and instantly there was a low musical "twang," like that caused by the striking of a Jew's harp, or the quick vibration of a piece of watch-spring; a sharp click followed, and something was heard to fall on to the ebony floor of the cabinet.

Mrs. Goodman held the light closer, and in a moment her husband said, "Here is a little secret door hinged down to the bottom of the cabinet. The knob must have been fixed to a spring, and in pressing it I have released the catch of the door, which has fallen flat, leaving a small square opening."

"Is there anything inside?" asked Grace, in a hurried, excited whisper.

"Let me see," said her father, thrusting in his hand again. "Ah, yes! A little drawer!"

A moment later he stood upright, holding a tiny drawer of sweet-smelling sandal-wood in his hand.

"Come along to the table," he said; "we will soon see if there is anything nice inside."

Although it was evident that he was trying to speak carelessly, there was a strange eagerness in his manner; and as Mrs. Goodman set the lamp on the table, the light revealed a spot of bright colour on each of her pale cheeks; and as for Grace, she was in raptures.

"I know—I know it's something beautiful," she cried; "and I believe my priest is a magic priest after all."

They all three gathered round the light, and Mr. Goodman laid the little secret drawer on the table.

The drawer seemed to be quite full, but its contents were completely covered by a neatly-folded piece of Indian silk. This was quickly removed; and under it there lay an ivory box of delicate workmanship. It fitted closely into the drawer, and Mr. Goodman lifted it out with great care. On opening the lid he revealed a second box; and this was so beautiful that it drew exclamations of delight from both Grace and her mother. The inner box was made of gold, and it was covered with fruit and flowers and birds, all wrought in wonderful repousse work.

There was some difficulty in finding how this golden box was to be opened; but a little examination brought to light a secret spring, and at the first pressure the lid of the box flew back and the central treasure of the Magic Cabinet was exposed to view.

Grace gave a cry of disappointment, for, lying in a snug little nest of pink cotton-wool, she saw only a dull, ugly-looking stone.

Mrs. Goodman did not speak, but looked earnestly at her husband as he took the stone from its resting-place and held it close under the light. He took a glass from his pocket and examined it carefully for a moment, and then laid it back in the golden box again, and said, "It is a diamond, and, I believe, a very valuable one."

"But it isn't a bit pretty and sparkly like the diamonds in the shop windows," said Grace. "What is the good of it?"

"It is a wonderful magic gift," answered her father. "All that money can do for us, this dull-looking stone can do. It can buy all the things mother needs to make her strong and well."

"And it can print father's book, and make us all as happy as we were in your dream," said her mother.

Mr. Goodman now took the little sandal-wood drawer in his hand again, and, under another piece of Indian silk, he found a letter.

"My dear, this is for you," he said; "and see—surely this must be your Uncle Jacob's writing?"

Mrs. Goodman took the envelope from his hand, and read the inscription, which was written in strange, angular characters:

"TO MY NIECE."

Her hand shook a little as she broke the seal and drew out a small sheet of paper covered closely with the same writing, and her voice was unsteady as she read the old man's letter aloud.

"My dear Niece,—When my will is read you may be surprised to find that I have left you only one gift—my old Indian cabinet. But I value it very highly, and I believe that for my sake you will never willingly part with it. I am rich, and if you needed money I could leave you plenty; but you have enough and to spare at present, and I hope you will never know the want of it. But still, I mean to make one slight provision for you. Authors are not always good men of business, and your husband may lose his money; and however great and good his book may be, it may be rejected by the world, and you may some day be poor. I shall place an uncut diamond of some value in the secret drawer of the old cabinet, hoping that you may find it in a time of need. You may wonder why I trust to such a chance; but some wise man has said that all chance is direction which we cannot see, and I believe he is right, so I shall follow my whim. If you should discover the secret at a time when you are not in need of money, keep the gem uncut as a wonderful work of nature; there are not many like it in the world. But if the money it can bring you will be useful, do not hesitate to sell it; it will fetch a high price. In any case, accept it as the last gift of your affectionate

"UNCLE JACOB."

There was silence in the little room for a few moments after Uncle Jacob's letter had been read. Mr. Goodman led his wife back to her chair, and Grace stood solemnly waiting for somebody to speak.

At last her father looked at her with a bright smile.

"We must be very thankful to Uncle Jacob for his gift," he said; "but we mustn't forget that it was your wonderful dream which led us to the discovery."

"I can't help thinking that my dear Indian priest had something to do with it. You know he is a magic one; and he did look something like Uncle Jacob in my dream, you know."

Her mother and father smiled; and Mr. Goodman rose briskly and said, "I must make haste and tell the man he needn't come to look at the cabinet."

"Oh, father," cried Grace, who was feeling a little puzzled, "won't it have to go away, after all?"

"No, my child," he answered; "mother will be able to get well without losing it now. We shall keep the Magic Cabinet."

"There, I thought my Indian priest wouldn't tell a story. I asked him to promise not to go away and leave us, and he shook his hand most beautifully."

Mr. Goodman bent down and kissed her; and then he left the room, and Grace, after taking a peep at her little Indian priest, ran and threw her arms lovingly round her mother's neck.

* * * * *

Uncle Jacob's gift was the means of making Grace's dream come true in a wonderful way. First of all her mother got well and the roses came back into her cheeks again; and then, instead of going on a magic journey through the back of the cabinet, the father and mother and their little girl went into the country, which was quite as beautiful, if not so strange, as the island in the shining lake. A little later the dear old red-brick home was bought again, and they all went to live there; Mr. Goodman's book was published, and it was bound in white and gold, just as Grace had seen it in her dream. And after it had been examined and admired, at Grace's suggestion it was put away under the watchful care of the little Indian priest in the Magic Cabinet.



GIRLHOOD AND YOUTH.



ONLY TIM.

BY SARAH DOUDNEY.

CHAPTER I.

"I say, Bee, are you coming?"

Claude Molyneux, in all the glory of fourteen summers and a suit of new white flannels, stands looking up with a slight frown of impatience at an open bay-window. It has been one of the hottest of August days; and now at four o'clock in the afternoon the haze of heat hangs over the sea, and makes a purple cloud of the distant coast. But, for all that, it is splendid weather; just the kind of weather that a boy likes when he comes to spend his holidays at the seaside; and Claude, who is an Indian-born boy, has no objection to a good hot summer.

As he stands, hands in pockets, on the narrow pebbled path under the window, you cannot help admiring the grace of his slim, well-knit figure, and the delicate moulding of his features. The fair skin is sun-tanned, as a boy's skin ought to be; the eyes, large and heavy-lidded, are of a dark grey, not brilliant, but soft; the light, fine hair is cropped close to the shapely head. He is a lad that one likes at the first glance; and although one sees, all too plainly, that those chiselled lips can take a disdainful curl sometimes, one knows instinctively that they may always be trusted to tell the simple truth. Anything mean, anything sneaky, could not live in the steady light of those dark-grey eyes.

"I say, Bee-e!" he sings out again, with a little drawl, which, however, does not make the tone less imperative. Master Claude is not accustomed to be kept waiting, and is beginning to think himself rather badly used.

"Coming," cries a sweet treble; and then a head and shoulders appear above the row of scarlet geraniums on the window-sill.

She is worth waiting for, this loitering Bee, whose thirteen years have given her none of the airs of premature womanhood. Her smooth round cheeks are tinted with the tender pink of the shell; her great eyes, of speedwell blue, are opened frankly and fearlessly on the whole world. Taken singly, not one of her features is, perhaps, quite faultless; but it would be hard to find a critic who could quarrel with the small face, framed in waves of ruddy golden hair that go tumbling down below her waist. You can see a freckle or two on the sides of her little nose, and notice that her slender hands are browned by the sea-side sun; for Bee is one of those lucky girls who are permitted to dabble freely in salt-water, and get all the benefit that briny breezes can bestow.

"I couldn't come sooner," she says in a tone of apology. "We always have to learn a hymn on Saturdays, and I've had such a bother with Dolly. She would want to know where 'the scoffer's seat' was, and if it had a cushion? And it does so worry me to try to explain."

"Oh, you poor thing—you must be quite worn out!" responds Claude, with genuine sympathy. "But make haste; you haven't got your hat on yet."

Bee makes a little dive, and brings up a wide-brimmed sailor's hat with a blue ribbon round it. She puts it on, fastens it securely under the silken masses of her hair, and then declares herself to be quite ready.

In the next instant the girl and boy are walking side by side along the shore, near enough to the sea to hear the soft rush of the tide. The blue eyes are turned inquiringly on Claude's face, which is just a shade graver than it ought to be on this delightful do-nothing day.

"Bee," he says after a silence, "I don't quite approve of your being great friends with Crooke—Tim Crooke. What a name it is! He may be a good sort of fellow, but he's not in our set at all, you know."

"He is a good sort of fellow," she answers. "There's no doubt about that. Aunt Hetty likes him very much. And he's clever, Claude; he can do ever so many things."

"I dare say he can," says Mr. Molyneux, throwing back his head and quickening his pace. "But you needn't have got so very intimate. We could have done very well without him to-day."

"He's Mr. Carey's pupil," remarks Bee quietly. "Aunt Hetty couldn't invite Mr. Carey and leave out Tim."

"Well, we could have been jolly enough without Mr. Carey. It's a mistake, I think, to see too much of this Tim Crooke; he isn't a gentleman, and he oughtn't to expect us to notice him particularly."

