{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73275/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73275","id":"gutenberg_73275","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73275","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Children's stories, English","Christian life -- Juvenile fiction","Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.\n\n[Illustration: Mytton, never so much as raising his eyes from his\n occupation, went on as if life depended on success, setting one\n little scrap by another.]\n\n\n\n                                    THE\n\n                              BATTLE OF LIFE\n\n                                    OR\n\n                           What is a Christian.\n\n\n                                    BY\n\n                                A. L. O. E.\n\n              AUTHORESS OF \"THE WHITE BEAR'S DEN,\" \"SHEER OFF,\"\n                        \"THE HARTLEY BROTHERS,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n                                  London:\n                   GALL AND INGLIS, 25 PATERNOSTER SQUARE;\n                             AND EDINBURGH.\n\n\n\n                              CONTENTS.\n\n\nA PILGRIM; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN DAILY WALK.\n\n   CHAPTER I. A Blessing.\n\n   CHAPTER II. No Blessing.\n\n   CHAPTER III. In the Dark.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. The Watcher.\n\n   CHAPTER V. Sickness and Sorrow.\n\n   CHAPTER VI. The Mother's Errand.\n\n   CHAPTER VII. Thinking over it.\n\n\nAN HEIR OF HEAVEN; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN PRIVILEGE.\n\n   CHAPTER I. The Lonely Cot.\n\n   CHAPTER II. Treasure Found.\n\n   CHAPTER III. A Search.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. Earthly Hope.\n\n   CHAPTER V. Heavenly Hope.\n\n\nA SAINT; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN CHARACTER.\n\n   CHAPTER I. The Patient Restored.\n\n   CHAPTER II. Decision.\n\n   CHAPTER III. Division.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. Sabbath Hours.\n\n   CHAPTER V. Darkness and Night.\n\n   CHAPTER VI. A Way Opened.\n\n\nA CONQUEROR; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN LIFE'S STRUGGLE.\n\n   CHAPTER I. A Storm Down Below.\n\n   CHAPTER II. The Twins.\n\n   CHAPTER III. In Peril.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. The Struggle.\n\n   CHAPTER V. A Brother to the Rescue.\n\n   CHAPTER VI. Victory.\n\n\nA LIGHT; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN INFLUENCE.\n\n   CHAPTER I. The Young Stepmother.\n\n   CHAPTER II. Off to the Station.\n\n   CHAPTER III. A Dinner-Party.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. Battle in the Nursery.\n\n   CHAPTER V. Silver Turned into Gold.\n\n\nA THANKFUL GUEST; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN COMMUNION.\n\n   CHAPTER I. Back Again.\n\n   CHAPTER II. Neglected Duty.\n\n   CHAPTER III. A Service of Obedience.\n\n   CHAPTER IV. A Service of Hope.\n\n   CHAPTER V. A Service of Love.\n\n   CHAPTER VI. One Family.\n\n\n\n                                 THE\n\n                           BATTLE OF LIFE.\n\n\n                             A PILGRIM\n\n                                 OR,\n\n                      A CHRISTIAN IN DAILY WALK.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nA Blessing.\n\n\"THERE'S no use in talking more over the matter, mother; when I says a\nthing\u2014I does it!\" cried John Carey, striking his fist upon the table,\nto give emphasis to his words. \"I've told Dick Brace that as soon as I\ngets the thirty pounds of my uncle's legacy, I'll club it with his, and\nwe'll start in business together, and make a good thing, I don't doubt,\nout of the 'Jolly Ploughboys,' now the brickmaking is begun so near to\nthe place.\"\n\n\"I don't like your keeping a public, John; and I don't like your\njoining in anything with Dick Brace,\" observed Widow Carey, with an\nanxious shake of the head.\n\n\"He's a jolly good fellow,\" said John.\n\n\"He's not a God-fearing man,\" rejoined the widow. \"I doubt there will\nbe a blessing upon anything in which you are mixed up with him.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't care to have him for a brother, but he's just the fellow\nfor a partner in business,\" cried John; \"sharp as a fox, and merry as\na cricket. You'll see we'll get on like a house on fire, mother, and\nI'll be able to pay your coal club for you every week, and maybe your\nrent too, if you don't care to have the little back-room at the 'Jolly\nPloughboys.'\" And John bent his tall form, and looked with a merry,\nkindly smile into his parent's face as he added, \"There's a bribe for\nye, mother!\"\n\nMrs. Carey returned the smile; indeed it would have been hard not to\nhave done so, so pleasant, at least to a parent's eyes, looked that\nfine strong young peasant, in the prime of life, with the fresh hue of\nhealth on his cheek.\n\nThere was something in the appearance of John, with his tawny hair and\nwhiskers, broad and somewhat flat face, and bold decided manner, that\nmade his companions sometimes call him in sport \"the young lion:\" but\nhe was a very good-humoured lion, for though self-willed and sometimes\nhasty, there was nothing savage in the nature of the widow's only son.\n\nMrs. Carey smiled indeed, but she was thoroughly in earnest as she\nreplied, \"Were the sacks full of gold sovereigns instead of coals,\nthey wouldn't be bribe enough for me; and as for taking your back\nparlour\u2014let alone that I'd not choose to end my life in a public\u2014maybe\nyou'll want a younger companion one of these days to keep house for ye,\nmy boy.\"\n\nJohn threw back his head and laughed. \"I've been a-thinking of that,\"\nsaid he. \"If matters go right, and the money come in, there's Dinah\nDealtry at the farm\u2014she'd make a trim little wife.\"\n\nAgain the widow shook her head. \"I hope you'll never put the ring on\nher finger, John. She's not a girl to make a good man happy, nor to\nbring up a family in the right way. There wouldn't be a blessing, I\nfear, on such a marriage as that.\"\n\n\"Mother, you're always thinking about a blessing,\" cried John, with a\nlittle impatience.\n\n\"Because I've always found God's blessing to be the one thing needful,\nmy son, and I never feel myself safe in doing anything upon which I\ncannot ask it. We may plough and sow a field, but not a blade will\ngrow, unless God's blessing come in the rain and the sunshine. And so\nit is with everything in life: we spend our money for that which is\nnot bread, and our labour for that which satisfieth not, unless God's\nblessing crown all.\"\n\n\"I don't see that,\" said John, bluntly.\n\n\"Look at your Bible, my boy; Jacob left home with nothing but his staff\nand the blessing, and came back with his children, his flocks, and his\nherds. 'Twas the blessing on Joseph that brought him from prison to\npalace, and made all things to prosper in his hand. David was hunted\nlike the partridge on the mountains, but the blessing brought him at\nlast to the throne.\"\n\n\"Those lived in old times,\" cried John Carey; \"but we don't look now\nfor palaces or thrones, or, if we did, we shouldn't get 'em! What does\nthe blessing do for us now?\"\n\n\"John, John, I'm an old pilgrim, and maybe I'm getting nigh the end of\nmy journey, so I may speak the more boldly about it. I've found the\nblessing like a staff to lean on all the way through; and if I hadn't\ngrasped it, there's many and many a time I'd just have lain down, and\ngiven myself up to despair.\"\n\n\"I think you've had more troubles than most folk, mother,\" observed\nJohn, more gravely; \"and if there was a blessing on dear good father,\nhow was it that he suffered for years?\"\n\n\"There was a blessing on him, yes, in his illness, and through his\nillness,\" said Mrs. Carey, fervently, while the tears started to her\neyes; \"no one could have been with him day and night as I was, and not\nhave seen that there was one! Your father had peace, and hope, and joy,\nand patience\u2014oh! Wonderful patience! And hard as we were put to it\nsometimes, God always raised up some friend to help us, and opened a\nway before us when it seemed as if we could not got on. God's blessing\nwas sought by my dear husband from his youth, and I'm sure it went with\nhim wherever he went, prospered him in his honest labour, brought him\nthrough troubles, temptations, and trials, cheered him in sickness,\nmade his deathbed at last like the very gateway of heaven! And now he's\ngone where all is blessing\u2014for ever!\" Mrs. Carey closed her sentence\nwith a little stifled sob, as she looked at an empty chair which was\nnow never moved from its place in the corner.\n\n\"I didn't mean to make ye sad, mother,\" said John, laying his broad\nhand with rough kindliness upon the shoulder of the widow; \"and I don't\nwant to worry ye about either the public-house or the girl, but I can't\nlook at matters just as ye do, and, ye see, about that there business\nwith Dick Brace\u2014I've made up my mind. Don't ye be a-vexing yourself\nabout me\u2014all will go right, never fear!\"\n\nThen, turning and taking down his cap from its peg, John said, in a\nmerrier tone, \"I'm going to old Justice Burns, to get him to pay me\nuncle's legacy as he promised he would, and then I'm off to London to\nbuy a few things as I want, but I hope to be back soon after dark.\"\n\nMrs. Carey saw that expostulation was useless, so she made no further\nopposition.\n\n\"You've a long trudge before you,\" said she, \"take your father's good\nstaff;\" and she rose to bring it from its place in the corner just\nbehind the arm-chair.\n\n\"Leave it there, mother, I don't want it,\" cried \"the lion.\" \"'Tain't\ntwenty miles to London and back; and were it forty, 'twould not be much\nto young limbs like mine. Only mind you've a good supper ready for me,\nfor I'll come back hungry as\u2014as a lion!\" And nodding a good-bye to\nthe widow, the young man quitted the cottage, whistling merrily as he\nwalked down the hill.\n\nMrs. Carey watched him fondly as long as his tall form continued in\nview, and listened to the sound of that whistle which was so pleasant\nto her ears.\n\n\"God bless the lad!