very holy-nay, even very sweet-so long as I have Maud, my sister Maud, to share it with me.

As we came home again through the orchard, the sharp ring of the railway whistle cut across the air. I was pained for her, and would have led her quickly away, but she only smiled and said, "Never mind, Mabel; it is always good to remember those we love when we know they are at rest."

And so it is. And I will think of you, Philip Lowe, my only one, as at rest too. After all, it will only be a little while, perhaps only a very little while, and we shall all be at rest together.

Sunday evening.

Everything is very quiet now, both for her and for me. She has given me precious words of comfort, and I know they shone into her own heart too as she spoke them. Ah, these seed-thoughts take root so soon in the warm fresh ground of grief. We are very near and dear to each other now, are we not, Maud ?— nearer than we were before, since we have known each other's sorrows. And in all of them, we feel a strange, quiet sort of rest.

Is this the "rest" that remaineth for the people of God, Maud? I think it is, and He has given it to me, even to me.

That same afternoon Miss Nunly came to tea. She often comes now. She and Maud seem so thoroughly one. I know they like to talk by themselves, so I set out for another walk. First of all I called to see Lizzie Machin, and read to her; then I went to see poor, delicate Mrs. Hart, our curate's wife, and offered to take her two little children out while she got rest and quiet. I am beginning now to learn that we should not wait for high days and holidays to give our thank-offerings, but mark every day, be it glad or sorrowful, by some little act of kindness. I took them up to the copse on the hill behind our house, and while they went wandering about, rasp-hunting, I sat down under the trees, with the Marbrook valley before me sleeping in the evening sunshine, and the blue hills girding in the distance; and thought on all the changes which the last few months had brought.

It seemed as if there were not many bright

spots for the eye to rest upon; and when I looked forward to the future which we should have to go through day by day, it appeared to my sad fancy something like that road, that long, straight, even Glinton Road, that cut through the meadows on my right hand, over which Maud and I had so often gone when we were children on our way to school. A life-path now, somewhat dull and narrow it is true, but plainly defined. No wayside wanderings nor shady resting-places, but just a steady pursuit of the beaten track, one trodden by many before, without shadow to cross it or sunlight to rest upon it. Still, for both of us, for Maud and for me, it is the right path, one by which we are being led forth to a city of habitation. And, after all,

is almost the best that any happiness here leaves behind it.

CHAPTER VI.

Braeton, August 2nd.-Once more I am sitting here in my little room, with the sunlight glinting in through the jasmine leaves, making their shadows fall, soft and flickering, on my paper as I write. And far away yonder over the Downshire hills, the white clouds stoop and tremble; and thousands of leafy voices come to me from the Lingold Wood, no longer full of sad memories or dreary thoughts, but speaking pleasantly of golden days to come, for me, even me.

I said when the leaves came out last April, "There is no spring for me." I watched them bursting into greenness and beauty, and wearied that for me such freshness was all past; - little thinking, ere those same leaves had crimsoned, and paled, and fallen, what joy should come. He

is my own now, my very own, mine for ever. But how shall I tell it all? Sitting here at my little white-curtained window, all within and all without so warm and loving-where shall I begin? For, even before I can get a single page written, there comes down upon me the sweet consciousness of all that is, of all that will be, and I lose myself in dreams so bright and sunny.

Yes, it has come to me at last, that golden morning time, without which all life is dreary; but having it, or even the memory of it, we go forth strong and brave for all that may come after. Let me try once more to write it.

It was Wednesday, the day before yesterday. I had taken her class for her, her class of girls that she goes and teaches at Milly Dakin's before the evening service. I often take it for her now, for Maud is not strong, and a little thing wearies her. I remember the time when it would have been such a dismal, dreary thing for me to have gone and taught those girls; when I wondered how my sister, with no other motive than that of duty, could plod on with them so patiently week after week and month after month. I have learned to