"He doesn't expect anything; we like him; he's our friend." The soft pink deepens on Bee's cheeks, and her ripe lips quiver a little. She loves Claude with all her heart, and thinks him the king of boys; but, for all that, she won't let him be unjust if she can help it.

Claude tramps on over sand, and pebbles, and seaweed, with lips firmly compressed and eyes gazing steadily before him. Bee, as she glances at him, knows quite well what Claude feels when he looks as if his features had got frozen into marble. And she knows, too, that he will be painfully, frigidly, exasperatingly polite to her all the evening.

Matters cannot go on like this, she says to herself in desperation. Claude arrived only yesterday, and here they are beginning his holiday with a dreadful disagreement. She has been counting the days that must pass before she sees him; writing him little letters full of sweet child-love and longing; wearing a pinafore over her newest frock, that it may be kept fresh and pretty for his critical eyes. And now he is here, walking by her side; and she has offended him.

Is it Heaven or the instincts of her own innocent little heart that teach this girl tact and wisdom? She doesn't proceed to inspire Claude with a maddening desire to punch Tim's head, by recounting a long catalogue of Mr. Crooke's perfections, as a more experienced person would probably have done. But she draws a shade closer to her companion, and presently he finds a tiny brown hand upon his white flannel sleeve.

"You dear old Empey," she says lovingly, "I've been wanting you for, oh, such a long time!"

The frozen face thaws; the dark grey eyes shine softly. "Empey" is her pet name for him, an abbreviation of "Emperor;" and he likes to hear her say it.

"And I've wanted you, old chap," he answers, putting his arm round the brown-holland waist.

"Empey, we always do get on well together, don't we?"

"Of course we do,"—with a squeeze.

"Then, just to please me, won't you be a little kind to poor Tim? He's not a splendid fellow like you, and he knows he never will be. I do so want you to forget that he's a nobody. We are all so much more comfortable when we don't remember things of that sort. You're not angry, Empey?"

"Angry; no, you silly old thing!"

And then she knows, without any more words, that he will grant her request.

The little boat that Claude has hired is waiting for them at the landing-place, and Bee steps into it with the lightest of hearts. Aunt Hetty and the rest will follow in a larger boat; but Mr. Molyneux has resolved to row Miss Beatrice Jocelyn himself.

He rows as he does everything, easily and gracefully, and Bee watches him with happy blue eyes as they go gliding over the warm sea. How still it is to-day! Beyond the grey rocks and yellow sands they can see the golden harvest fields full of standing sheaves, and still farther away there are low hills faintly outlined through the hot mist. The little town, with its irregularly-built terraces, looks dazzlingly white in the sunshine; but the church, standing on high ground, lifts a red spire into the hazy blue.

"I could live on the sea!" says Bee ecstatically. "You don't know what it costs me to come out of a boat; I always want this lovely gliding feeling to go on for ever. Don't you?"

"I like it awfully," he replies; "but then there are other things that I want to do by-and-by. I mean to try my hand at tiger-shooting when I go out to the governor."

"But, oh, Empey, it'll be a long time before you have to go out to India!"

Her red mouth drops a little at the corners, and her dimples become invisible. He looks at her with a gleam of mischief in his lazy eyes.

"What do you call a long time?" he asks. "Just a year or two, that's nothing. Never mind, Bee, you'll get on very well without me."

"Oh, Empey!"

The great blue eyes glisten; and Claude is penitent in an instant.

"You ridiculous old chap!" he says gaily. "Haven't you been told thousands of times that my dad is your guardian, and as good as a father to you? And do you suppose that I'd go to India and leave you behind? You're coming too, you know, and you'll sit perched up on the back of an elephant to see me shoot tigers. What a time we'll have out there, Bee!"

"Do you really mean it?" she cries, with a rapturous face; blue eyes shining like sapphires, cheeks aglow with the richest rose.

"Of course I do. It was all arranged, years ago, by our two governors; I thought Aunt Hetty had told you. But I say, Bee, when the time does come, I hope you won't make a fuss about leaving England!"

"Not a bit of it," she says sturdily. "I shall like to see the Ganges, and the big water-lilies, and the alligators. But what's to become of Dolly?"

"I don't know; I suppose she'll have to stay with Aunt Hetty. You belong to us, you see, old girl; so you and I shall never be parted."

"No, never be parted," she echoes, looking out across the calm waters with eyes full of innocent joy.

CHAPTER II.

As soon as the boat grates on the shallows, two small bare-legged urchins rush forward to help Miss Jocelyn to land. But Bee, active and fearless, needs no aid at all, and reaches the pebbled beach with a light spring.

"Is tea nearly ready, Bob?" she asks, addressing the elder lad, who grins with delight from ear to ear.

"Yes, miss."

"And has your mother got an immense lobster, and a big crab, and heaps of prawns?"

"Yes, miss; whoppers, all of 'em."

"That's right; the sea does give us such appetites, doesn't it, Empey? I hope the others will be here soon."

"If they don't make haste they'll find only the shell of the lobster," he answers, joining her on the shore. "I shall never be able to control myself if I take one look at him!"

"Then don't look at him, greedy!" she cries, clapping her hands, and dancing round and round him, while the fisherman's children stare at her wonderful golden locks. "I didn't forget your weakness for lobster; Aunt Hetty said I might arrange it all; and we shall have a splendid tea!"

He looks at her with his quiet smile, half amused, wholly loving.

"Don't be whirling like a Dervish, and making yourself too hot to eat anything," he says, putting a stop to her evolutions. "Let's saunter along the beach, and sit down a bit, my Queen Bee."

It is a bright, glistening beach, strewn with many-coloured pebbles and stones, brown, yellow, purple, crimson, and snow-white; there are empty shells in abundance, out of which charming pincushions can be constructed by skilful fingers; and, best of all, there are little heaps of delicate sea-weed, capable of being pressed out into tiny tree-like forms of coral-pink. Altogether, this strip of shore is a very treasury for children, and Bee can never come here without wanting to load her own pockets and everybody else's with heavy spoils.

Claude, who has already been presented with seven shell pincushions, a polished pebble, and three copy-books filled with gummed sea-weed, does not care to add to this valuable collection of marine treasures. He arrests the little hand that is making a grasp at a clam, and says persuasively, "Stop till we come here again, Bee; don't pick up things this afternoon. It's so jolly to loaf about and do nothing, you know."

She obeys, after casting one regretful glance at that fascinating scalloped shell; and they stroll on in placid contentment. From this part of the coast they get a wide ocean outlook, and can gaze far away to the faint sea-line dissolving into the sky.

How calm it is! Beautiful, infinite sea, suggesting thoughts of voyages into unknown climes; of delightful secrets, yet unfathomed; of that enchanting "by-and-by" which is the children's Promised Land! The boy and girl are quiet for a time, dreaming their tranquil little dreams in the silence of utter satisfaction, while the waves wash the beach with the old lulling sound, and the rock-shadows are slowly lengthening on the sand.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Drake, the fisherman's wife, is busy with her preparations indoors. The cottage stands in a sheltered nook, a wooden dwelling, coated with tar, with nets hanging outside its walls, and a doorstep as white as snow. A few hardy geraniums in pots brighten the windows, but garden there is and can be none; the pebbly shore must serve the children as a playground. Rosy cheeks and sound lungs give proof that the little Drakes are thriving in their seaside home; and the youngest, a baby of two, lies placidly sucking its thumb on the sunny beach.

The boat containing Aunt Hetty and her party nears the landing, and just for one second Claude's brow darkens again. A sturdy lad is pulling strong strokes, with arms that seem almost as strong as Drake's; and the lad has a merry brown face and black curly hair, and wears a scarlet cap set jauntily on his head. It is Tim Crooke, looking provokingly at his ease among his aristocratic friends, and quite prepared to enjoy himself.

Aunt Hetty, gentlest and kindest of elderly ladies, is assisted to land by the clergyman; while Tim takes up Dolly in his strong arms and places her safely on the shore. And then they all make for the cottage, Bee lingering in the rear with Claude, and winning him back to good-humour with a pleading look from the sunny blue eyes.

Surely this tea in the fisherman's kitchen is a banquet fit for the gods! It is a happy, hungry group that gathers round the deal table; Bee, doing the honours, pours out tea, and has a great deal of business on her hands; Aunt Hetty, at the other end of the board, keeps anxious watch over Dolly, who consumes prawns with frightful rapidity; Tim Crooke beams on everybody and ministers to the wants of everybody, like the good-natured fellow that he is. And Claude, true to his unuttered promise, is kind to Tim in a pleasant, natural way.

At length the meal comes to an end; lobster, prawns, and crab are all demolished! and the last drop is drained out of the teapot. The party stroll out of doors, and revel in the cool of the evening air.

How is it that they begin to talk about heroes and heroism? Nobody can remember afterwards who started the subject; but certain it is that all, save Dolly, become interested in the conversation, and each has a word to say. Mr. Carey, the clergyman, is the leading talker; and he talks well, not priggishly, nor prosily, but speaks the right words in the right way, and wins the attention of his companions.

"Charles Kingsley has told us," he says, "'that true heroism must involve self-sacrifice;' it is the highest form of moral beauty. And it's a good thing when girls and boys fall to thinking about heroes and heroines; the thinking begets longing to do likewise. What was it that you were saying last night about your favourite hero, Tim?"