\" said the mother. \"Bless him in his work and his\nways, bless his going out and his coming in, bless him now and for\never! He mayn't know the worth of the blessing now, but since my eyes\nfirst looked on my babe, there's not been a day, scarce a waking hour,\nbut I've asked it for him from my heart. God will hear a poor mother's\nprayers, though I'm afraid just now that this legacy hardly comes as\na blessing. My dear husband's brother never gave him so much as a\nshilling to help him through all his long illness, and now leaves to\nhis son thirty pounds, money which seems likely to set the lad against\nthe steady work by which he has gained his bread, to bring him amongst\nbad companions, and perhaps lead him to marry a girl whose mind is\nset on flirting and finery, who is not worthy of the true love of a\nnoble-hearted fellow like John! It's a care and trouble to me the\nthought of this money\u2014but, like all other cares, I must just bring it\nto my Lord; if pilgrims but set their faces towards Zion, God will\ndirect all their path!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nNo Blessing.\n\n\"WHAT an odd view mother takes of life!\" thought John, as he went\nwhistling along the road towards the house of Justice Burns, to whom\nhis uncle had been butler, and in whose hands he had left his savings.\n\"Mother always seems to feel as if she were on a journey, with her\nstaff in her hand, and her bundle on her back, though she has bided\nthese thirty years in that little cottage where I was born. She's\nalways a-thinking of getting on to another world, and perhaps since\nfather has gone there that's natural enough, for he was the light\nof her eyes. But I take it this world is a very good world, and I'm\nin no hurry to leave it. I mean to settle down and thrive in that\nlittle public-house which is to be let at such a bargain, drive a good\nbusiness, make plenty of money, and then ask little Dinah to come and\nshare my home. A lucky legacy that of my uncle's, and come at a lucky\ntime. Mother may say what she likes, there's nothing better in life\nthan a little hard cash\u2014except a great deal of it!\" And John Carey\nlaughed gaily to himself as he pulled the bell at the Justice's door.\n\n\"What do you want here?\" asked the liveried servant who answered the\nbell.\n\n\"I want to see Justice Burns. I'm the nephew of his late butler, and he\nhas money of mine in his hands.\"\n\n\"Ah! You're the nephew of poor old Carey, are you?\" said the footman,\nrelaxing into an easy sociable manner. \"Come in and sit down in the\nhall. You can't see master yet, for he's taking his breakfast.\"\n\nAs John entered the hall, he might have guessed that a meal was going\non in the house, from the very savoury scent which proceeded out of the\ndining-room.\n\n\"Breakfast! Why it's nigh noonday!\" cried honest John, who had already\ntaken his dinner, \"It's plain the Justice ain't up with the lark.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't be up with the lark neither, if you had such nights as he\nhas,\" said the servant, who was inclined for a gossip. \"The Justice is\na martyr to gout\u2014suffers misery, he does, and makes every one about him\nmiserable too, I suppose to keep him company.\"\n\n\"I should say his gout doesn't take away his appetite,\" observed John,\nglancing at a steaming dish which the butler was carrying in at that\nmoment to his master.\n\nThe footman shrugged his shoulders. \"There's the mischief,\" said he.\n\"The more the Justice suffers, the more he eats; the more he eats, the\nmore he suffers; but he can't do without his turtle and venison, his\nsauces and wines. Doctor and cook, he keeps both of them at work. I'd\nnot have such legs as he has for ten thousand pounds a year; they're\nswelled as big as two, and he can hardly get up from his chair; we've\nto wheel him from one room to another.\"\n\n\"'Twould have been better, maybe, for the Justice if he'd had to follow\nthe plough at sunrise, and get a good appetite for his bread and\ncheese,\" observed John, glancing down with some satisfaction at his own\nactive powerful limbs, that had never suffered from an hour's disease.\n\n\"Oh! I often say that it would have been a good thing for him, if he'd\nhad to work hard for his bread, clip hedges or break stones on the\nroad,\" said the talkative footman. \"But there's his bell, I must answer\nit at once, for he's mighty easily put out when a fit of the gout is\nupon him.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe hard cash, even a great deal of it, is not always a\nblessing,\" was the thought which John Carey had leisure to turn well\nover in his mind during the half-hour which he had to wait while\nthe Justice was eating and drinking in misery and pain, wasting on\ngluttonous indulgence that money for which he would one day have to\nrender a strict account.\n\nAt last the Justice was ready to see John Carey in the study. The\nyoung countryman, as he trod the Turkey-carpet of that luxurious\nroom, looked with mingled pity and contempt on the owner of so much\nwealth, bolstered up with cushions, and swathed in flannels, with the\npeevishness of suffering written upon his red bloated face. John could\nnot help thinking of the cheerful patience of his own father during\nsickness, and the thankful pleasure with which he had received every\nlittle comfort, as a direct gift from his God.\n\n\"What's this you want\u2014your uncle's legacy? I don't know why he should\nhave bothered me with a petty matter like this,\" said the Justice\npeevishly, when John had explained his business.\n\n\"Thirty pounds\u2014is that the sum? Yes, I remember; I was writing out a\ncheque for it last night when I was taken so ill that I could scarcely\nhold the pen in my fingers.\"\n\nThe Justice looked as if it were a labour and pain to him now to open\nthe desk before him with his swollen gouty hands, and he had hardly\ntaken out the cheque when his servant ushered in the doctor.\n\n\"There\u2014go, they'll cash it for you in Argyll Street; I can't be plagued\nwith business,\" said the Justice hastily, motioning to John to quit his\npresence.\n\nYoung Carey hurriedly put the cheque into his pocket-book and left\nthe house, feeling that he would not change places with that wretched\nDives, who lived but for self, even if there were no danger of the\n\"place of torment\" succeeding the state of luxury of him who fared\nsumptuously every day.\n\n\"I'm thirsty, and I've a long trudge before me,\" said John to himself.\n\"I'll just step into the little inn yonder, and refresh myself with a\ntumbler of beer.\"\n\nJohn found in the \"White Hart,\" Sam Soames, a man with whom he had\nbut a slight acquaintance, \"the less the better,\" as Mrs. Carey\noften had said. No one who looked at Sam as he sat with his elbows\nrubbing through his sleeves, with his battered hat, dirty shirt, and\npoverty-stricken aspect, would have guessed that he was a skilled\nworkman, who could win two guineas a week. Sam had earned a great\ndeal of money in his time, but as fast as he made it, the gold seemed\nto slip through his fingers. It might be said of him in the forcible\nlanguage of Scripture, \"he earneth wages to put into a bag with\nholes.\" *\n\n   * Haggai i. 6.\n\nNever had John's father, through all his long sickness, when he had no\npower to earn a shilling, known the actual want which was staring in\nthe face of this man, who had no one to blame but himself that he was\nnot one of the most thriving workmen in the town where he lived. Money\nhad come\u2014and had gone\u2014a blessing was not upon it!\n\nJohn Carey was of a kindly, sociable temper, such as scarcely suited\nhis nickname of \"young lion.\" Worthless as he knew Sam Soames to be, he\npitied his wretched condition, and was willing to do him a kindness.\nHe treated Soames to beer, and while the two men drank together, John\nchatted freely with his companion over his own affairs. Carey told\nSoames of the legacy which had been left by his uncle, and of the\ncheque for thirty pounds which he was going to get cashed in London. In\nhis openness of heart, the \"young lion\" told him moreover of his own\nplan of partnership with Brace, and invited Sam to come and look in on\nhim sometimes when he should be landlord of the \"Jolly Ploughboys.\"\nThis Sam Soames very readily promised to do, hoping, no doubt, that\nhis easy-tempered friend would not be hard upon him when the time for\nreckoning should come.\n\n\"It was too bad in me to talk about my good-luck to that poor ruined\nfellow,\" thought honest John, as, after paying for what he and his\ncompanion had taken, he started off on his long walk to London; \"it was\nlike making a hungry dog look in through the window at a well-filled\nlarder, when he has not so much as a bone to grind between his jaws.\nWell, well, if Sam Soames had my thirty pounds to-day, there would not\nbe thirty pence of it left by Sunday. He's one of them chaps that no\none can help; hard cash\u2014much or little of it\u2014would be no blessing to\nhim.\"\n\nAnd with this reflection John dismissed the subject from his mind, and\ntook to whistling again.\n\nThe \"young lion\" was scarcely at all tired by his ten miles' walk to\nLondon. He was puzzled, however, to find his way through its labyrinth\nof streets, crossing each other in every direction, and found the noise\nand bustle of the mighty city very distracting.\n\n\"I've heard of some one who said that he'd rather hear the lark sing\nthan the mouse squeak,\" muttered John to himself, \"and I'm much of\nhis mind. I'd think a fortune dearly earned if I'd to go moiling and\ntoiling all my days in a racket like this. But different folk have\ndifferent tastes; maybe there are some who like it, and would rather\nsee carriages rolling along, than a field of fine wheat bending as the\nwind blows across it. I'm not one of that sort\u2014that's all.\"\n\nJohn had some trouble in finding Argyll Street, and it was an hour\nlater than he expected when he reached the bank at last. The young\npeasant felt a little shy on entering the large room in which were so\nmany clerks at their desks.\n\n\"Here be a lot of fine gentlemen,\" thought John, \"who have nothing to\ndo from morning till night but count up money, and shovel out gold. How\ntired one would get of the clink of it, and the endless summing and\nreckoning! I'd rather by far sow beans!