it was not easy; she never led to it. He sought in vain an opportunity to bring it in easily, and at last resolved to make one.

"Elfie," said he one morning when all the rest of the passengers were happily engaged at a distance with the letter-bags, "I wish you would let me hear that favourite hymn of yours again,—I like it very much."

Fleda was much gratified and immediately with great satisfaction repeated the hymn. Its peculiar beauty struck him yet more the second time than the first.

"Do you understand those two last verses?" said he when she had done. Fleda said "yes!" rather surprised.

"I do not," he said gravely.

Fleda paused a minute or two, and then finding it depended on her to enlighten him, said in her modest way—

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Why it means that we have no goodness of our own, and only expect to be forgiven and taken to heaven for the Saviour's sake."

Mr. Carleton asked, "How for His sake?"

"Why you know, Mr. Carleton, we don't deserve to go there, and if we are forgiven at all it must be for what He has done."

"And what is that, Elfie?"

"He died for us," said Fleda, with a look of some anxiety into Mr. Carleton's face.

"Died for us! And what end was that to serve, Elfie?" said he partly willing to hear the full statement of the matter, and partly willing to see how far her intelligence could give it.

"Because we are sinners," said Fleda, "and God has said that sinners shall die.

"Then how can He keep His word and forgive at all?"

"Because Christ has died for us," said Fleda eagerly; "instead of us. "Do you understand the justice of letting one take the place of others?" "He was willing, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a singular wistful expression that touched him.

66

Still, Elfie," said he after a minute's silence, "how could the ends of justice be answered by the death of one man in the place of millions?"

66 No, Mr. Carleton, but he was God as well as man," Fleda said, with a sparkle in her eye which perhaps delayed her companion's rejoinder.

"What should induce Him, Elfie," he said gently, "to do such a thing for people who had displeased Him?"

"Because He loved us, Mr. Carleton."

She answered with so evident a strong and clear appreciation of what she was saying that it half made its way into Mr. Carleton's mind by the force of sheer sympathy. Her words came almost as something new.

Certainly Mr. Carleton had heard these things before, though perhaps never in a way that appealed so directly to his intelligence and his candour. He was again silent an instant, pondering, and so was Fleda.

"Do you know, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, "there are some people who do not believe that the Saviour was anything more than a man?"

Yes, I know it," said Fleda; "it is very strange!"

66

Why is it strange?"

"Because the Bible says it so plainly."

"But those people hold, I believe, that the Bible does not say it.

"I don't see how they could have read the Bible," said Fleda. "Why

He said so Himself."

"Who said so?"

"Jesus Christ. Don't you believe it, Mr. Carleton?"

She saw he did not, and the shade that had come over her face was reflected in his before he said "no."

"But perhaps I shall believe yet, Elfie," he said kindly. "Can you show me the place in your Bible where Jesus says this of Himself?"

Fleda looked in despair. She hastily turned over the leaves of her Bible to find the passages he had asked for, and Mr. Carleton was cut to the heart to see that she twice was obliged to turn her face from him and brush her hand over her eyes, before she could find them. She turned to Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, 65, and without speaking gave him the book, pointing to the passage. He read it with great care, and several times over.

"You are right, Elfie," he said, "I do not see how those who honour the authority of the Bible and the character of Jesus Christ can deny the truth of His own declaration. If that is false so must those be."

Fleda took the Bible and hurriedly sought out another passage.

66

Grandpa showed me these places," she said, once when we were talking about Mr. Didenhover-he didn't believe that. There are a great many other places, grandpa said; but one is enough."

She gave him the latter part of the twentieth chapter of John.

"You see, Mr. Carleton, he let Thomas fall down and worship Him and call Him God; and if He had not been, you know-God is more displeased with that than with anything.'

"With what, Elfie?"

"With men's worshipping any other than Himself. He says He 'will not give His glory to another.

"Where is that?"

"I am afraid I can't find it," said Fleda, "it is somewhere in Isaiah, I know

She tried in vain; and failing, then looked up in Mr. Carleton's face to see what impression had been made.

"You see Thomas believed when he saw," said he, answering her; "I will believe too when I see.

"Ah if you wait for that

در

-" said Fleda.

Her voice suddenly checked; she bent her face down again to her little Bible, and there was a moment's struggle with herself.

"Are you looking for something more to show me?" said Mr. Carleton kindly, stooping his face down to hers.

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'Not much," said Fleda hurriedly; and then making a great effort she raised her head and gave him the book again.