Tim lifts his head, and a rush of colour comes suddenly into his brown face.

"Jim Bludso is the fellow I like," he says, speaking quickly. "Wasn't it grand of him to hold the bow of the Prairie Belle against the bank, while she was burning? The passengers all got off, you know, before the smoke-stacks fell; only Bludso's life was lost. He let himself be burnt to save the rest."

"It was grand!" murmurs Bee, drawing a long breath.

"Yes," says Claude, bringing out his words slowly; "but I like Bert Harte's 'Flynn of Virginia' better still. You see, it was Jim Bludso's own fault that the steamer caught fire. Nothing would stop him from running a race with the Movestar; and so the Prairie Belle came tearing along the Mississippi—

"'With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine!'

Jolly fun it must have been, but anybody could have foretold the end. As to Flynn, he was working on the Central Pacific Railway with his mate, a married man, when they found the whole concern giving way. And Flynn set his back against the wall in the dark drift, and held the timbers that were ready to fall, and sang out to Jake to run for his wife's sake."

"Oh, that was beautiful!" Bee sighs, with her blue eyes full of tears. "Flynn was only Flynn, wasn't he? But Jake had got somebody who couldn't live without him."

"That was just what Flynn felt, he was only Flynn," Claude replies, pleased that his hero is appreciated. "There was something splendidly deliberate in his self-sacrifice, don't you think so, sir?" he adds, turning to Mr. Carey.

"You are quite right," Mr. Carey answers thoughtfully.

Dolly comes running up to the group with shrill cries showing a little live crab in her small palm. A faint breeze is blowing off the sea, the west grows golden, and Aunt Hetty rises from her seat on the beach.

"We must be going home now," she says. "Claude, dear boy, will you look for my shawl?"

Claude obediently goes into the cottage to bring out the wraps; Mr. Carey hastens off to summon Drake; and Tim finds himself, for a few seconds, by Bee's side.

"Hasn't it been a lovely afternoon?" she says. "I've been so happy, haven't you? Oh, Tim, Claude has told me something!"

"Is it a secret?" Tim asks.

"No, he didn't say so. He says it was arranged years ago that he is to take me out to India, by-and-by. I'm so glad, Tim; I'd go anywhere with Claude."

The golden glow that shines on Tim's face seems to dazzle him, and he turns his head away from the speaker.

"I'm glad that you are glad, Bee," he says quietly. And that is all.

CHAPTER III.

Sunday morning dawns, hot and still, but clearer than the day before. Aunt Hetty and her nieces are sitting in the bay-windowed room, which has the usual furniture of seaside lodgings. They have just gone through their morning readings, and are ready to begin breakfast when Claude comes downstairs.

"How is the wrist, dear boy?" Aunt Hetty asks tenderly.

In jumping out of the boat last night he has managed to get a sprain, but is disposed to treat the matter lightly.

"Oh, it will soon be well, thanks," he says, taking his place, and giving a smile to Bee.

A little later they all set out for church, and Bee and Claude attract many an admiring glance as they walk together along the terraces. She wears her new frock, of some soft creamy stuff, and a quaint "granny" bonnet of ivory satin lined with pale blue; her short skirts display silk stockings and dainty little shoes of patent leather. Aunt Hetty, her tall thin figure draped with black lace, follows with Dolly, that little witch of eight years old, who is the pet and plague of the good lady's life. Other seaside visitors look after the party from Nelson Lodge, and discuss them freely among themselves; but they do not speak from personal knowledge of Lady Henrietta Jocelyn and her charges. All they know is that Lady Henrietta is the maiden aunt of the two girls, and that they were committed to her care by her brother who died in India.

The church is large, recently built, and smells strongly of mortar and varnish. In winter Mr. Carey has to preach to a scanty congregation; but in summer, when the lodging-houses are full, there is always a goodly number of worshippers.

The Jocelyns, whose home is in town, are accustomed to attend St. George's, Hanover Square, and never feel perfectly comfortable in this seaside church, which is, as Bee says, "so dreadfully new, and so unfurnished." She wishes they could all worship out of doors, among the rocks, with the blue sea murmuring near them; and yet she likes to hear Tim's voice, as he stands among the other surpliced boys and leads the singing.

Not that Tim is by any means an ideal chorister. His surplice makes his brown skin look browner, and his curly head blacker than ever; and there is not a heavenly expression in his quick dark eyes. He is not in the least like one of those saintly boys we read of sometimes, who sing and lift their glances upward, and pass gently and speedily away from this wicked world. Judging from Tim's robust appearance he has many a year of earthly life before him, and many a hot battle to fight with the flesh and the devil.

But it is a marvellous voice that comes from the lad's massive throat; a voice that goes up like a lark's song, carrying heavy hearts to higher regions with its notes. In future days there are some who will remember that morning's anthem, which Tim sings with all his triumphant power and thrilling sweetness. A few fishermen, standing just within the doors, listen entranced, and one rugged old fellow puts up a hard hand to hide his eyes.

"The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.

"The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.

"Thy testimonies are very sure; holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, for ever."

The service comes to an end, and Aunt Hetty and her children walk homeward along the terraces, under a glaring sun. The sea is still calm, but a light breeze is stirring, creeping off the water and breathing across the hot sand and shingle. Bee gives a deep sigh of satisfaction as the zephyr kisses her rosy cheeks.

"It's going to be just a little cooler, Empey," she says, as they draw near Nelson Lodge.

"Yes; it must be jolly on the sea to-day," he remarks, following a little cutter with longing eyes.

When the midday meal is ended, Aunt Hetty repairs to the sofa to read Jeremy Taylor; and Dolly, having discovered an illustrated copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress," is silently gloating over a picture of Apollyon, dragon-winged, with smoke coming out of his nostrils. For fifteen or twenty minutes Claude and Bee whisper by the open window, and then a gentle sound from the sofa tells them that good Jeremy has lulled Aunt Hetty to repose.

Claude gives Bee an expressive glance which plainly says, "Come along." Dolly's back is turned towards them; moreover, she has just lighted upon a whole family of fiends, and cannot take her eyes off the book. So the pair slip out of the room unheard and unseen, and gain the beach without let or hindrance.

They shun the pier, and foot it briskly along the shore till they have left most of the promenaders behind. On and on they go till they get to the low rocks, and the smooth yellow sands strewn with mussel and cockle shells; and then they sit down to rest, and listen to the music of the tide.

"You must take me to White Cove one day, Empey," says Bee, after a pause. "There are the most lovely shells to be found there, and agates, and things. Mr. Carey said that somebody once picked up a bit of amber there."

"I could row you there at once," returns Claude, "if it wasn't for this wrist of mine."

"Oh, but it's Sunday; Aunt Hetty wouldn't like us to go."

"She wouldn't mind it if I reasoned with her," responds Mr. Molyneux with perfect confidence in his own powers of argument. "All those little prejudices of hers could soon be got rid of."

"Drake says it's rather dangerous near White Cove," observes Bee after another silence; "because of all the sunken rocks, you know."

"No, I don't know: I've never been there. But you've set me longing to see the place, old chap."

"Oh, it's lovely!" she cries, with enthusiasm. "Thousands and thousands of sea-birds sit on the cliffs; and there are lots of little caves, all hung with silky green sea-weeds, so quiet and cool."

Claude leans back against the low rock behind him, and looks out across the sea with eyes half-closed. The horizon line is sharp and clear to-day; the blue of the sky meets, but does not mingle with the deeper blue of the ocean; a few white sails can be distinctly seen. Now and then a gull flashes silvery wings in the sunshine, and its cry comes wailing across the water to the shore.

"Why, there's Tim!" says Bee, pointing to a broad-shouldered figure moving leisurely along the sand.

He hears the well-known voice, and turns instantly.

"Well, he may make himself useful to-day," remarks Claude, with a sudden inspiration. "I daresay he'll be glad enough to row to the cove if we ask him."

Tim is more than glad, he is delighted to be included in the plans of Claude and Bee. To tell the truth, Sunday afternoon is generally rather a lonesome time to Tim Crooke. He has no vocation for Sunday-school teaching, and always feels intensely grateful to Mr. Carey for not bothering him to take a class. The little vicarage is, however, a dreary house when master and servants are out; and Tim is usually to be found wandering on the shore till the hour for tea.

"Bill Drake is down yonder," says Tim, waving his hand towards a block of stone some distance off. "And he's got a little boat, a battered old thing, but——"

"Any old thing will do," interrupts Claude, rising eagerly. "We are not going to show off in front of the pier, you know; we only want to get away to White Cove and enjoy ourselves. Do you know the place, Crooke?"

"Yes, very well. I've been there several times with Mr. Carey; it's a wonderful place for gulls. I suppose there are thousands of them."

"Well, come along," cries Claude; and Bee springs gladly to her feet. It delights her to see the magnificent Empey growing so friendly with that good old Tim, and as she trips on, leaving dainty footprints on the sands, her mind is busy with plans for the coming days. "This is only the beginning of pleasures," she says to herself; the holidays will last a long time, and they can enjoy many excursions about the coast. It is all going to be perfectly jolly, now that Claude has really consented to accept Tim; for Tim is so good-natured and useful that she hardly knows what they would do without him.