\"\n\nJohn's rough jacket and hob-nailed shoes seemed to himself out of place\nin the bank. Anything like transacting business was new to him, and the\n\"young lion\" looked awkward and shy as he advanced, cap in hand, to the\nfront of one of the desks, behind which stood a clerk, who appeared to\nJohn to be a very fine gentleman indeed.\n\nThe clerk inquired what was his business.\n\n\"I want to get this here cheque cashed,\" said John, pulling his\npocket-book from his breast-pocket, and then fumbling in it to find his\nvaluable paper. It was some little time before he could lay his strong\nclumsy fingers upon it, and put it down on the desk.\n\n\"Who gave you this?\" asked the clerk.\n\n\"Justice Burns, it's for thirty pounds; you see my uncle, he left me a\nlegacy, and\u2014\"\n\nThe man of business cut the speech of the countryman short.\n\n\"This cheque is of no use,\" he said, pushing it back towards John,\n\"there is no signature on it.\"\n\nCarey stared in blank amazement, first at the speaker, then at the\ncheque. What the clerk had said was true enough; the gouty Justice in\ndrawing out the cheque had forgotten to sign his name.\n\nJohn rubbed his heated forehead, and looked perplexed. \"What's to be\ndone?\" said he.\n\n\"You must take back the cheque and get it signed, of course,\" said the\nclerk; \"as it is, it is of no more use than blank paper.\" And having\nthus summarily dismissed the business, the clerk turned away to attend\nto a gentleman who had just entered the office.\n\n\"This ben't the First of April, or I should have thought the Justice\nhad chosen to play me a trick,\" thought John, as, somewhat mortified\nand provoked, he replaced the cheque in his pocket-book, and then\nquitted the bank.\n\n\"He'd no right to send me on such a fool's errand as this because\nhe'd a twinge in his gouty foot. I'll tell him my mind when I see him\nto-morrow. I'll just go and refresh myself now a bit; for an hour of\nwalking about this Babel takes more out of a fellow than a day spent in\nhedging and ditching. I'll buy the few things I want, and then get home\nas fast as my legs will carry me. I shall be ashamed to tell Dick Brace\nthat I've lost a day's work, and had a twenty miles' walk for my pains;\n'twill always be a-coming up as a joke against me.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nIn the Dark.\n\nJOHN CAREY had enjoyed his walk to London, and had never so much\nas thought if he were tired or not; but whether from the noise and\nexcitement to which he had been unaccustomed, or whether from the damp\non his spirits telling on his bodily frame, the road which he retraced\non his return seemed to him a weary long one. The sun set in a bank\nof clouds, a heavy mist filled the air; it appeared to John as if he\nshould never get beyond the line of streets and villas which stretch,\nmile after mile, along the suburbs of London. The country was reached\nat last, but the evening mist lay so heavy upon it, that John could see\nnothing of the fields, and the hedges and trees which bordered the road\nloomed dim and indistinct through the increasing darkness. John had no\ninclination to whistle.\n\n\"Somehow, everything looks dull to me this evening, and I feel a bit\ndown-hearted,\" muttered John, as he dragged his weary limbs along.\n\"Mother says as how there's nothing ever comes to us by chance, that\nthere's never a brier thrown across a pilgrim's way but he may pluck\na blessing from it. I don't see how that can be, but mayhap that's\nbecause I ain't a pilgrim, and don't ask or look for the blessing. I\ncan see nothing in this here matter about the cheque but the stupid\nblunder of a lazy old glutton, and all I get from it is a waste of\nshoe-leather, and a loss of time and temper. I suppose that I shall\nhave another trudge up to London to-morrow; no, that there Justice\nshould pay for the coach, if there's anything of justice in him but the\nname.\"\n\nDarker and darker grew the night, weary and more weary the traveller;\none of his shoes hurt his foot, and he painfully limped along.\n\n\"If I didn't know every foot of the road here,\" said John to himself,\nas he turned down the lane which led to his home, \"I'd be a-losing\nmyself in the darkness. I wish I'd done as my mother bade, and taken my\nfather's good oaken stick; one doesn't think, when setting out fresh\nand hearty in broad daylight, how glad one may be of a staff before the\njourney is done.\"\n\nJohn was to have need of that staff in more ways than one. Scarcely had\nthe thought passed through his mind, when he was suddenly startled by\na violent blow on the back of his head, which knocked off his cap, and\nstretched him on the road. Up the young lion sprang in a moment, facing\nthe cowardly assailant who had attacked him from behind, and receiving\nas he did so, another heavy blow, which made him stagger backwards,\nwhile the blood gushed from his wound. John was bold and strong, and\nnot one to be easily mastered in a struggle, but he had been taken by\nsurprise, he was weary, and had no weapon but his own bare fists.\n\nIn vain John tried to close with his assailant, another blow laid him\nprostrate again, and the highwayman kicked him with his heavy boot,\nwhen attempting again to rise. Lights seemed flashing in the young\nman's eyes, there was a rushing sound in his ears, he had a confused\nsense of pain and of a struggle for life, and then all consciousness\nleft him\u2014John Carey lay senseless and bleeding.\n\nWhile Sam Soames, stooping over him, rifled him of the pocket-book,\nwhich the ruffian expected to find full of money obtained by cashing\nthe cheque. Soames made off at once with his booty, without attempting\nto take anything else, or to ascertain whether his victim yet breathed.\n\nIt was not long before the guilty Soames discovered that he had\nhazarded soul and body for that of which he could make no use. But had\nthe pocket-book, instead of an unsigned cheque, contained hundreds of\nbank-notes, worse than worthless had been that which bore on it the\nstain of blood, and carried with it a curse like that which rested upon\nCain, a fugitive and vagabond upon the face of the earth.\n\nJohn Carey lay for some time apparently lifeless, perhaps it was the\ndrizzling rain which awoke him at last; he opened his eyes on the\ndarkness, but was utterly unable to move from the damp ground on which\nhe was lying. He could scarcely collect his senses sufficiently to\nremember anything that had happened, or to imagine how he came to be\nstretched there, helpless upon the road.\n\nGradually there dawned upon his mind some recollection of a struggle,\nthen a desire to get home, then a belief that he should never be found\ntill the morning, when his corpse would be carried to his mother. So\nconfused was John's brain from the shock which it had sustained, that\neven this idea was more like a half-waking dream, than an actual effort\nof reasoning powers. The sufferer could not fix his thoughts upon\nanything, not even on the awful probability that he was on the very\nverge of an eternity for which he was not prepared. Here lay the only\nson of the widow, the child of so many fond prayers, likely, before the\nnight should have passed away, to be summoned before his Maker, yet\nunable even to utter the cry\u2014\n\n   \"God be merciful to me, a sinner!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nThe Watcher.\n\nIN the meantime, Widow Carey sat hour after hour in her little cottage,\nwatching and waiting for the return of her son. She had laid the supper\nready, the home-made loaf on the spotless cloth, the red herrings which\nshe had bought that afternoon as a dainty for John after his long\ntiring walk. Though Mrs. Carey had had no refreshment since noon but\na cup of weak tea, she would not taste the food before her, till John\nshould be present to share it.\n\nMany a time Widow Carey rose, went to the door, and looked down the\nlane, hoping to see the tall form which she knew so well ascending the\nhill; many a time she fancied that she heard his blithe whistle in the\ndistance, and stirred her little fire, and put on the kettle, that John\nmight have something warm to drink after being out so long in the damp\nnight air.\n\nA very long time Widow Carey waited, and it was to her all the longer\nfrom the anxious thoughts which were her companions. Hard as she tried\nto draw comfort from prayer, to assure herself that God would direct\nher and her son, and bring everything right in the end, the shadow of\napproaching troubles lay heavy that night on the widow. She could not\nhelp picturing to herself John at the bar of the \"Jolly Ploughboys,\"\nconstantly associating with a man of Brace's loose and dangerous views,\nand a girl who never so much as gave a thought to religion. Mrs. Carey\npictured John gradually becoming more careless and worldly, more cold\nin his affection towards herself, more neglectful of his duty towards\nGod. The widow dreaded her son's being exposed to temptations from\nwhich she had no power to guard him, temptations to which his easy,\nunsuspicious nature would especially expose him.\n\n\"Oh! If I could but have the comfort of knowing that my boy had given\nhimself, heart and soul, to his God\u2014I think I could bear any hardship\nor trial!\" sighed the widow, as she sat thinking, with her hand pressed\nover her eyes.\n\n\"He's such a loving son, such a brave, noble, generous man, he has\nkept so steady, he has worked so hard, I don't wonder that he feels\nless than others might feel the need of a Saviour to forgive, and of\nthe Holy Spirit to guide him. But there's only one path that leads us\nto Heaven, and the Lord Himself has told us that that path is a narrow\none. We can't walk on it, yet go on our own way, we can't follow two\nguides at once who would take us in opposite directions; and oh! If we\nwilfully stray but ever so little from the path which God has marked\nout, 'tis in the nature of things that we should wander off farther and\nfarther. There's no standing still in the journey of life; our course\neach day must be upward or downward, and I'm afraid, how sorely afraid,\nthat my darling is entering upon one that will not have a blessing upon\nit.\"\n\nTime passed on, midnight was near; Mrs. Carey grew a little alarmed.