"Look here, MA Carleton, Jesus said, 'Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."""

Mr. Carleton was profoundly struck, and the thought recurred to him afterwards and was dwelt upon. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." It was strange at first, and then he wondered that it should ever have been so. His was a mind peculiarly open to conviction, peculiarly accessible to truth; and his attention being called to it he saw faintly now what he had never seen before, the beauty of the principle of faith; how natural, how reasonable, how necessary, how honourable to the Supreme Being, how happy even for man, that the grounds of his trust in God being established, his acceptance of many other things should rest on that trust alone.

Ho

Mr. Carleton now became more reserved and unsociable than ever. wearied himself with thinking. If he could have got at the books, he would have spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity; but the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to the

most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation! or rather he began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one point with him if there were a God, He would not have left the world without a revelation,—no more would He have suffered that revelation to defeat its own end by becoming corrupted or alloyed; if there was such a revelation it could be no other than the Bible; and his acceptance of the whole scheme of Christianity now hung upon the turn of a hair. Yet he could not resolve himself. He balanced the counter doubts and arguments, on one side and on the other, and strained his mind to the task; he could not weigh them nicely enough. He was in a maze; and seeking to clear and calm his judgment that he might see the way out, it was in vain that he tried to shake his dizzied head from the effect of the turns it had made. By dint of anxiety to find the right path reason had lost herself in the wilderness.

Fleda was not, as Mr. Carleton had feared she would be, at all alienated from him by the discovery that had given her so much pain. It wrought in another way, rather to add a touch of tender and anxious interest to the affection she had for him. It gave her, however, much more pain than he thought. If he had seen the secret tears that fell on his account, he would have been grieved; and if he had known of the many petitions that little heart made for him, he could hardly have loved her more than he did.

One evening Mr. Carleton had been a long while pacing up and down the deck in front of little Flcda's nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to any end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset, the sky without a cloud, except two or three little dainty strips which set off its blue. The occan was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of waves that seemed to have nothing to do but sparkle. The sun's rays were almost level now, and a long path of glory across the sea led off towards his sinking disk. Fleda sat watching and enjoying it all in her happy fashion, which always made the most of everything good, and was especially quick in catching any form of natural beauty.

Mr. Carleton's thoughts were elsewhere; too busy to take note of things around him. Fleda looked now and then as he passed at his gloomy brow, wondering what he was thinking of, and wishing that he could have the same reason to be happy that she had. In one of his turns his eye met her gentle glance; and vexed and bewildered as he was with study, there was something in that calm, bright face that impelled him irresistibly to ask the little child to set the proud scholar right. Placing himself beside her, he said "Elfie, how do you know there is a God? What reason have you for thinking so out of the Bible?"

It was a strange look little Fleda gave him. He felt it at the time, and he never forgot it. Such a look of reproach, sorrow, and pity, he afterwards thought, as an angel's face might have worn. The question did not seem to occupy her a moment. After this answering look, she suddenly pointed to the sinking sun, and said—

"Who made that, Mr. Carleton ?"

Mr. Carleton's eyes, following the direction of hers, met the long bright rays, whose still witness-bearing was almost too powerful to be borne. The sun was just dipping majestically into the sea, and its calm self-assertion seemed to him at that instant hardly stronger than its vindication of its Author.

A slight arrow may find the joint in the armour, before which many weightier shafts have fallen powerless. Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever no more from that time.

CHAPTER XII.

He borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able.-Merchant of Venice.

ONE

NE other incident alone in the course of the voyage deserves to be mentioned, both because it served to bring out the characters of several people, and because it was not—what is?—without its lingering

consequences.

Thorn and Rossitur had kept up indefatigably the game of teasing Fleda about her "English admirer," as they sometimes styled him. Poor Fleda grew more and more sore on the subject. She thought it was very strange that two grown men could not find enough to do to amuse themselves without making sport of the comfort of a little child. She wondered they could take pleasure in what gave her so much pain; but so it was; and they had it up so often that at last others caught it from them; and though not in malevolence, yet in thoughtless folly many a light remark was made and question asked of her that set little Fleda's sensitive nerves a-quivering. She was only too happy that they were never said before Mr. Carleton; that would have been a thousand times worse. As it was, her gentle nature was constantly suffering from the pain or the fear of these attacks.

"Where's Mr. Carleton ?" said her cousin coming up one day.

"I don't know," said Fleda; "I don't know but he is gone up into one of the tops."