The little boat is a battered old thing indeed, but nobody is inclined to find fault with it. Bill Drake is quite ready to let the young gentleman have his way; Bee steps in lightly enough, and seats herself; the lads follow, and then Tim pushes off, leaving Bill standing grinning on the shore.

A happy girl is Bee Jocelyn as the boat glides on, and the fresh air fans her face. She has put on her broad-brimmed hat again; and the light breeze lifts her bright silky tresses, and spreads them round her head like a golden veil. She dips one little hand in the water—the beautiful sunny water that is as green as an emerald when you look deep into its depths; and then she trails her fingers in the sea and smiles at Claude.

"Oh, Empey," she says, "how nice it would be if one of Undine's sea-relations were to put a coral necklace, all red and glittering, into my hand!"

"Or some strings of pearls," suggests Tim.

"She will have a set of pearls one day," remarks Claude, in that quiet tone of his. "They were my mother's, and they are waiting in India for Bee."

There is an unwonted softness in Tim's black eyes. He is a stout-hearted, matter-of-fact lad, people say, not given to dreaming; and yet he is seeing visions this afternoon. He sees Bee, not in her sailor's hat and girlish frock, but in white robes, with all her wealth of hair plaited up, and the pearls glistening on her neck. He sees the merry face grown graver, yet lovelier than ever; and then he tries to picture her home in that far-off land that he will never behold; a land of dark faces, and temples, and palms, and flowers.

And Claude will be with her always; what a beautiful poetical life these two will live together! All the poetry is for them, and all the prose for Tim. His thoughts don't shape themselves into these very words, perhaps; but he does certainly feel that it is a dull path which lies before Tim Crooke.

While he dreams, he pulls as steadily as usual, and they are drawing nearer and nearer to the little cove. Soon they gain a full view of those cliffs where the sea-birds sit, tier upon tier, like spectators in a circus, and the calm air is filled with strange cries. Bee claps her hands in delight; the sight is so novel, and the birds that have taken wing sweep so gracefully around their rocky haunts, that there is a charm, past explaining, in the whole scene.

Meanwhile the tide is rising fast and floats the boat onward to White Cove. They are making for a landing-place just at the foot of the sea-birds' cliff, and Tim pulls cautiously, telling Claude to keep a sharp look-out for the rocks that lie treacherously hiding under the flood.

"There's the Chair!" cries Bee suddenly. "Look, Empey, we are quite close to it! It was Mr. Carey who gave it that name, because you see it's exactly like a chair, and it has a seat, and a little ledge where your feet may rest. Mr. Carey got up there once; it's quite easy to climb."

"At high water the tide comes almost up to the footstool of the Chair," says Tim. "I've noticed it standing up out of the sea with a bird or two perched on its seat. It looks very funny then, when all the rocks near it are quite covered."

"It really is curious," Claude is beginning to say, when there is a bump and a terrible grating noise. The boat has struck against one of those traitorous rocks, and her rotten planks have given way. Long before they can reach the landing-place she will be full of water; there is already a stream flowing in through the rent in her side, and Tim, quiet and cool, takes in every detail of the case before Claude has begun fully to realise their condition. Without a moment's hesitation he pulls straight towards the little strip of sand that is to be seen at the base of the Chair.

"Quick, Claude," he says in decided tones, "the wind is rising, and the tide is coming in fast. You must get Bee up into the Chair, and you'll have to follow her; although there's hardly room for two."

"Do you mean that we shall have to stay up there till the tide goes out?" asks Claude. "Why, it's absurd! Is there no other way to——"

"There is no other way to save your lives, so far as I can see. Now don't lose time; the Chair isn't so easy to climb, after all. There are little dents in the rock where your toes may go, but no projections anywhere. It's just a smooth block of stone."

Poor Bee, who knows that Tim must have good reasons for being serious, tries to obey him without delay. But how could she ever have fancied that this dreadful rock was easy to climb! It is nearly as slippery as glass, and affords so little hold for hands or feet that she is almost in despair. The boys encourage her with their voices; Claude is scrambling up after her—not without difficulty, however, for his sprained wrist gives him many a sharp twinge. And then at last, after terrible efforts, the "footstool" ledge is gained, and Bee drags herself up to the seat of the chair.

But what a seat it is! Merely a niche which looks as if it had been scooped out of the solid stone and furnished with a narrow shelf. How will it be possible for her to make herself very small, and leave space for Claude?

Even in these fearful moments she finds herself thinking of the eleven swan princes in the fairy tale, and that little rock in mid ocean on which they stood crowded together when the sun went down. Claude is here, squeezed into the narrow niche by her side, and he is calling out to Tim, down below.

"Come up, Tim," he cries, and there is a ring of agony in his voice now.

But Tim's answer reaches them, clear and loud, above the roar of the advancing tide.

"I shall not come; there isn't room for three. You know that well enough."

"But, Tim, what will you do? I'll come down, and give you my place."

"Stay where you are," Tim shouts sternly. "You've got Bee to take care of. And there's a heavy sea rolling in, she'll have to sit fast."

As Tim speaks the flood is surging up to his knees, and the wind, too, is rising higher and higher. All around him the waves are foaming over the sunken rocks, and the sea-thunder grows louder and more terrible every moment.

"I'll come down," cries Claude, making a desperate movement to descend. "You sha'n't stop there and drown alone! Do you think I'll be such a hound as to let you?"

But Bee with all her strength, holds him back. "Empey, dear Empey," she moans, "stay for my sake!"

"I'll take my chance," Tim sings out cheerily. "I can swim; I mean to try for the landing-place."

"You're mad; the tide will dash you on the rocks!" groans Claude, in despair. And then, so slight is his foothold that he nearly loses his balance in looking downward; and Bee, clinging to him, screams with terror.

"I can't bear it!" he says wildly.

How fast the waters rise! Great waves are breaking against the sides of the Chair, and leaping up nearer and nearer to the ledge whereon the pair support their feet. Once more Claude calls to Tim, passionately, almost fiercely,—

"I'll never forgive myself if you are lost! Tim, Tim, where are you?"

And the clear voice comes up, somewhat faintly, from below. "It's all right. God bless you and Bee."

A mighty billow flings its cloud of foam over the faces of Claude and the shrinking girl by his side, and blinds them with salt spray. But high as the tide is, the Chair is still above its reach, and although the wave may sprinkle them, it cannot swallow them up. Only they are deafened as well as blinded, and Bee feels that she is losing her senses. Surely her brain is wandering, else she could never hear the notes of the anthem again, and Tim's voice singing the words of the old psalm in such exulting tones,—

"The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."

* * * * *

When night is closing over the little watering-place there are rejoicings and lamentations in Nelson Lodge. Aunt Hetty's heart is full of gratitude; Claude and Bee brought safely home by old Drake, have fallen asleep at last in their rooms, while she steals from chamber to chamber to look first at one tired young face and then at the other. But the tears hang on Claude's lashes as he sleeps; and more than once Bee moves restlessly on her pillow and murmurs Tim's name.

The wind, that has been blowing hard all through the night, subsides soon after sunrise. Clouds clear away from the east, and the golden morning shines upon the creamy cliffs of White Cove. Just at the foot of one of the low rocks lies Tim; his brown face turned up to the sky, and his curly hair matted with sea-weed. His life-work is done.

Only Tim;—yes, Master Claude; but what would the world be without such souls as Tim's? Fine manners, fine speech, and fine clothes, of these he had none, but he had what glorifies the earth's greatest sons, he had what the angels rank highly and what God loves, a brave, true, unselfish heart.



SMITH'S SISTER.

A STORY BY A BOY ABOUT A GIRL.

BY ROBERT OVERTON.

Before I tell you the story about Smith's sister in particular (said Stanislaus Yarrow), I wish to make a few remarks about sisters in general.

Sisters are of two kinds—your own and other fellows'. There are boys—especially older ones—who consider their own sisters worse than other fellows' sisters.

("Hear, hear," cried Martin Abbott, who was strongly suspected of having fallen in love with Dr. Audlem's maiden aunt, who was not much more than forty).

But the general opinion amongst boys is that all sisters—all girls, in fact—are muffs and nuisances.

("So they are," agreed a number of voices cordially).

I thought so myself once. But Smith's sister taught me to take a higher view of girls. I admit that they have defects—they can't help 'em. There are times when I doubt if even boys are perfect. I freely admit that there is a certain amount of idiocy in the ways and manners of girls in general. Far be it from me to deny that they squeak and squeal when there is no occasion for squeaking and squealing. There is no use in denying that they are afraid of mice. Even Smith's sister visibly shuddered when I offered to give her my biggest piebald rat, to be her very own for ever. But we ought to be charitable and try to overlook these things, for, as I said just now, they can't help 'em.

What I insist upon is that there's real grit in girls all the same. This is how I work it out: Smith's sister was a brick—Smith's sister is a girl—therefore, as one girl can be a brick, so can other girls, other sisters, be bricks.

Now for my true yarn. To separate the circumstances of the story from the story itself, I will first give you the circumstances.

Smith and I lived next door to each other, and were close chums, especially at intervals. He was a very generous chap—he'd give a friend anything he'd got. When he was laid low with illness last summer, I slipped into his bedroom by way of the verandah, to have a look at him, and he gave me the scarlet fever. He was such a very generous chap that he never wanted to keep anything all to himself. The fever stayed with both of us as long as it could, and left us a good deal weaker than it found us. Finding us both in need of a long and thorough change, Smith's father and mine put their heads together, and finally decided to send us to North Wales for the rest of the summer and the autumn. The idea was promptly carried out.