\nCertainly John might have been tempted to tarry for the night in\nLondon, which offered so many amusements, but she had never known him\ndo so before. He might have been persuaded by Dick Brace to join some\njovial party, and sit drinking to a late hour; the widow had never\nknown John give way to intemperance, but the doubt which would rise in\nher mind, made her more uneasy and restless than ever.\n\nAt last the poor mother could no longer stop in her cottage, suspense\nwas more than she could bear; she could not sleep, she could not rest,\nshe lighted her little lamp and went forth into the darkness, in the\nfaint hope of meeting her son.\n\nChill fell the night rain upon the slight form of the widow. Even to\nherself, it seemed as if she were bound on a useless errand, and yet\nher heart impelled her to go on. Her steps were on withered autumn\nleaves which the night wind blew over her path; their rustle as they\nfell was the only sound which reached the ear of the mother. Twice she\nstopped and half resolved to go back, then went on her dark dreary way.\n\nPresently the gaze of the widow fell on a dark object indistinctly seen\non the road; Mrs. Carey's heart throbbed faster, and she quickened her\nsteps. The light of her lamp fell on something which seemed at once to\nstop the beating of that heart altogether, and to curdle the very blood\nin her veins!\n\nThen from her lips burst a loud wild cry for help, a cry which startled\nand aroused sleepers in the cottage next to her own, so piercing and\nshrill it sounded on the still midnight air. In a few minutes, but to\nthe mother they seemed like hours, forms were seen hurrying through the\ndarkness, and kindly voices answered the repeated cry for aid. Widow\nCarey was found kneeling on the road by the senseless body of her son,\nsupporting his head upon her knees, and, with trembling fingers, trying\nto staunch the blood which flowed from a deep gash in the young man's\nbrow.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nSickness and Sorrow.\n\nA TIME of heavy tribulation to the widow followed the horrors of that\nnight. John Carey was not indeed killed, the spark of life glimmered\nstill, but he lay for weeks in a dangerous state, sometimes buried in\nstupor, sometimes raving with fever, never able to give a clear account\nof what had occurred.\n\nIt was evident that he had been the victim to violence; the fact of his\nhaving gone to London to cash a cheque for a considerable sum was soon\nknown far and wide, and it was, of course, concluded that the \"young\nlion\" had been waylaid on his return home, and robbed of the money.\n\nSearch was made at once for the man who had committed the crime, a\nreward was offered for his apprehension. Suspicion fell upon Soames,\nwho was proved to have heard from John's own lips of the cheque, and\nwhose character and wretched circumstances made him appear one not\nunlikely to have committed an act of violence to save himself from\ndestitution. The sudden disappearance of Soames from the neighbourhood\nconfirmed the suspicion; but the wretched man succeeded in eluding\npursuit; he was reserved to suffer, at a later period, the punishment\ndue for other crimes.\n\nIn anguish, the widow watched and prayed by the bedside of her\nsuffering son, imploring God, day and night, to spare his life and\nhis reason. The crisis was over at length; the fever was subdued,\nconsciousness returned, but the once powerful young man lay weak and\nhelpless as a child. His tawny locks shorn away, the bandage over his\nbrow, his eye dim, his cheek hollow, who, in that languid invalid,\nwould have recognised the \"young lion!\"\n\nThe doctor forbade any subject being mentioned to John that could\nproduce excitement; he must be kept as quiet as possible, and have as\nmuch good wine and generous nourishment as he could take to restore\nhis exhausted strength. Good wine, generous nourishment! How were they\nto be procured? That question which she could not answer, went to the\nmother's heart. Mrs. Carey had earned her livelihood by charing and\nwashing, but during her son's illness she had been unable to earn a\nsixpence by either, nursing him had engaged all her time, and taxed her\nutmost strength.\n\nDuring the first fortnight, his mother had felt the press of poverty\nbut little; John could hardly touch food, the doctor had not sent\nin his bill, much interest was excited in the neighbourhood, little\npresents were received, and the few tradesmen who supplied necessaries\nlet their accounts run up, without troubling the afflicted mother for\nimmediate payment. Thus for a while, as has been said, Mrs. Carey,\nwatching by the sick-bed of John, and absorbed by the anxiety caused by\nhis critical state, felt no actual want of money. But this did not last\nvery long.\n\nWhen John was once known to be likely to recover, interest in his\ncase grew weaker, while the need for help grew greater. The hunger\nof convalescence began just when the shelf was empty; and bills came\ndropping in when not a sixpence was left in the purse. The baker, who\nhad at first been all sympathy and bustling kindness, shrugged his\nshoulders, and threw out hints that a man in receipt of wages was bound\nto subscribe to a club, and not leave the burden of his support during\nsickness to a widowed mother, and neighbours who were willing enough to\nhelp, but who had to care for families of their own.\n\nDick Brace, over his glass of foaming ale, observed that John Carey had\nbeen a simpleton to travel at night with thirty pounds in his pocket,\nand doubly a simpleton for having given notice in a low inn that he\nintended to do so.\n\nMrs. Carey, worn out with anxiety and watching, her nerves shaken by\nlack of sleep, her spirits depressed by debt and difficulties which\nthickened around her, found it hard indeed to let patience have its\nperfect work, and to place firm trust in the changeless love of Him who\nso sorely tried her.\n\nThere are times in the experience of most Pilgrims to Heaven when\ndarkness seems to be above and around them, and the Tempter whispers\ninto their troubled ears, \"God hath forgotten to be gracious.\" The\nfeeble body weighs down the soul, the spirit can scarcely rise in\nprayer. In such seasons of weakness and gloom, how soothing these words\nof Scripture! \"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the\nvoice of His servant, that walketh, in darkness and hath no light? let\nhim trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.\" *\n\n   * Isaiah l. 10.\n\nThe widow could better have borne her outward trials, her son's\nillness, and the poverty which it brought with it, had she been able\nto see any spiritual good arising from them to one who was dearer to\nher than life. But it did not seem to Mrs. Carey that affliction had\nbrought John nearer to God. When his brain had been excited by fever,\nit was about Dinah that he had raved; and now, though he spoke but\nlittle, John had more than once dropped words which shewed that he had\nnot given up his scheme of partnership with Brace, that he still looked\nforward to being joint-landlord with him of the little public-house\nnear the brick field. This grieved the widow beyond everything else.\n\nShe did not, indeed, fear that either Dick or Dinah would have much to\ndo with a penniless man who might\u2014and probably would\u2014be unable to work\nfor months yet to come; but that John after all that had happened\u2014after\nwhat seemed to his mother like a solemn warning from Heaven\u2014should\npersist in going on his own wilful way against the wishes of a parent\nwho had almost broken down her health in nursing him, nearly crushed\nhis mother with grief.\n\nOne day (it was the first day on which John had been able to sit up\nin a chair), Mrs. Carey placed before him the little dinner which she\nhad obtained with difficulty, and had prepared with the greatest care.\nThe pale, gaunt man, who looked the wreck of what he had been, felt\nthat strong craving for food which often follows long illness, and the\nslender repast which his mother brought excited his impatience and\nscorn.\n\n\"Why, mother, you must think me a baby still,\" exclaimed the invalid\nalmost with anger. \"Is that spoonful of minced meat a dinner to put\nbefore a man who could devour a sirloin of beef? And where is the wine\nwhich the doctor said I must have?\" added John, glancing impatiently\nround him.\n\n\"My son,\" answered the widow meekly, \"I give you what I can, not what I\nwould?\"\n\nShe had herself not tasted meat for a fortnight.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" cried John. \"You know as well as I do that I've\nplenty of money\u2014there's all the legacy left by my uncle.\"\n\nAnother pang to the heart of the mother! She had often noticed before\nthat John's illness had affected his memory, but she had hoped of late\nthat this was improving. It was a bitter disappointment to find him\nthus, as she thought, forgetting the fact that he had been robbed as\nwell as almost murdered.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" repeated the sick man with petulance. \"And why do\nyou look so sad?\"\n\n\"My boy, you know that you were robbed of your all six weeks ago,\" said\nthe widow.\n\n\"Not of a farthing!\" cried John. \"Surely you cannot have gone on all\nthis time without asking for the money?\"\n\nHe looked eagerly into the face of his mother, who could hardly bear to\nmeet his excited gaze.\n\n\"You applied for it yourself, dear John, on that dreadful Monday,\" said\nshe.\n\n\"And got a cheque\u2014but the cheque was not signed, I could not cash it,\nI could not get a farthing of the money!\" exclaimed John, with unusual\nanimation. \"Go, mother, go directly to the Justice, ask him for the\nlegacy which he has in charge\u2014tell him that the cheque was not worth a\nnettle-leaf!\"\n\nJohn's manner was becoming more excited, for he read in his mother's\nface that she either did not understand, or did not believe him.\n\n\"I cannot go to Justice Burns and ask him for\u2014for\u2014\" Mrs. Carey did not\nfinish the sentence aloud, but thought \"for money which he doubtless\nhas paid already.\"\n\nThe simple widow knew nothing about cheques, had never seen one in her\nlife, and she feared that her son's fever was returning upon him.\n\n\"If you do not go, I must, and will!\" exclaimed John, by a desperate\neffort starting to his feet, and then sinking back exhausted on his\nseat.