Miss Maud coming up the garden from her class, it must be nearly five o'clock; going about doing good she's been-always going about doing good; I declare she makes me feel quite ashamed of myself. But you know, Mrs. Harcourt, I always say some people are born into the world angels ready made, and want nothing but a pair of wings to take them straight away into heaven. Always living in preparation, you see; it's such a delightful state of mind. Miss Maud really has her affections so sweetly staid upon heavenly things, it's quite a privilege to have anything to do with her, and as soon as I've got this wedding comfortably over, I mean to take pattern and cultivate the same sort of thing myself."

"And really now, Mrs. Harcourt," and Miss Gabbatis leaned back in the rocking chair and looked down the sunlit autumn garden, where the crimson leaves were drifting to and fro, and the grey haze of early evening falling, "really when I come to think about all these things, how very providentially everything has been laid

out for us, how nicely and quietly we are getting sent along in the right way—you and Mr. Harcourt here so comfortable together, and such a pleasant home, and dear Miss Mabel up yonder so delightfully settled with a husband, and on such a safe track for heaven;-and when I think about my own comforts too, a nice, cosy married life provided for me without any care or contrivance on my part, as I may say, so perfectly unlooked for, you know, and yet the very thing I had been wanting so long;-and when I see dear Miss Maud so calm and peaceful, in such a prepared state, as I may say, for a home up above, and so wonderfully sustained considering all that she's passed through-and poor dear Mr. Roden too, although he was taken so very suddenly, and gave us all such a terrible shock, yet you know so very safely landed, in sure and certain hope, as our dear clergyman says, of a joyful resurrection when I think about all this, my dear Mrs. Harcourt, I am quite overcome, I am indeed, and I don't know what to say, I really don't; there don't seem to be any words turn up to express one's feelings."

"Except these," said Maud, who had come quietly in, and was standing within the window

in that autumn sunlight, "except these “He hath done all things well.””

EPILOGUE.

YEARS have passed away. Maud and Miss Nunly are watching daylight out in the dining-room of Braeton Lodge.

It is early in September. The first crimson streaks of autumn, and the green beauty of summer time, meet and mingle on the Lingold Wood. One by one, few and far between, the yellow leaves fall into the lake and flutter away amid copse and fern to the little Mar brook. A soft, warm haze lies gently on the distant trees, and creeps over the Downshire hills, and spreads like a transparent veil across the purple moorlands with their rifts and craggy torrent-beds. Over Glinton Manor too, with its quaint old-fashioned English garden, where the yellow sunflowers look up broad and bright, and the old cypress

stretches its arms athwart the wood, and the green lily leaves float dreamily upon the fountain pond, and the grey old gables rise there yet with their antique carving and brazen vanes, the same just the same when other things have long since changed. With a very warm golden light, the sun creeps downward through the leaves of the great old beech tree at the bottom of the Lodge garden, and then up the straight orchard path where the stray leaves fall with a pleasant rustling sound through the tangled grass; and level bars of shadow lie across and across, growing longer as the day declines. Everything is very still, very peaceful, very full of quiet Sabbath-like beauty, just as it always is at Braeton in the early autumn time.

Maud's work was done at last, all her trust fulfilled. Through those long years she had held it very faithfully, never wearying over it, never bringing to it other than a tender, loving heart. And although to do it wisely and well had left some lines of thought upon her forehead, and laid one or two silver touches upon the hair that used to be so brown and shining;