They didn't, strictly speaking, "send" us, for they came with us. In fact, it was quite a carriage-ful of us that steamed away north-west from Paddington—namely, Smith, myself, Smith's father and mother, my father and mother, a number of boxes, portmanteaux, and parcels, and Smith's sister. I put her last because at the time she was last in my estimation.

We had a lovely journey, to a lovely little out-of-the-way and out-of-the-world station, which was spelt with all consonants, and pronounced with three sneezes, a cough and two gasps. From the station we had a long drive to the remote farmhouse in which our fathers had taken apartments.

In this delicious old farmhouse we soon made ourselves—Smith and I—quite at home. It was in a beautiful valley. Tremendous hills rose all round it. On the very tops of some of the mountains there was snow almost all the year round. Glens, and brooks, and streams, and waterfalls simply abounded.

After a fortnight our two fathers had to return to London, leaving behind them our mothers, us, and Smith's sister.

Oh, what a time we had then! Smith shot me by accident in the leg with the farmer's gun—Smith himself got almost drowned in two different streams, and was once carried over a waterfall, and dashed against the stones. On all three occasions he was getting black in the face when pulled out. I fell down a precipice in the mountains, and was rescued with the greatest difficulty. On another occasion a neighbouring farmer caught us trespassing, and thrashed us with a stick till he was too tired to hold it any longer. Smith got bitten by a dog supposed to be mad, and a horse kicked me in the stomach.

All was gaiety and excitement. Ah! when shall we have such times again? We made inquiries as to whether we were likely to catch scarlet fever a second time.

Now Smith's sister screamed at our accidents; she was afraid to join us in any of our adventures. She was as old as myself, and only a year younger than Smith, but as timid as a chicken—or so we thought her, for so she seemed. We tried at first to encourage her, to bring her out a little; but it was no good—we just had to leave her to herself.

"She hasn't pluck enough to come with us," Smith used to say as we set off on our rambles—"let her stop at home and play with the fowls."

You must understand that we didn't dislike her—we simply despised her. I think contempt is worse than dislike—at all events, it is harder to bear. Week after week passed away, till at length the end of September approached. In a few days we were to go home again.

Now high as all the hills were, there was one that towered above the others. From the very first, Smith and I had been warned not to attempt to scale this monarch of the mountains, whose crown was sometimes visible, sometimes hidden in the clouds. Being warned not to do it, we naturally wanted to do it. We had made, in fact, several tries, but had always been frustrated. Once or twice Mr. Griffiths—the farmer at whose house we were staying—caught us starting, and turned us back.

"Up towards the top of that mountain," he said, on the last occasion, "is a place so difficult of access, except by one way, that it is called the 'Eagles' Home.' Lives have been lost there. The hill is dangerous—the clefts are steep and deep. Leave it alone. There are plenty of other hills to climb that are not so dangerous."

That reference to the Eagles' Home was more than we could stand. We could make out the very spot he meant. Fancy being up there with the eagles near the sky—fancy birds-nesting in the clouds!

"Yarrow," said Smith firmly, "we must do it."

"Or perish in the attempt," I agreed recklessly, quoting from a book I'd read.

What we meant was, of course, that before our visit ended we must climb that hill, at all events as high as the Eagles' Home.

Our approaching return to London left us with no time to lose. We had only four clear days before us.

"We'll make the ascent immediately after dinner to-morrow," said Smith.

"Right you are," replied I.

The next day arrived. Dinner was always over soon after one at the farmhouse, and by two o'clock, having slipped quietly and secretly off, we were beginning our climb up the hillside. For more than an hour we made slow but easy progress, taking a rest every now and then for a minute or two. We must have got up a considerable distance, but neither the mountain-top nor the Eagles' Home seemed much nearer. On and up we trudged, walking faster and determined to take no more rests. We noticed how much colder it was, and cast uneasy glances at the dipping sun.

We met a shepherd going down, and stopped him to ask some questions. He told us that there was an easy way and a hard way to reach the Eagles' Home. The easy way was to follow the path worn up the hill to the left. That would take us above the spot. Still following the path as it curved round to the right, we should find a comparatively easy way down to the "home of the eagles," unless we lost the road, and tumbled down one of the many steep declivities.

"Which was the hard way?" we asked.

With a smile, he pointed straight up the mountain-side. It wasn't far that way, he said—only that way would take us farther than we wanted to go. We looked up the frowning pathless mountain—and knew what he meant. We must take the safer and longer way.

"Not that we're afraid of the other," said Smith.

"Of course not," I replied.

In vain the shepherd tried to dissuade us from going any further in the failing light: in vain he told us of the dangers we should run. We thanked him, put him off with some excuse about going "a little" further, and turned resolutely on up the "path" he had pointed us to. It was by no means the sort of path we were accustomed to.

On and on and on—I don't know how far we went. But the farther we went the more silent we became. Each knew the other knew that he was getting more and more uneasy at every step. Each knew the other wasn't going to be the first to admit that he was funky.

It grew so awfully cold. It became so awfully dark.

"The moon will be up by-and-by," Smith said.

"Yes," said I; "we shall be all right then. What's this?"

It was too dark to see it, but we felt it in our faces. We put our hands on our sleeves and felt it there.

Snow!

We both gave in then, and funked it without disguise. We turned to go down, to get home. We tried at first to disbelieve it, but it wasn't long before we both gave up the pretence.

"We're lost!" we cried together.

That was just our position. In the cold, dark night, in the midst of a rapidly-rising storm and fast-falling snow, we were lost on the wild Welsh mountains.

We stumbled about. For a long time—I don't know how long, but it was a long time—we stumbled about. That is the only expression I can use, for soon we didn't know whether we were moving up or down, left or right. We were so numbed, so bewildered. It was so cold up there, though October had not yet set in, that we had a vague idea that if we didn't keep on moving we should be frozen still, meeting the fate of many other mountaineers.

You must bear in mind that we had nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and only our summer clothes on. Neither of us had a watch, so we could only judge what the time was. Smith's hope that the moon would soon rise hadn't been realised, for everything above was as dark and black as everything was beneath.

At last a frightful thing happened. Our feet slipped at the same moment, and the next moment we were both falling through space. My previous slip down a precipice was nothing compared with that awful fall in the darkness. Only one thing saved us. Before we struck the ground, we managed to break the full force of our fall by grasping the roots and branches of some low-growing shrubs and bushes which we felt without seeing. We slipped then less rapidly from hold to hold, until, with a thud, we struck the earth. It seemed more like the earth striking us.

Smith gave a loud scream of pain—then all was silent.

Smith fainted. I cried. Smith recovered and cried. I left off crying, and took his turn at fainting. There's nothing like telling the truth. We both prayed. I won't tell you about that, because praying is a thing to do, not to talk about.

We didn't move about any more. That fall proved that moving about was too dangerous. Poor old Smith couldn't move. He couldn't even stand up. He tried to once and sank down again with a yell. He had sprained his ankle.

Please imagine for a moment that this adventure is being played on the stage, and let the curtain fall. Now imagine the curtain raised again.

In the meantime, the storm has died down. The winds are not howling now, the snow is not falling. The heavens above us are not so black we can see parts of the mountain that drops from our feet into the deep invisible valley below. We can see enough to make out where we are. We are in the Eagles' Home. Our ambition has been realised—but in what a way! We reached the spot neither by the pathway nor up the rugged steep—we rolled from the top; we came through the air with the snowflakes.

Pretty snowflakes! Smith is hopelessly crippled, and I—the other snowflake—am simply a living collection of bumps and bruises. We must spend the rest of the bleak night strung up on this dizzy height. We must wait till the morning—if we can live through the night.

What's that, down there—far away down there?

A light! a number of lights. They're moving—moving up. They've reached the spot where we met the shepherd who told us of the two ways.

They've stopped. Hark! What's that?

A shout—a hail—loud and long continued, as though a lot of people are calling together.

Hurrah! We're saved. The farmer has turned out a rescue party to find and save us. Hurrah!

Gathering all my strength—all I have left—I answer the hail. Smith joins me as well as he can. Once, twice, thrice we shout. We catch the distant cry that tells us we have been heard.

For a minute the lights are stationary. Then—their bearers sending up another great hail as though to tell us they know where we are and are coming—we see the lanterns flashing forward up the track which leads above our heads, and then round to the Eagles' Home. Mr. Griffiths, who knows the hills as well as he knows his own farm lands, has told them where we are from the direction of our frantic voices.

So cheer up, Smith—they're coming.

But they'll be such a long time coming—and we're so cold and numbed. Smith is fainting again. So am I, I'm afraid—you must remember I am knocked about. It will be such a long time before the coming help reaches us.

Will it? Then what's that solitary light stealing up the jagged steep below us? Who is it coming to us by the "hard" way, straight up the precipitous mountain-side? It must be Griffiths—he's crawling up the rough boulders—he's clinging hold of roots and branches, swinging himself over the clefts. The shepherd said it couldn't be done—but Griffiths is doing it. How torn his hands must be!

I can't be quite fainting, because I can see that Griffiths' lantern is coming nearer and nearer.

Listen! I can hear his voice—only it sounds such a weak voice. That is because I am getting so weak now myself, though I manage to call back, that Griffiths may know just where we are....