\n\n\"Oh! My son, I will do what you wish, anything that you wish!\" cried\nthe anxious mother. \"Only promise that you will keep quiet, and I will\ngo at once to the Justice.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nThe Mother's Errand.\n\nNEVER had Mrs. Carey gone more unwillingly on an errand. It was not\nmerely that\u2014after being long shut up in a sick-room, weakened by\nwatching and fasting, the fresh air made her feel giddy, so that, but\nfor her husband's good staff, she could scarcely have gone on her way;\nbut that she shrank with extreme dislike from making what she feared to\nbe an unjust claim, and naturally dreaded that, by so doing, she would\narouse the anger of the Justice, whose irritable temper was well known\nin the village.\n\n\"I'm sure that I shall never have the face to give him my poor son's\nmessage,\" murmured the widow, as she at last reached the Justice's\ndoor, and timidly rang the bell, so timidly that the sound was not\nheard, and she had to ring again.\n\n\"Would the Justice be so kind as to see me, just for two minutes,\" said\nthe poor woman, when the butler at last appeared at the door.\n\nThe man glanced at the thin, anxious face, the shabby but decent\nmourning; he felt pity for a widow who, as he believed, had come to ask\nfor charity, and who was not likely to receive it.\n\n\"Master does not care to see poor folk,\" observed he; \"there's no use\ncoming to him.\"\n\n\"Perhaps if you were so kind as to give him my name, Widow Carey, he\nmight let me have just a word with him; I bring a message from my son.\"\n\n\"Your son, what, the poor fellow who was almost battered to pieces in\nthe lane!\" cried the butler. \"Just you wait here a little\u2014there's no\nharm in taking in your name.\"\n\nThe butler was scarcely absent a minute, but in that minute the poor\nwidow had found time for a silent, fervent prayer.\n\n\"The Justice will see you,\" said the kindhearted man, and Mrs. Carey\nwas ushered into the study.\n\nThe knees of the widow trembled under her, partly from weariness,\npartly from fear; she grasped her staff more tightly, and leant more\nheavily on it. Timidly she glanced at the Justice as she entered his\npresence. He was, as when John had seen him, bolstered with cushions\nand swathed with wraps, but his fat swollen face looked more grave and\nannoyed than when young Carey had come for his money.\n\n\"How shall I ever dare to tell him what brings me here!\" thought the\nwidow.\n\nJustice Burns was the first to speak, which he did in a sharp decided\ntone. \"I know what you've come for, Mrs. Carey.\"\n\n\"He's clever\u2014for I scarce know myself,\" was the poor woman's silent\nreflection.\n\n\"When a man's ill, and worried with sleeplessness and pain,\" continued\nthe Justice, knitting his brows, \"no one has a right to find fault, if\nfor once, he make a stupid blunder.\"\n\n\"I'm so glad\u2014so thankful that you think so, Sir, I'm sure you're very\ngood,\" began John's mother, amazed that the Justice should guess\nbeforehand what she had come to say. \"I hope then, that you'll kindly\nforgive\u2014\"\n\n\"Forgive\u2014I've nothing to forgive!\" cried the Justice, surprised in his\nturn. \"I never dreamed that the cheque had not been signed, till two\ndays ago I glanced over my bank-book, and found that the thirty pounds\nhad never been drawn by your son. As I had concluded\u2014like the rest of\nthe world\u2014that he had been robbed of that sum, I wrote up to London to\nmake inquiries, and heard this morning that a countryman had presented\nan unsigned cheque in Argyll Street, which, of course, had not been\ncashed. I'll not trouble you again with cheque; here's the money in\ngood hard cash; I'd have sent it, had you not called;\" the Justice\npushed across the table a canvass bag heavy with gold. \"I suppose that\nyou can give a receipt; just count out the money, and see that all's\nright.\"\n\nTo the surprise of the Justice, the poor widow, instead of taking up\nthe bag, burst into tears. The relief was so great, so unexpected,\nthat, weak as she was, it quite overcame her.\n\n\"Well, I see nothing to cry about,\" said Justice Burns, in a softened\ntone, for, selfish as he was, even he had a kindly corner in his heart;\n\"it was odd enough that I should have made such a blunder for the first\ntime in my life, but it was the rarest piece of luck for your son that\nI neglected to sign that cheque.\"\n\n\"It was a blessing,\" faltered the widow, drying her eyes. \"Oh! Sir\u2014it\nwas all through God's blessing!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nThinking over it.\n\nWHILE his mother was putting on her bonnet before setting out on her\nerrand, John Carey had finished the slender meal which appeared to\nleave him more hungry than before. He had watched the widow as she had\ntaken his father's staff from the corner to stay her feeble steps, and\nit had then struck John, for the first time, how much his mother had\naged since his illness, how pale and weary she looked.\n\n\"Stay, dear mother,\" John had cried, with a feeling of self-reproach;\n\"you look so tired, I can't bear to see it. Wait, and we'll find some\none else to send.\"\n\nBut the widow's only reply had been a faint smile, as she had left the\ncottage on her errand for her son.\n\n\"My mother has been half-killing herself for me, ungrateful dog that I\nam,\" muttered John, his self-reproach growing stronger and stronger.\n\"Why, what can she have been living on all these six weeks, while I've\nbeen lying like a log in my bed? I can see well enough in her face what\nshe's been a-suffering for me, without grudging, without complaining,\nbearing with all my ill temper, nursing me night after night! And what\nkind of a return do I make for it all? Did I not say to mother this\nvery morning that I wanted to speak to Dick Brace about our little\npiece of business? She only sighed\u2014I could see she was vexed; but I let\nher be vexed rather, than give up what I'd set my heart on.\n\n\"I've sometimes thought,\" continued John Carey, still muttering to\nhimself, \"I've sometimes thought that if I ever get well again\u2014and now\nit's like as I may\u2014I'd turn to God, serve Him as my parents have served\nHim, and begin what mother calls a pilgrim's life in good earnest.\nBut if I did so\u2014ah! The first steps are those as be so hard to take!\nIf I did so\u2014I must honour and obey my mother, as the Bible tells me I\nshould; I must give up this pleasant plan of starting in business with\nBrace, I must give up the 'Jolly Ploughboys.' 'Twould be a hard pull\u2014it\nwould!\"\n\nJohn rubbed his chin; thinking wearied him, but he could not throw the\nsubject off his mind.\n\n\"I might give up Dick Brace and the business, but that would not be\nthe worst of it. Dinah Dealtry!\" thought John. \"She would not look at\na mere day-labourer\u2014she would not live in a cottage like this with my\nmother!\"\n\nHe glanced with something like discontent around him at the humble home\nin which he had been born.\n\n\"Dinah has as good as told me that she'd ha' nothing to say to a man\nwho could not offer her a house of her own. If she wouldn't choose to\nlive with mother, mother wouldn't care to live with her; them two could\nnever get on together, they've such different notions and ways.\"\n\nJohn heaved a sigh of perplexity and vexation.\n\n\"It seems as if I must choose between the two, for I can't have\nboth\u2014that's clear; and I must choose between the two paths also; I know\nwell enough which is the right one, but\u2014but\u2014how thinking does make\none's head ache\u2014and one's heart too for the matter of that!\"\n\nThere are many who, like John Carey, are quite convinced that the\npilgrim's path is the right one, the only path which can end in peace;\nmany who are almost persuaded to try it, and who yet shrink back from\nthe sacrifice of what conscience tells them that they must leave\nbehind, if they decide on following the Lord fully in their daily walk\nthrough life. It was from this hesitation, from this indecision, so\ndangerous to the soul, that our Lord would warn His servants when He\nspoke those solemn words: \"If thy hand offend thee (cause to offend)\ncut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than\nhaving two hands to go into hell.\" * Things dear as a hand or an eye\nmust be given up through God's helping Grace, if they keep us back from\nthe narrow way which leads unto life eternal.\n\n   * Mark ix. 43.\n\nJohn Carey thought long, and thought sadly; his brain grew weary, his\nmind confused, till at length he could do no more than simply lift up\nhis heart to God, and ask for His Spirit to guide him. The once strong,\nself-willed man was becoming more like the little child who knows his\nown weakness, and turns to a parent for help and support.\n\nJohn's solitude was suddenly broken by the sound of tramping footsteps\nwithout, and then a loud rap from some one's knuckles on the outer door\nof the cottage. The latch was lifted, and Dick Brace entered with a\nquick, bustling air. He threw down a newly-killed pigeon on the table,\nand greeted John in a loud hearty tone, such as had not been heard for\nmany weeks in that sick-room.\n\n\"Ha! Old fellow, glad to see you about again, though,\" he added with\nan oath, \"you look like one who's had to swim hard for life\u2014they've\ncropt your mane, and not left much of the 'young lion' about you. I've\nbrought a pigeon I've shot with a new gun I've been trying\u2014no, it's\nnot worth talking about,\" he added, with a blustering awkwardness of\nmanner, as John seemed about to thank him for the bird.\n\nAnd Brace seated himself opposite to the invalid, looking fidgety and\nsomewhat embarrassed, as John might have perceived, had he not been too\nbusy with his own thoughts to notice the manner of his companion.\n\n\"You are just the man as I was a-wanting to see,\" said young Carey, his\npale face flushing with the effort of speaking; \"I've something to say\nto ye, Dick, and I'd better out with it at once. You see, I don't want\nto deal unhandsome by you\u2014but about that partnership we meant to set\nup\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course that affair went to smash when you were robbed of your tin,\"\ninterrupted Dick Brace; \"one can't set up in business with only a\nshovel, a spade, and a hammer!