"Your humble servant leaves you to yourself a great while this morning, it seems to me. He is growing very inattentive."

"I wouldn't permit it, Miss Fleda, if I were you,” said Thorn, maliciously. "You let him have his own way too much."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, cousin Charlton!" said Fleda.

"But seriously," said Charlton, "I think you had better call him to account. He is very suspicious lately. I have observed him walking by himself and looking very glum indeed. I am afraid he has taken some fancy into his head that would not suit you. I advise you to inquire into it." "I wouldn't give myself any concern about it!" said Thorn lightly, enjoying the child's confusion and his own fanciful style of backbiting ; "I'd let him go if he has a mind to, Miss Fleda. He's no such great catch. He's neither lord nor knight, nothing in the world but a private gentleman; with plenty of money, I dare say; but you don't care for that; and there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. I don't think much of him!" He is wonderfully better than you, thought Fleda as she looked into the young gentleman's face for a second, but she said nothing.

"Why Fleda," said Charlton laughing, "it wouldn't be a killing affair, would it? How has this English admirer of yours got so far in your fancy? praising your pretty eyes, eh? Eh?" he repeated, as Fleda kept a dignified silence.

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"No," said Fleda in displeasure, "he never says such things."

"No?" said Charlton. "What then? What does he say? I wouldn't let him make a fool of me if I were you Fleda! Did he ever ask you for a kiss?"

"No!" exclaimed Fleda half beside herself and bursting into tears; "I wish you wouldn't talk so! How can you!"

They had carried the game pretty far that time, and thought best to leave it. Fleda stopped crying as soon as she could, lest somebody should see her, and was sitting quietly again, alone as before, when one of the sailors

whom she had never spoken to came by, and leaning over towards her with a leer as he passed, said—

"Is this the young English gentleman's little sweetheart?

Poor Fleda! she had got more than she could bear. She jumped up and ran down into the cabin; and in her berth Mrs. Carleton found her some time afterwards, quietly crying, and most sorry to be discovered. She was exceeding unwilling to tell what had troubled her. Mrs. Carleton, really distressed, tried coaxing, soothing, reasoning, promising, in a way the most gentle and kind that she could use.

"Oh it's nothing-it's nothing," Fleda said at last eagerly,—"it's because I am foolish-it's only something they said to me."

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Who, love?"

Again was Fleda most unwilling to answer, and it was after repeated urging that she at last said, Cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn."

Charlton and Mr. Thorn! What did they say? What did they say, darling Fleda?"

"Oh it's only that they tease me," said Fleda, trying hard to put an end to the tears which caused all this questioning, and to speak as if they were about a trifle. But Mrs. Carleton persisted.

"What do they say to tease you, love? what is it about? Guy, come in here and help me to find out what is the matter with Fleda."

Fleda hid her face in Mrs. Carleton's neck, resolved to keep her lips sealed. Mr. Carleton came in, but to her great relief his question was directed not to her but his mother.

"Fleda has been annoyed by something those young men, her cousin and Mr. Thorn, have said to her; they tease her, she says, and she will not tel me what it is."

Mr. Carleton did not ask, and he presently left the state-room.

"Oh I am afraid he will speak to them!" exclaimed Fleda as soon as he was gone. "Oh I oughtn't to have said that!"

Mrs. Carleton tried to soothe her and asked what she was afraid of. But

Fleda would not say any more. Her anxious fear that she had done mischief helped to dry her tears, and she sorrowfully resolved she would keep her griefs to herself next time.

Rossitur and Thorn were in company with a brother officer and friend of the latter when Mr. Carleton approached them.

"Mr. Rossitur and Mr. Thorn," said he, “you have indulged yourselves in a style of conversation extremely displeasing to the little girl under my mother's care. You will oblige me by abandoning it for the future."

There was certainly in Mr. Carleton's manner a sufficient degree of the cold haughtiness with which he usually expressed displeasure; though his words gave no other cause of offence. Thorn retorted rather insolently— "I shall oblige myself in the matter, and do as I think proper."

"I have a right to speak as I please to my own cousin," said Rossitur sulkily, "without asking anybody's leave. I don't see what you have to do with it."

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Simply that she is under my protection and that I will not permit her to be annoyed."

'I don't see how she is under your protection," said Rossitur.

"And I do not see how the potency of it will avail in this case," said his companion.

"Neither position is to be made out in words," said Mr. Carleton calmly. "You see that I desire there be no repetition of the offence. The rest I will endeavour to make clear if I am compelled to it."