Griffiths has reached us. Griffiths is attending to poor old Smith. Now he's got his arm round me. Griffiths is pouring a cordial down my throat that brings life back into me. I can feel my heart beating again. I'm better now. I'll shake Griffiths by the hand. I dare say I shall by-and-by. But this is the hand of SMITH'S SISTER!

The strain of this theatrical style, and of the present tense, is more than I can stand any longer, so I hope it is quite clear to you what had happened. Just a few words to sum up.

When the rescue party formed by Mr. Griffiths—as soon as it was obvious that Smith and I had lost ourselves—set out, Smith's sister set out with them. Griffiths ordered her back. She went back, collared a lantern and a flask all to herself (in view of the party separating—what a thoughtful girl!), followed and rejoined them. When they stopped and halloaed to find whereabouts we were, he ordered her back again, but not until she had heard the hasty consultation which resulted in the party sticking to the safer way to us. She heard about the "two ways," and she dared the one that everybody else was afraid of. The ascent up the mountain's face was suggested, but only Smith's sister had the pluck to make it. This was the girl we had scorned and laughed at. This was the girl whom we had told to stop at home and play with the chickens!

About an hour after she reached us with the "first help" that may have saved our lives, we saw the lights of Griffith's party on the crest above us. We exchanged shouts, and they let down a rope at once, and hauled us up. Long before this, Smith's sister had bound up his injured ankle neatly and lightly with her own handkerchief and our handkerchiefs.

You should have seen the farmer's face—and, indeed, the faces of all the others too—when they realised how she had reached us.

It is all very well for her to say that she didn't know what she was doing—that she couldn't have done in the light what she did in the dark. All I am concerned with is the fact that she did do what I have told you she did.

Referring to the proposition I laid down soon after I started—about there being real grit in girls after all—you will understand what I meant when I wind up my yarn with the familiar quotation, Q. E. D.



THE COLONEL'S BOY.

BY H. HERVEY.

Marjorie had never got on well with her brother's guardian. He was a bachelor, stern and autocratic, and with no admiration for woman's ways, and she instinctively felt that he did not understand her.

His love for Miles Weyburne, the son of a brother officer who had fallen in a skirmish with an Indian frontier tribe thirteen years ago, was a thing recognised and beyond question.

Even at the age of ten the boy's likeness to his father had been remarkable. He had the same dark, earnest eyes, the same frank, winning manner, the same eager enthusiasm; he was soon to develop, to the secret pride of his guardian, the same keen interest in his profession, with a soundness of judgment and a fearless self-reliance peculiarly his own.

He had gained his star after scarcely a year's service, and had then got an exchange into his guardian's regiment.

Colonel Alleson held the command of a midland regimental district. He had the reputation of being somewhat of a martinet, and was not altogether popular with his men.

Marjorie generally spent her holidays with her aunt in the town, and the Colonel occasionally went to see her; but he was nervous and constrained, with little to say for himself, and Marjorie always did her best to show to a disadvantage when he was there. "He's such a crabby old thing," she would say, when Miles grew enthusiastic over the grave, taciturn officer,—"besides, he hates girls, you know he does, and I'm not going to knuckle under to him." Her brother had explained that the Colonel's ideas were old-fashioned, so she sometimes talked slang on purpose to shock him. She listened to his abrupt, awkward sentences with a half listless, half criticising air. She was a typical school-girl at the most characteristic age,—quick to resent, impatient of control, straightforward almost to rudeness. The Colonel might be a father to her brother—he never could be to her. She often thought about her father and mentally contrasted the two: she thought, too, though less often, of the mother who had died the very day that that father had fallen in action, when she herself was little more than a year old.

Miles had been spending his leave with his aunt, and the day before his return to Ireland to rejoin the battalion, he biked over to the barracks in company with his sister to say good-bye to his guardian.

"I suppose this is another of the Colonel's fads," Marjorie remarked, glancing at the notice board as she got off her bicycle outside the gates. "What an old fuss he is, Miles."

"Has he been giving you a lesson in manners?"

"Not he." She tossed back her wavy, golden-brown hair as she spoke. "I should like to see him try it on."

Miles gave a short little laugh.

"He got into an awful rage the other day because somebody came through here on a bicycle. How are you to read the notice all that way off?"

Miles was not listening to her. Hearing the sound of wheels, he had turned round and caught sight of the Colonel's dog-cart. Marjorie glanced mischievously at him, and just as the Colonel entered the gateway, she deliberately mounted her bicycle and rode through before his eyes. There was just room for her to pass. The Colonel reined in, and looked sternly round. "Stop!" he said. Marjorie obeyed. Wheeling her bicycle forward, she said in her politest manner:

"I beg your pardon. Did you want me?"

"This is quite contrary to regulations."

"Yes, I know," she answered, looking straight at him. "I read the notice, but I don't see the sense of it."

There were one or two soldiers standing near, and they exchanged glances and smiled. Miles coloured up with shame and vexation. The Colonel gave the reins to his groom and got down without another word. He held out his hand to Miles as the dog-cart passed on.

"I want to speak to you," he said shortly, and he walked on in front of them.

"I hope I shall see you again, Miles," he began, as they ascended the steps leading to his quarters. "I have only a few minutes to spare now. Come up this evening, will you?"

"Yes, Colonel."

Marjorie moved towards the door. The colour mounted to her cheeks as the Colonel stepped forward to open it for her. Miles, feeling that he ought to say something, waited behind a minute.

"I'm sorry about—about this," he said. "I don't understand it."

"I do, perfectly—well, good-bye, my boy."

His grave, stern face softened wonderfully as he grasped Miles' hand.

"What an old crosspatch he is," began Marjorie as her brother came up with her. "I daren't for the life of me ride through there again. Did you see, Miles, he was quite white with rage when I cheeked him? Those Tommies thought it awful sport."

"What a little ass you are," said Miles crossly, "to make all that row before the men."

Marjorie looked away. "It served him jolly well right," she said, pedalling faster.

They rode home the rest of the way in silence.

Miles was away with his battalion at the front, and Marjorie was spending a fortnight of the Christmas holidays with a school friend at Eastbourne. The two girls were hurrying down the esplanade together one bright, frosty morning in January when Marjorie suddenly found herself face to face with the Colonel. His eyes were bent down, and he passed without recognising her. With a few hurried words to her chum, she ran after him.

"How do you do, Colonel? I didn't know you were here."

He started as she addressed him. "I only came yesterday," he said; "I have got a few days' leave."

"Did you hear from Miles last mail? I did."

"Yes. He has been very regular so far."

"You must miss him awfully. Are you going this way?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll come a little way with you, if I may; I wanted to say something."

Putting her hands into her jacket pockets, she looked very gravely at him.

"I am sorry I was rude that day I came into the Barracks," she said hurriedly. "I have been thinking about it. It was horrid of me, when the soldiers were there. Will you forgive me?"

"Certainly," he said nervously, putting his hands behind him, and walking faster.

"You see, I want to be friends with you," she added frankly, "because of Miles. He thinks such a lot of you—the dear boy; good-bye."

Her dark eyes, generally so mocking and mischievous, had grown suddenly earnest, and his heart warmed towards her, as he held out his hand.

"Good-bye, Marjorie," he said, "you are very much alike, you and Miles."

"Are we?" she said simply, flushing a little. "I didn't know. I am glad."

She walked back to her chum with a beating heart. "He's not so bad," she said to herself. "I wish he liked girls."

Spion Kop had been abandoned, and the British Army was in orderly retreat, when Miles found himself cut off with the remnant of his company, by the enemy. The death of his captain had left him in command, and realising his responsibility, he made up his mind to act promptly. "We are cut off, men," he explained briefly to his soldiers; "will you hoist the white flag, or trust to me to bring you through?"

"No surrender, and we stand by you, sir," answered the serjeant major gruffly. "Is it agreed, boys?"

There was a general assent.

It was a gallant deed, that desperate dash to rejoin the division, though accomplished at a terrible cost. Miles, leading the forlorn hope, was soon to pay the price of his daring. They were all but through when he fell, shot by a chance bullet.

An hour later his battered troops came up with the British forces. Three or four stragglers dropped into camp as the serjeant major was making his report.

"Ah!" said the colonel, expressively—"you got through?"

"Yes, sir, beastly hard work, too."

"Who brought you?"

"Lieutenant Weyburne, sir."

"I thought so. He's the kind of fellow for that sort of thing. Is he in?"

"He was shot, sir."

"Shot, poor boy. What will Alleson say?"

It was Wednesday morning, and the entire strength of the Depot had turned out on parade. The Colonel, tall and dignified in the faultless neatness of undress uniform, was standing in his characteristic attitude, with his hands behind him and his head thrown slightly back. His blue eyes looked out, grave and watchful, from under the peak of his fatigue cap, and the tense interlocking of his gloved fingers was the only sign of his mental unrest.

Yet the vision of Miles was before him—Miles bold, earnest, high-spirited, Miles in the full joy of life and strength, with the light of affection in his eyes; Miles again with his boyish face white and drawn and his active young form still in death.

He had loved the boy, his boy as he always called him, more even than he had realised, and life seemed very blank without the hope of seeing him again.