\"\n\n\"But I was not robbed,\" began Carey, when again his companion cut him\nshort.\n\n\"Besides, I've been thinking,\" said Dick, \"that two landlords would\nbe one too many for the 'Jolly Ploughboys'\u2014a landlady would be quite\nanother thing; so,\" he added, with an awkward little laugh, \"I'm going\nto enter into partnership for life, and I've found Dinah Dealtry quite\nwilling to set up in business with me.\"\n\nJohn's flushed face turned very pale; this was the only sign of emotion\nwhich he gave. He let not a word escape that might betray his secret to\nDick, who, having told his tale, soon afterwards took his leave.\n\nWhen Widow Carey came home, full of thankful joy, with the money, she\nonly thought her son unusually silent and grave\u2014she believed that this\nwas because he was weary, but she did wonder not a little that his\nappetite should have so suddenly left him.\n\nWhen Mrs. Carey heard afterwards from the baker of Dick's engagement to\nDinah, the mother guessed what it had been that had cast a gloom over\nher son. She never mentioned the girl's name to John, and it never once\npassed his lips. The young man felt that his prayer for guidance had\nbeen answered in wisdom and goodness, but he could not feel thankful\nthen for the blighting of earthly hopes.\n\nBut a time was coming when John Carey could not only submit, but\nrejoice that he had been kept from the path that he had wished to\npursue; when he could be grateful from the bottom of his heart for the\nblows which had nearly cost him his life, for the sickness which had\nwasted his strength, the disappointment which had wounded his heart.\n\nThis was when, about a year afterwards, he brought a bright, happy\nyoung bride to his home, and saw his mother's eyes beaming with\npleasure almost as great as his own; for Jane was the girl of all\nothers whom the pious widow would have chosen to dwell with her as the\nwife of her son.\n\n\"You'll give us your blessing, mother, won't you?\" asked John.\n\nThe widow took the strong hand which was held out to her, joined it to\nJane's, and pressed both to her happy heart.\n\n\"Oh! My children,\" she cried, \"may God\u2014your father's God\u2014give you both\ngrace to go on as you have begun, walking hand in hand, as pilgrims to\na better home\u2014cheering each other, and helping each other on the way!\nNever forget that all earth can give is nothing without God's blessing;\nthat blessing gives peace and hope in this life, to be followed by\nperfect bliss with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy, and in\nwhose right hand are pleasures for evermore!\"\n\n\n\n                          AN HEIR OF HEAVEN\n\n                                 OR,\n\n                      A CHRISTIAN IN PRIVILEGE.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nThe Lonely Cot.\n\nLONELY was the little cottage in which dwelt Silas Mytton, the hewer\nand chopper of firewood. It stood in a corner of a heath, with not\nanother house near it, and all the winds could sweep over it unchecked\nfrom every quarter. It was a small patched-up place, with one little\nwindow at the side of the door, and above it another peeping from under\nthe low thatched roof. The cottage had been scarcely large enough to\nhold Silas, his wife, and their five children; but now Mrs. Mytton was\ndead, and the eldest boy had gone to sea.\n\nThe common looked pleasant enough in the summer, when the blossoms on\nthe flags showed like white feathers round the patches of water, and\nthe heather purpled the ground, and yellow furze dotted it with gold,\nand geese fed there, and donkeys browsed, and butterflies fluttered\nover the honied wild-flowers.\n\nBut a very dreary place looked the common in winter, when the heath was\nbrown, and the blossoms dead, and the patches of water grew broader\nand larger, and all around them was swamp, till sharp frost turned the\nwater into ice, and the north wind rushed wildly across the waste, and\ncovered it with snow. Mytton's cottage was then a dreary abode indeed,\nfor seldom did any one care to go near it, and the wind not only swept\nover but through it, at least so it seemed to the dwellers therein.\n\nThere was a little thatched out-house or shed in front of the cottage,\nand from thence, hour after hour, as long as daylight lasted, might be\nheard the sound of chopping up wood. It was by this, that Mytton gained\nhis living; for, except in harvest-time, and then rarely, he never\nworked as a day-labourer for any of the farmers around. Wood-chopping\nseemed to come as natural to the Mytton family as flying does to birds,\nor swimming to fishes. Mrs. Mytton had been chopping in the shed but\nthe day before she died, and on the evening after the poor woman's\nfuneral, when her sorrowing family returned from the churchyard, they\nset to chopping again. Mytton might be seen constantly at work, with\nhis shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing his hairy freckled\narms as he steadily plied the hatchet.\n\nHe was a hard-featured, stern-looking man, with rough grizzled chin,\nand cheeks shaven but once a month, and his appearance was that of\none who had had a long struggle with want and care. Mytton's trials,\nhowever, had rather soured than subdued him; he was a prouder man in\nhis cottage than Sir Marmaduke in his castle. The wood-chopper was\nwont to tell his children on winter evenings how his grandfather's\ngrandfather had been a gentleman, and a mighty rich one too, who had\nowned more acres of land in Shropshire than there were sedges round the\npool; who had kept twenty hunters in his stables, and had gone up to\nLondon once every year in a family coach drawn by six fine grey horses.\n\nThe little Myttons, shivering in their cold cottage, used to listen\nto their father's accounts of such grandeur in bygone days, much as\nthey would have listened to fairy stories. They knew that they neither\nfared better, nor worked the less hard, because they bore the name of\nsome grand squire who had lived at a time which seemed to them as far\nback as that of the Deluge. The fine family coach was to the young\nwood-choppers much the same kind of thing as that which Cinderella's\nfairy in the story made out of a pumpkin. When the tale had been told,\nthe cottage children went to their beds, and thought very little more\nabout the grandeur of olden times.\n\nAll but Amy, the eldest girl, a shy and thoughtful child, with large\nforehead and earnest brown eyes, which seemed never to rest on the\nobjects near her, but to be looking for something beyond. As Amy's\neyes, so was her mind; in her secluded cottage home, the girl was\nliving in a little world of her own.\n\nWhen scrubbing the tile-floor, or mending the linen, or chopping wood\n(for girls as well as boys passed most of their time at this work),\nAmy's thoughts were full of fancies suggested by her father's winter\ntales. She was imagining the grand times come again\u2014her father living\nin a turreted castle ten times as large as Sir Marmaduke's dwelling,\nand her brothers\u2014Silas, Ned, and Joe\u2014each mounted on a prancing white\nhorse with trappings of gold; and her dear mother dressed out in satin\nand gems, giving out loaves every Sunday to hundreds and hundreds of\nthe poor. These were but foolish fancies, and Amy would have been\nashamed to have told them to any one but little May, her youngest\nsister, who would open wide her blue eyes and think how delightful it\nwould be to ride in a carriage, and eat roast meat every day in the\nweek!\n\nAmy's foolish day-dreams only lasted till the time when, at a lady's\nrequest to her parents, she attended a village school, which was nearly\ntwo miles from her home. Then every day the little pale girl, with her\nbag on her arm, might be seen crossing the common. Amy was the quickest\nand most willing of scholars, her lessons were always well learned,\nshe was ever ready with her answers, and the teacher regarded as her\nbest pupil, the thin, stunted, sickly child, who seemed to take in the\nmeaning of everything with her eyes.\n\nThese were very happy times for poor Amy, though the walk to and from\nthe school was almost too much for her strength, and wearily she\ndragged her limbs along before she reached her father's cottage. Amy\nwas ill-clad and ill-fed, her frame had never been hardy; with her\nnothing seemed to grow but her mind. At the age of twelve, which was\nhers when my story opens, Amy was little taller, and scarcely as heavy,\nas her sister May, who was but half that age.\n\nAmy's happy school-days had not lasted for long. After the sudden death\nof her mother, the eldest girl of Mytton could no longer be spared\nfrom home. She must, young and fragile as she was, do the cleaning and\ncooking, the washing and mending, and help with the chopping besides.\n\nAmy never complained, and seldom cried except at night when every one\nelse was sleeping, but she felt her mother's loss keenly. She felt\nalso her own weak health, for her strength was ebbing away day by day.\nStill the poor child went on with her labour as long as her small thin\nfingers could work; till one day she almost fainted in the shed, and\nnever more was the chopper to be lifted by Amy Mytton. She did what she\ncould in the cottage, but that little grew less and less; a terrible\ncough racked her frame; her head drooped as if its weight were too much\nfor her strength to support, her appetite totally failed her, and Amy\ncould never keep herself warm.\n\nMytton did not appear to see the change in his daughter, or, if he did,\nit aroused his impatience, not his tenderness; indeed there was little\nof tenderness in the nature of Silas Mytton.\n\n\"I wish that you would get rid of that trick of barking, child!\" would\nbe the almost angry exclamation of the father, when disturbed by the\ncough which had broken Amy's rest half through the night.\n\nIf, when he drove his bundles of wood in a donkey-cart to the town,\nany one who knew poor Amy inquired after her health, \"Oh! she's well\nenough,\" he would say. Or, if he could not say that, Mytton's answer\nwould be, \"The child's a bit pinched with the cold, but she'll be all\nright in the spring.