pending for the next day's race would leave them penniless. And gentlemen in white kids, with anxious hearts, whispered soft nonsense to the pyramids of tulle and tarltane at their sides, and then asked themselves by how many thousands they should be richer or poorer to-morrow night at this time.

Whilst fashionable life seethed and bubbled, and sparkled and sighed, and danced beneath the painted roof and among the evergreen garlands of Marbrook Assembly Rooms, another sort of life, totally another sort, was going on outside. There were alleys, even in snug, well conducted, respectable little Marbrook, down which the better sort of people never passed, and of which they rarely spoke; and these were thronged. There were rooms where dice rattled, and palefaced, haggard-looking men bartered and sold, and paid away fortune, and character, and fair fame. And these were thronged. There were other rooms, all foul with smoke and brandy, where horrid jests went round and careless oaths; where men learned to despise their Master, and to lose faith in one another. And these were

thronged. For Marbrook was always very full

at the races.

And anxious mothers watched the many-coloured ribbons of the recruiting sergeant flutter past, and wondered where those wild sons of theirs were, and whether they would come home again that night, or never any more at all. And other mothers, who had daughters out in service, thought wearily of them, and wished the race safely over, not without need. And wives, whose husbands had been out all day, sat drearily enough over desolate grates that had once been pleasant firesides, and listened to the Abbey clock striking hour after hour far into the night. And on the whole, there was more of wretchedness than joy, more of bitter heart-sorrow than anything else in Marbrook on the night of the grand October races. As perhaps there is everywhere on most race days.

But all was very quiet in the parlour of the old house in the Abbey Close, in which Miss Nunly and Maud sat; that quaint little wainscoted parlour, with its carved door opening out upon the old-fashioned garden, where the elm trees

reached out their dark branches, and the rooks cawed from morning to night, and the quiet, unbroken ripple of the silver Mar flowed past. Beyond them lay the uplands and moorlands, the same that Stephen Roden and Maud had trodden so often in the green beauty of spring. Not green now though, but just beginning to blush and crimson under the warm glances of October sunshine. And the tall poplars by the river side already shed their yellow leaves, and the belt of sycamores that skirted Mossingay Park put off their robe of summer beauty, as though weary of so many garish months of sunlight, and longing for the utter rest of winter. For even trees and flowers tire, as we do, of overmuch brightness.

Maud was somewhat changed, perhaps very much changed, since that May evening when the sight of her little figure tripping along the Marbrook road had sent Stephen Roden home with such a strange feeling at his heart. Changed, not so much in form and feature, or indeed in anything that mere surface observers could detect; for over and over again, common-place people had remarked how cheerfully Miss Maud got over

her disappointment, and would-be sentimental young ladies wondered that she did not appear suitably melancholy;-but changed, as those who knew her best could see full well, from the freehearted, happy girl, floating serenely on over the quiet current of life, into the chastened, earnest, deeply thinking woman.

Only twenty-one; she had overpassed already the worst she could know of earthly sorrow. There could be nothing in reserve for her whilst this life lasted, either of joy or pain, like that which she had already known. And there had come down upon her young face a look of grave and settled quietness, such as we only see in those who have been brought through a very rough and strong sea, under dark skies and over lashing billows, to the "rest that remaineth."

After all there is nothing so ennobling as sorrow, the sorrow which God sends, and which He gives us strength to bear. Taking the soul from its resting-place of human hopes and fancies, it throws it forth into the keen, clear mountain air, and bids it mount upward and still upward to those regions where the sky is purer and the breeze fresher, and

the clouds and mists of earth lie all beneath it. And if at first, like some poor little new-fledged bird, we do look back wearily and longingly to the warm-lined shelter we have left behind, it is only for a little while. We shall find a safer and a better one by and by, which we shall never need to leave any more.

Maud was a nobler woman now than she had ever been. A queenlier woman, as indeed she well might be, having received upon her meek brow the crown of thorns, the symbol here of that other and more glorious one which hereafter God's sorrowing children shall wear. A certain half perceptible halo of dignity had gathered upon her in place of the winning, child-like sweetness of her morning time. They had given over calling her "little Maud," and tendered her a grave, respectful reverence, which, indeed, she well deserved; such a reverence as we give unconsciously to any one, high or low, rich or poor, who stands under the shadow of a great grief.

So they two, Maud and Miss Nunly, were together in the little wainscoted parlour. They were very quiet, more so, perhaps, than most