It was two days since his name had appeared in the lists of killed and wounded, and that afternoon the Colonel went down to see Marjorie, who had returned from Eastbourne a few days before. She looked unusually pale when she came into the room, and though she ran forward eagerly enough to greet him, her eyes were tearful and her lips quivering, as she put her hand into his.

"I thought of writing to you"—began the Colonel nervously, "but——"

"I'm glad you came," said Marjorie, "very glad. I shouldn't mind so much if we knew just how he died," she added sorrowfully.

"We know how he would face death, Marjorie!"

She put her arms on the table, and hid her face with a stifled sob.

"He was your boy, and you'll miss him so," she went on. "There's no one like him, no one half so dear or half so brave. If I were only a boy I might try to be like him and make you happy—but I can't, it's no use."

She was looking up at him with those dark eyes of hers, just as his boy had looked at him when he said good-bye three months ago, and he could not trust himself to speak.

"I suppose you get used to things," she said with a sigh.

The Colonel put his hand on her head. "Poor child," he said in a husky voice, "don't think about me."

"Miles loved you," she answered softly, going up close to him. "I'm his sister. Let me love you, too."

He drew her to him in a tender fatherly manner, that brought instant comfort to her aching, wilful little heart.

"Your father was my friend, Marjorie," he said,—"the staunchest friend man ever had. I have often wondered why we failed to understand each other."

"You don't like girls," said Marjorie, "that's why."

The Colonel smiled grimly.

"I didn't," he said. "Perhaps I have changed my mind."

Lord Roberts had entered Pretoria, and the Colonel sat in his quarters looking through the list of released prisoners. All at once he gave a start, glanced hastily around, and then looked back again. About half way down the list of officers, he read:

"Lieut. M. Weyburne (reported killed at Spion Kop)."

Miles was alive: there had been some mistake. The bugle sounded. It was a quarter past nine. He walked out on to the parade-ground with his usual firm step, smiling as he went. Miles was alive. He could have dashed down the barrack-square like a bugler-boy in the lightness of his heart.

People who met him that day hastened to congratulate him. He said very little, but looked years younger.

Three weeks later there came a letter from Miles, explaining how he had been left upon the ground for dead, and on coming to himself, had fallen unarmed into the hands of the Boers. He had never fully recovered from his wounds, and by the doctor's orders had been invalided home, so that his guardian might expect him about ten days after receiving his letter.

It was a happy home-coming. The Colonel went down to Southampton to meet him, and when he reached his aunt's house he found a letter from Marjorie awaiting him. "The Colonel's a dear," she wrote; "I understand now why you think such a lot of him."

Miles turned with a smile to his guardian.

"You and Marjorie are friends at last, Colonel," he said.

"Yes, my boy," he returned gravely; "we know each other better now."



'TWIXT LIFE AND DEATH.

A MANX STORY.

BY CLUCAS JOUGHIN.

PART I.

Deborah Shimmin was neither tall nor fair, and yet Nature had been kind to her in many ways. She had wonderful eyes—large, dark, and full of mute eloquence—and if her mouth was too large, her nose too irregular, and her cheeks too much tanned by rude health, and by exposure to the sun as the village gossips said, I, Henry Kinnish, poetic dreamer, and amateur sculptor, thought she had a symmetry of form and a grace of movement which wrought her whole being into harmony and made her a perfect example of beauty with a plain face; and every one knew that Andrew, the young village blacksmith and rural postman, loved her with all the might of his big, brawny soul.

These two ideas of Deborah's beauty and Andrew's love for her, were revealed to me one day when, with Deborah's master, his lumbering sons and comely daughters, and my chum Fred Harcourt, an artist from "across the water," we were cutting some early grass in May, just before the full bloom of the gorse had begun to fade from the hillsides and from the tops of the hedges where it had made borders of gold for the green of the fields all the spring.

A soft west wind, which blew in from the sea, made waves along the uncut grass to windward of the mowers, and played around the skirts of Deborah, making them flutter about her, while the exertion of the haymaking occasionally let loose her long, strong black hair.

But the face of Deborah was sad; for the village policeman had laid a charge against her before his chief to make her account for her possession of a large number of seagulls' eggs, to take which the law of the Island had made a punishable offence, by an act of Tynwald passed to protect the sea fowl from extinction.

The eggs, all fresh, and newly taken from the nests, had been found on Deborah's dressing-table; but Deborah indignantly denied all knowledge of the means by which they had got there. There was a mystery about it to every one, for fresh clutches were seen there every morning, and the innocent Deborah made no attempt to conceal them. Where, then, could they come from but from some nests of the colony of seagulls which lived in the haughs that dropped down into the sea from Rhaby Hills? But no woman, young or old, could climb the craigs where the gulls had their nests. It was a feat of daring only performed by reckless boys and young men who were reared on the littoral, and who were strong and spirited craigsmen by inheritance and by familiarity with the dangerous sport of egg-collecting among the giddy heights of precipices on which, if they took but one false step, they might be hurled to certain destruction below.

When the mowers had made all but the last swath, and there were only a few more rucks of the early hay to be made in the field, Cubbin, the rural constable, came in from the highroad with Andrew, the smith. The hot and sweated mowers did not stop the swing of their scythes, but they talked loudly amongst themselves in imprecations against the new law which made it a criminal offence for a lad to take a few gull's eggs, which they, and their fathers before them, had gone sporting after in the good old times when men did what they thought right.

The bronzed face of Deborah Shimmin paled, her lips set into a resolve of courage when she saw Andrew in the hands of the police; and I learnt for the first time that Andrew was looked upon as the robber and Deborah as the receiver of the stolen eggs. I saw more than this, I saw, by one look, that the heart of Deborah and the heart of the tall, lithe lad, who now stood before me, were as one heart in love and in determination to stand by each other in the coming trial.

The big hands of the young smith were thrust into his pockets, and a smile played over his honest face; but Deborah looked at the constable with a hard, defiant look, and then bent over her work again as if waiting to hear him say something dreadful which she was resolved to throw back into his face, though her hand trembled as she held the fork, which moved now faster and stronger than before.

But Cubbin was a man of the gospel of peace though he was an officer of the law, and he only looked sadly on the face of Deborah as he asked her whether it would not be better for her to say where she got her supply of eggs from than allow him to get a summons against Andrew.

"I have told you before that Andrew never gave me the eggs!" cried the girl, her face flushed with the crimson setting of the sun, "and I don't know where they came from. I can't say anything different, and I wish you would not trouble me, Mr. Cubbin!"

Fred and I called Cubbin, the constable, to one side, and asked him to allow us a day or two to solve the mystery of the eggs—a little arrangement which may seem strange to dwellers in towns, but which was quite practicable at this time in this far-off place, and which he soon agreed to allow.

I had been out shooting corncrakes that day, and Fred Harcourt had come with me for a day in the meadows, as his brush and palette had wearied him of late, and he longed to stretch his limbs and to see my spaniels work in the weedy hedges and in the meadows, where the grass had stood the test of the dry spring. We had taken off our coats to help our neighbour with his sunburnt grass, and our guns were laid across them. The spaniels had fallen asleep—using the coats as beds. While conversing with Cubbin we had walked quietly to get our coats, and I saw that one of the sleeping dogs was still hunting in his dreams. There was nothing uncommon about this, for dogs will hunt in their sleep; but some inner voice said to me that Deborah Shimmin, being a highly strung, nervous girl, might hunt in her sleep also, and that such things as somnambulists walking the roofs of high houses had been heard of, and I remembered a lad in my own boyhood's days who was awakened early one morning by the riverside with his rod in his hand and his basket slung over his nightshirt. But I did not communicate my theory of the solution of the mystery of the eggs to Cubbin, the constable.

When the policeman left the field I entered into a kindly talk with Deborah Shimmin, and was not long in learning what the girl herself had probably never thought of, that on the public reading of the Act for the protection of sea-fowl, on the Tynwald day of the previous year, she had been impressed by the thought that Andrew would now be forbidden to employ his agility and his courage in a form of sport she often tried to dissuade him from.

I knew before this that she had recently lost her mother, and had suffered a bereavement through a favourite brother being lost at sea one stormy night at the back-end herring fishing off Howth Head.

"Poor Deborah," I said to Fred, "she is all nerves, and the hand of life's troubles is holding her; surely she must be innocent of encouraging her lover in risking his life—the only precious life left to her now!"

"And the jolly Andrew," said Fred, "certainly looked the most amusing picture of innocence, as Cubbin trotted him along the grass! But your theory of the somnambulant business is a bit fanciful, all the same."

PART II.

At ten o'clock that night Fred Harcourt and I were bivouaced within sight of the only door of the house where Deborah Shimmin worked as a domestic help in the family of her uncle. The night was not dark, it seldom is dark in these northern islands so late in May, but there was a light of the moon at its first quarter, and a glint of some stars shone down upon us as we hearkened to the stillness of the air and to a frequent movement of a tired horse in the stable.

Our bivouac was a clump of trammon trees (elders) at the corner of the orchard which adjoined the farm buildings. Between us and the dwelling house there was a disused pigsty. At about a quarter to eleven o'clock a man, with a red setter dog at his heels and a fowling piece on his arm, came sneaking up, and crept into the sty.

Then there was another long spell of silence, not broken, but rather intensified, by the words which I whispered to Fred Harcourt that the fellow who crept into the sty was Kit Kermode, and that he could be after no good.