\"\n\nBut spring came, and Amy was not all right: the March winds seemed to\nchill her slight frame, even more than the hard frosts of winter. With\na bitter spirit Mytton saw his pale, patient little girl gradually\nfading away.\n\n\"If she'd common comforts, she would do well enough,\" he would mutter.\n\"If she had a rich man for her father, she'd not live in a cottage\nwhich lets the wind in like a sieve, she'd be wrapped up in velvets and\nshawls, and have a score of doctors, and they'd soon get the little one\nround.\"\n\nMytton fell into the common mistake of thinking that money could do\neverything, and this had the effect of filling his soul with malice and\nenvy towards those better off in the world than himself, as if what the\nrich possessed were something taken from the poor.\n\nMytton had the savage feelings of a man who thinks that he has been\npushed out of a place which is his by right, and Amy learned to dread\nanything recalling to her parent what his grandfather's grandfather had\nbeen in the past, for it always put him out of humour with everything\nin the present. Mytton would growl at his hard fare, abuse every one\nabove him in social position, or, if he were in a silent mood, hack\nsavagely at his wood, looking as if it were by no means the only thing\nwhich he would willingly chop into pieces.\n\nAmy's brothers and little sister were so much accustomed to hear her\ncough, and see her feeble and sickly, that it never entered their minds\nthat her illness might end in death. They had never known Amy strong,\nand the change in her was so gradual, that the children who were with\nher day after day scarcely noticed it at all.\n\nOne March morning, however, little flaxen-haired May came to her sister\nwith a perplexed and rather troubled expression on her round, chubby\nface.\n\n\"Amy,\" she said, laying her thick sun-browned fingers on the wasted\nhand of her sister, \"when Mrs. Gapp was here about the wood, what do\nyou think I heard her a-saying to her husband 'bout you?\"\n\n\"What was it, dear?\" asked Amy.\n\n\"She looked at you sad-like and said, (she didn't know I was\na-hearing,) 'She's not long for this world,' says she, and Gapp, he\nanswered nothing, but he nodded his head so gravely. Amy, what did she\nmean?\"\n\nA light delicate flush rose on the pale cheek of Amy, and a strange\nbrightness came into her eyes. She raised them for a moment towards\nthe blue sky, and then turned them earnestly, not sadly, on her young\nsister.\n\n\"Did she say that?\" asked Amy, softly.\n\n\"What did it mean?\" repeated May.\n\n\"That I may soon go\u2014where dear another has gone,\" murmured Amy, folding\nher thin little hands, and again glancing up at the sky.\n\nMay, child as she was, was startled at the words and the look; for the\nfirst time it flashed across her mind that her sister must be very ill.\n\n\"You must not go\u2014you shall not go\u2014we can't spare you\u2014we can't do\nwithout you!\" cried May, throwing her arms around her sister, as though\nto imprison her in their tight, loving embrace.\n\nOne thought possessed the mind of the little rustic for all the rest\nof that day, how could she make Amy well? The child was chidden by\nher father for being hours absent from the wood-shed, \"after some\nmischief,\" as he said, when poor May had only been employing her\nclumsy fingers in stitching up her own pinafore into a pillow-case,\nand tearing up paper to stuff it, so that Amy's languid head\u2014that head\nwhich so often was aching\u2014might have a cushion to rest on. It was with\ngreat triumph that May carried her pillow to Amy in the evening; to\nhave made it all by herself was a feat, to have invented it was an\neffort of genius, and the child thought that her cushion must work a\nwonderful charm on her suffering sister.\n\n\"Is it not nice\u2014does it not make you feel so comfy?\" asked May, as she\nplaced her somewhat flat and limp paper cushion over the back of the\nwooden chair upon which Amy was seated.\n\n\"It is very nice, very comfy, I shall prize it so dearly, for it is\nstuffed with love,\" replied the sick girl, with a faint but pleasant\nsmile.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTreasure Found.\n\nON a bright sunny morning in the beginning of April, Silas Mytton\nharnessed his donkey to the cart, and led it to the shed, where he\nand his two younger sons loaded the cart with the bundles of wood on\nthe sale of which their livelihood depended. The air was mild; Amy's\nchair was dragged by May to the doorway, where the sunbeams came\nstreaming in; and there the little invalid sat watching her father and\nher brothers, Joe, the elder of the two boys, standing in the cart to\nreceive the bundles that were tossed up to him, and pile the firewood\nin something like order. It was always with goodwill that the boys\nhelped to load the wood-cart, for on the days when it went to the town,\nthe noise of chopping was silenced, and the axe and knife might lie\nstill on the block in the shed.\n\n\"Hard work they've cost us, and little enough they'll bring us!\"\nmuttered Mytton, as the last bundle was put on the top of the rest.\nHe gave a blow with his stick to the patient donkey to make it move\non, and slowly the wood-cart creaked along the rough road across the\ncommon, Silas Mytton walking beside it.\n\nMay followed it awhile with her eyes, and then ran up to her sister.\n\n\"Amy, you're better, much better!\" cried the affectionate child. \"I\nknow you'll soon be quite well.\"\n\n\"What makes you think so?\" asked Amy.\n\n\"Oh your eyes are so bright, and you look so happy\u2014happier than you\never have looked since mother died, and Silas went off to sea.\"\n\n\"I am happy, I was having such pleasant thoughts,\" said Amy.\n\n\"I daresay you was telling yourself a nice story, such as you used\nto tell me,\" observed May, \"about our being very rich and grand, and\nwearing\u2014oh I such fine clothes! Very different from this old thing!\"\nadded the child, laughing, as she touched her father's fustian jacket,\nwhich lay across Amy's knee.\n\nThe sick girl had been attempting to put a patch on one of the sleeves,\nbut the weight even of an old garment wearied her wasted arms, and she\nhad put it down on her lap.\n\n\"I was thinking of royal robes\u2014white and shining, like those beautiful\nclouds up yonder,\" said Amy, softly, \"and crowns all glittering like\nthe dew on the grass, when the sun is shining upon it.\"\n\n\"For us to wear?\" asked May.\n\n\"Yes, for us to wear,\" replied Amy; and again that expression of peace\nand joy which, had struck her little sister before, lighted up the sick\ngirl's sunken features.\n\n\"Oh! Amy, I want you to tell me a story, like as you used to do,\" cried\nMay, with eager pleasure. \"There's father gone away with the cart,\nJoe and Davy are off to see if they can't find a bird's nest in some\nhedge-row, there's no one here but you and me, and won't we be cosy\ntogether! I'm going to make another pillow, for that one's got a bit\nflat;\" (rather flat it had been from the first, notwithstanding being\noften beaten up by the thick little fingers that had made it.)\n\n\"Look, I'll bring the three-legged stool and sit at your feet,\"\ncontinued the child; \"but first I'll run and get some paper to tear up\ninto bits\u2014I know where I can find some, quite enough for a tiny pillow.\"\n\nAway ran the little cottager, cheerful and blithe as the bee that was\nhumming over the common on that sweet morning in early spring. Her\nfears for her sister had quite passed away\u2014childhood is seldom long\nburdened with cares. And the discovery of an old bag which might, with\nvery little trouble, be turned into a tiny pillow-case had sufficed to\nmake May quite happy.\n\nThe child soon returned to Amy, holding up with one hand her print\ndress, so as to enable her to early in it a supply of loose pieces of\npaper, which she intended to tear into fragments for stuffing, while\nwith the other hand she dragged the three-legged stool which was to\nserve as her seat.\n\n\"I must take care that the wind does not blow all my paper away!\"\ncried May, as the breeze which she met at the cottage door sent some\nfragments fluttering behind her. \"I'll sit with my back to it\u2014just\nhere; or, stay\u2014please hold my papers for me, Amy, while I run for the\nbag to put the little bits into as fast as I tear them up, or they'll\nbe blown all over the common.\"\n\nWhen May returned with the bag, she found Amy eagerly looking over the\npapers which had been left in her charge.\n\n\"Oh! May, darling, where did you find these?\" exclaimed Amy, without\nraising her eyes from her occupation, as soon as she heard the step of\nher little sister.\n\n\"In the boys' room,\" replied May; \"them papers was all turned out of\nthe old box that Joe made into the hen-roost; it was full of dirty old\npapers that warn't no use to nobody.\"\n\n\"No use!\" exclaimed Amy, with unwonted energy. \"Oh! May, look\u2014look\u2014here\nare leaves from a Bible, from God's own Word! I am so happy, so\nthankful to get them!\" And the sick girl pressed a fragment, yellow\nwith age, to her lips.\n\n\"I thought you'd a whole Bible of your own\u2014what you got at the school\nas a prize,\" said May, who did not share, nor understand the pleasure\nof her sister on finding a few torn leaves.\n\n\"I gave it to Silas, 'twas my parting present, and oh! How I've longed\nfor a sight of a Bible since!\" exclaimed Amy, whose affection for her\nbrother had led her to make what had been to her a sacrifice indeed.\n\"And now God sends me these precious papers! Let's gather out every\npiece, May, that has any of the Word printed upon it.\"\n\n\"Not such a little scrap as this surely,\" said May, picking up a small\nfragment that had fallen on the ground.\n\n\"Let us see what that little scrap holds,\" said Amy, and taking it from\nMay she read aloud, \"'an inheritance undefiled, and that fadeth not\naway, reserved in heaven for'\u2014\" *\n\nHere the paper was torn, it contained but a part of a verse. But the\ngaze of Amy rested on it with joy as she cried, \"May, May, these few\nwords describe what we look for, long for, the Home prepared up above!\"\n\n   * 1 Peter i. 4.\n\n\"I don't know what they mean,\" said May; \"what is that long word\n''heritance?'