At midnight a cock crew at the far end of the village, and a dog barked. Then there was silence again, save that every now and again a sedge warbler, far away by the stream near Shenvarla, sang a faintly audible song. Our position on the slope of the foot-hill at Gordon House was between the village and the hills which girt the sea coast. This made my theory of the sleep-walking to the cliffs more plausible. But while we lay low in the clump of trammon trees the appearance of Kit Kermode, with his cat-like walk and his eyes that could wink slander faster than any old woman's tongue could wag it, gave me a theory, or at least a speculation, in another direction.

In soft whispers to Fred Harcourt, who was new to the village, I told him how the rascal Kermode hated Andrew the blacksmith. "He hates him," I said, "I do verily believe, for his good honest face, his manly outspoken tongue, his courage, and his power of arm, but most of all he hates him since Andrew, years ago as an innocent and unthinking lad, ran after him in the village street and handed him a reminder of some money which he owed his master."

"But what can that have to do with Deborah Shimmin's gulls' eggs?" asked Fred, whose mind never seemed to see anything but pictures of divers colours and inspiring outlines in the happy dreamland he lived in, all unconscious of the world's cruelty, and hate, and love of evil.

I had just finished telling him that a man like Kermode might bribe a boy to get him gulls' eggs, and sneak up to Deborah's window and quietly reach in and place the eggs on her dressing-table, as a means of getting Deborah and Andrew into trouble. I had just finished giving this outline of the thought in my mind, I say, when the door of the farmhouse opened and Deborah Shimmin, clad only in her nightdress, stepped lightly forth and started up the hillside.

The next moment the man, his gun in the hollow of his arm and the red setter dog at his heels, crawled forth from the pigsty, looked round as if to make certain he was not watched, and followed the white figure of the girl as she glided up the zig-zag path in the direction of the haughs which formed the wild sea coast.

It did not take Fred and me very long to take off our boots and noiselessly follow, guided by the figure in white, rather than by the man who went before us, for the dim light of the moon and the northern night made his dark dress difficult to see in the shadows of the hedges and trees.

I knew that Deborah would take the usual path to the rocks, and bade Fred follow close behind me while I took a shorter route. In ten minutes we were again under cover when the girl passed close by us, her long hair knotted roughly into a mass of rolls about her large and well-formed head. Her eyes were open, and fixed in a glassy stare straight ahead. She seemed to move along, rather than walk, and had no appearance of either hesitation or haste; and Kermode, with his dog and his gun, stealthily followed in her wake not twenty yards behind.

While we were crossing the field bordering the Gordon haughs, keeping under the shadow of a gorse-clad hedge, Deborah disappeared over the cliff, and the man, watched by Fred and myself, crept up to the edge of the cliffs down which the poor girl had descended.

Before another minute had elapsed, Kermode had stretched himself out his full length on a craig which overlooked the precipitous rocks down which Deborah had disappeared. We then secured the cover of a mound not thirty feet away from him.

The dog gave a low whine when he saw the head of his master craned out to watch the movements of the white figure descending the rocks, and then all was quiet as before.

Fred's suspense and anxiety for the safety of the girl was apparent in his hard breathing; but my own were inconsiderable, for I knew that if undisturbed by any noise unusual to the night, or any interference by the fellow who now held the future happiness of Andrew, the smith, in his hands she would safely climb up the haugh and make her way home to bed, all unconscious of the awful position she had placed herself in.

Wicked as I knew the man to be, I did not now imagine that he had any other intention in watching around the house than to try to discover Andrew paying a nocturnal visit, with some gulls' eggs for his sweetheart. This would have been a mean enough act, but it seems a small thing beside the cruel and murderous deed he would have committed but for the providential presence and prompt action of Fred Harcourt and myself.

Fred and I lay low, with our chins resting on our hands, not daring even to whisper. The dog whined a little now and again, and we heard the subdued cries of seagulls as they flew off, alarmed in the darkness, over the sea. Still Deborah did not make her appearance on the top of the cliff. It seemed a long time that we lay and watched thus, but it could not have been so long as it seemed.

Then Kermode, without raising himself from watching the climbing girl, reached back for the gun which he had placed on the ground by his side. He raised it to the level of his face, resting his left elbow on the ground, and I heard the click of the hammer as he cocked it. Then I saw his thumb and finger go into his waistcoat pocket.

"Good God!" I said in a loud whisper, as I sprang to my feet, for I knew in one awful moment that the villain was feeling for a cap to discharge a shot in the air above the head of Deborah, who would wake up at the shock, and fall to the base of the craig in her terrible fright. So intent was Kermode in his fell design of frightening the girl to her destruction that he did not hear me, or notice the growl of his dog, or feel the vibration of our tread as we both bore down upon him. We should have been too late if it had not been for the life-long habit of the wretch to secure himself from danger or suspicion. With his finger on the trigger, all ready to pull, he paused one moment to raise himself and look about. That moment saved the life of Deborah Shimmin, for the would-be murderer was the next instant under the knee of Fred Harcourt and his throat in his grip, while my hand was over the nipples of the gun. While we were all on the ground together, and the setter dog had a hold of Harcourt's leg, the tall form of Cubbin, the policeman, bent over us. I had lowered the hammers of the gun and thrown it to one side to grasp the dog, for Harcourt would not let go his hold of Kermode's throat lest he should shout and wake the girl.

"Gag Kermode," I said to Cubbin, as I hit the dog just above the snout with a stone, killing him by one blow.

Then Deborah Shimmin, holding something in a fold of her nightdress with one hand, and climbing with the other, came up over the edge of the cliff a few yards away from us.

She looked very beautiful as she stepped up on the sloping sward above the haugh, with the pale moonlight just lighting her airy dress, and her face all sad and careworn.

Leaving Kermode to the care of the constable, Fred and I noiselessly followed the girl home, and saw her step over the obstacles in her path as by instinct, turning her face neither to the right nor left.

We decided to awaken her before she reached the door of the farmhouse, so that, according to the popular notion, she might never again become somnambulent.

With this view I stepped before her as she approached the door, but was astonished to find that she paused as if my presence blocked the way before she yet saw me or touched me. But there was no misunderstanding the blank stare in her wonderful eyes.

I gently put out my hand and took hers, as she put it out before her to feel the influence of a presence she could not see.

She did not scream or faint. She awoke with a start, and let the eggs fall on the ground.

At first she could not understand where she was, and just thought she was dreaming; but by degrees it came to her that she was standing before me in the pale moonlight when she thought she ought to be in bed.

Then I softly told her where she had been in her sleep, keeping back all knowledge of Kermode's attempted revenge on Andrew, and how we had decided to awake her. Then, with a little pleasant laugh, we both told her that the mystery of the seagulls' eggs was solved, and that neither Andrew nor she would be troubled again.

She fell to sobbing a little, and for the first time seemed to shiver with the cold; then she lifted the latch and we bade her good night.

Nothing was done to Kermode, for the fellow swore he had no intention of discharging the gun, and we could not prove he had, though the case was clear enough in our eyes, and the deed would have been done had we not, in God's providence, been there to prevent it.

Cubbin, the constable, it transpired afterwards, had overheard me giving my theory of the sleep-walking to Fred in the hayfield, and he, too, had been in hiding at the farm, and had watched and followed us all.

So there was a wonderful story for him to tell of how Deborah had made good her defence against the charge he had laid against Andrew and her. And the beautiful Deborah with the plain face became the bride of the jolly Andrew, who was neither an artist nor an amateur sculptor, but only a village blacksmith who had an eye for beauty of form and character.



ROSE'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

A TRUE STORY.

BY MARIE E. C. DELBRASSINE.

"Where is Rose?"

"Busy, as usual, with her mice and beetles, I suppose, father," answered Ethel; "we have not seen her all this afternoon."

"She will probably be with you at teatime," said Dr. Sinclair, "after which I should like you to ask her to come to me for a little while in the surgery."

"Very well, father, I won't forget."

Dr. Sinclair retreated again to his surgery, which was arranged also as his library, knowing that his willing helper would not fail to join him there.

"I cannot think," said Maud, Ethel's sister, "what that girl finds to interest her in all those horrid creatures—beetles and toads, and even snakes, when she can get one; the other day I saw her handling a slowworm as if it were a charming domestic pet. It was enough to make one feel cold all over."

"Well, there is no accounting for taste; Rose never seems to care if she is asked to a party or not," continued Ethel, "and she does not mind helping father with his work, which I always find so tiresome, for he is so dreadfully particular about it. Perhaps biologists are different from other folks; I sometimes think there is something uncannny and queer about them."

"I'm sure Rose is neither uncanny nor queer, she's just a brick," said Jack, a schoolboy of fourteen, who was enjoying a Saturday half-holiday at home with a new book, it being too wet to play cricket. "She is always willing to do anything to help a fellow."

"Which means," said Ethel, "that you always expect girls to be your slaves, when you are at home."

At this moment the door opened and Rose herself appeared.

"Well, Rose," said Maud, "have you pinned out a beetle, or taught your pet ants to perform tricks?"

"Not this afternoon," said Rose; "I have had a delightful time with my microscope, studying spiders and drawing slides for the magic lantern to be used at my next little lecture to the G.F.S. girls."

"That sounds dry and uninteresting," yawned Maud. "Ah, here comes tea. By the way, father would like you to go to his study afterwards. Poor Rose, I expect he has some more tiresome work for you."