\"\n\n\"It has something to do with coming into property, I think,\" replied\nAmy. \"Don't you remember what father said yesterday evening about the\ngreat inheritance in Shropshire which some one of our name had a long\nlong time ago?\"\n\n\"Oh! That meant the great house, with all the hundreds and thousands of\nacres about it that we hear about, but never see!\" laughed May.\n\n\"But we believe\u2014we believe that there is such place,\" said Amy.\n\n\"I don't care much about it, for I know I shall never have it!\" cried\nMay.\n\n\"But if you believed that you might have it, that you certainly would\nhave it one day, that it had been bought and was reserved\u2014that means\nkept for you, would you care then?\" asked Amy, with an eagerness which\nbrought on a violent fit of coughing.\n\nIt was some time before she had recovered her breathing sufficiently\nto enable her to go on with the conversation. As soon, however, as Amy\ncould speak, she continued, but in a fainter tone, \"Now, May, this is\njust what I believe about the inheritance in Heaven, undefiled, and\nthat fadeth not away. I believe that there is a bright, happy, glorious\nHome which the Lord Jesus bought for us, for me, for you, with His own\nprecious blood, and which He is keeping for us, until He has made us\nready to enter in, and dwell there for ever.\"\n\n\"You mean when we die?\" said May very gravely, looking full into the\npallid face of her sister; the fear which she had dismissed was rising\nup again in the mind of the child.\n\n\"Oh! What is dying to a Christian! It is going home\u2014getting\npossession,\" cried Amy, faintly but joyfully. \"His treasure is in\nHeaven, and he is going to enjoy it! You should have heard, May, how\nour teacher used to speak of the beautiful land above!\n\n   \"'There fairer bowers than Eden bloom,\n     Nor sin nor sorrow see\u2014'\"\n\nAgain the cough interrupted the words of the young invalid. Amy, after\nthe fit was over, leaned back on her pillow in a state of exhaustion.\n\nMay ran and brought her some water; Amy drank it, and smiled.\n\n\"You must not speak, it makes you cough so,\" said May.\n\n\"I mayn't have much time left for speaking, darling,\" faltered Amy;\n\"and I wish so much to tell you things that may make you happy, as I\nam, when God has taken me up to my Home. May, what does it matter now\nto that Mytton who lived so long long ago that he was so rich and so\ngreat, had servants and horses in plenty, and all else that money could\nget! He had his inheritance, but he could not keep it, he could not\ntake anything with him into his grave.\"\n\n\"But he may have been a good man,\" observed May, \"some rich people are\ngood, you know.\"\n\n\"If he was a real, true Christian, as I hope he was,\" said Amy, \"then\nhe left his earthly inheritance for one ten million times better! See,\nMay, see, here is another description of it in this leaf torn from the\nBible; listen how beautiful it is:\n\n   \"'The street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.\nAnd I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are\nthe temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the\nmoon to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb\nis the light thereof.'\" *\n\n   * Rev. xxi. 21, 22, 23.\n\n\"Who is the Lamb?\" asked May, who had listened with a kind of wondering\nawe.\n\n\"The Lord Jesus Christ,\" replied Amy, pronouncing the sacred Name with\nreverence. \"He is called the Lamb, because as a lamb was killed by\nthe Jews in the old-old times as a sacrifice for sin, so the Blessed\nSaviour was killed as a Sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. He is\n'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.' \u2020 That is\nthe wonderful history which I used to read in my Bible. May, the Lord\nsuffered, willingly suffered all the pain that cruel men could inflict,\nthat He might wash away our sins, and make us the heirs of Heaven. Was\nnot that wonderful love! He lay, as a Babe, in a manger, and died, as a\nMan, on a cross, that we might dwell in glorious mansions and live for\never and ever. Was not that love\u2014oh! Such love!\"\n\n   \u2020 John i. 29.\n\nAmy closed her eyes, and May, glancing up at her sister, could see that\ntheir lashes were moist with tears.\n\nThe little child laid her hand upon Amy's. \"We will love the Lord too,\"\nsaid she.\n\nAmy opened her eyes, and, smiling on May, softly murmured, \"'We love\nHim because He first loved us.' * It is so sweet to love the Lord\nJesus, and rest on His love; to serve Him now, and then see Him, as I\nhope to do\u2014very soon.\"\n\n   * 1 John iv. 19.\n\nThere was nothing more said on the subject at that time. May busied\nherself in carefully separating every fragment of the torn Bible from\nthe rest of the papers which she had brought, putting \"the holy words,\"\nas she called them, into her bag.\n\nAmy intended to stitch them all carefully together, to keep as a\ntreasure, when she should have strength to sort and arrange them. In\nthe meantime, the few verses which she had read to May were as manna\nfor her soul to feed on.\n\nIn her coarse, faded black print dress, seated at the door of her\nhumble home, with deadly sickness upon her, the cottager's child felt\nhappy and rich; was she not, through redeeming love, an heir of the\nkingdom of light and glory? Yea, far firmer than the mountains stands\nthe promise of Christ to the lowly believer, \"Blessed are the poor in\nspirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.\" \u2020\n\n   \u2020 Matt. v. 3.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nA Search.\n\n\"HOW late father is of coming back,\" cried Joe, as he entered the\ncottage, flushed and heated, after a long ramble with his brother.\nSunburned little peasants were they, clad in coarse garments which,\nwith their rough wear, gave plenty of work to Amy's thin fingers.\n\n\"You've been a-clamberin' and scrambling about,\" observed little May.\n\"Joe, your smock is torn right down the side, and, David, the brim is\nnigh off your straw hat\u2014a bit o' yer hair is sticking through.\"\n\n\"You'll give a stitch or two, and make the old thing hold together!\"\ncried David, tossing the hat to Amy. \"It ain't fit for a scarecrow.\nThat rich old Mytton, as father talks on, he'd ha' stared could he ha'\nseen what his grand-grand-children would ha' come to!\"\n\n\"Oh! That old Mytton, I think he was the man in the moon!\" laughed Joe.\n\"I don't believe a word about that big carriage and six grey horses.\nBut I say, what's become of father, I thought he'd ha' been back afore\nnow.\"\n\n\"I hope father's sold the wood, or won't he be in a way, and won't we\ncatch it!\" cried May.\n\n\"He was going not only to sell but to buy at the town,\" observed Amy.\n\"Father promised to get a nice new bit of print for you, May, for I\ntold him I'd mended and patched that frock of yours as long as I could,\nbut that now it's all coming to pieces, let me do what I will, it's so\nold.\"\n\n\"I don't think as how it ever was new!\" cried Joe. \"You wore it at\nfirst yourself as long back as I can remember, Amy.\"\n\n\"Ah! There's father coming! I can see him over the common!\" exclaimed\nMay eagerly, for the purchase of a new frock was a great event to the\nchild.\n\n\"And there's no wood left in the cart, I'm glad of that,\" observed\nDavid. \"But sure Dobbin must be lame, he's a-going so slow. There's\nfather a-whacking him well; but he don't go much the faster.\"\n\nThe sound of Mytton's blows on the back of the patient, plodding\ncreature always gave pain to Amy's kindly heart. She would never have\nwillingly inflicted pain on any of God's creatures, least of all upon\none that had long and faithfully served her.\n\nThe children went out to meet their father, all but Amy, who was so\nfeeble that to rise unaided from the chair upon which she was seated\nwas an effort almost beyond her strength. The poor girl could tell from\nthe tone of Mytton's voice before he entered the cottage that he was\nout of temper, and inclined to quarrel with all the world.\n\n\"Take the beast out of the cart, boys; he's not worth the thistles that\nhe crops! I don't believe I could get five shillings for the lazy brute\nif I sold him to-morrow. And there was Sir Marmaduke, with his two\nspanking bays,\" continued Mytton, as he crossed the threshold of his\nhumble little dwelling, \"whirling along the highway, covering me with\nhis dust, and nigh driving over cart, donkey, and all; a fellow whose\ngrandfather was a manufacturer, and spun all his money out of sheep's\nwool!\" Mytton threw himself down on a seat, pulled off his felt cap,\nand wiped his heated brow with his hand; a handkerchief was a thing of\nwhich he did not boast the possession.\n\n\"Did you buy the print for me, father?\" cried May, who had followed\nMytton into the cottage.\n\n\"No,\" the man answered sharply.\n\n\"Oh! You forgot it!\" exclaimed May, in a tone of disappointment.\n\n\"I didn't forget it, I was in the shop, the fellow behind the counter\nwas just going to serve me, when a fine open carriage pulls up at\nthe door, and Sir Marmaduke flings the horses' reins to his liveried\nlackey and gets out. Of course, I had to stand back to let the fine\ngentleman pass, I whose ancestor kept a coach-and-six, when he, maybe,\nwas a-running barefoot behind it!\" Mytton looked unutterable scorn as\nhe spoke. \"He'd come to ask after the yellow satin he'd ordered for his\ndrawing-room curtains; yellow satin, forsooth! Every yard of it costing\nas much as I'd earn in a week by my labour! I didn't choose to stand\nthere waiting till a sneak of a shopman had done bowing and fawning and\nsmiling to the great man, whose fortune had sprung up like a mushroom,\nso I turned on my heel and went out. I'm as good a man as Sir Marmaduke\nany day, for all his swaggering pride!\"\n\nAny one who had seen the sneer on the lip of the peasant might have\nguessed, and would have guessed truly, that there was more of pride\nunder his blue smock, than swelled the heart of the wealthiest peer in\nthe land. In a savage spirit of discontent, Mytton cut a thick hunch\nof bread from the loaf which Amy had spread ready for him, and a slice\nfrom the piece of stale cheese. There was no grace said before dinner\nby Mytton, indeed thanksgiving would have keen a mockery from one who\nlooked upon himself as wronged, because he had been born in a station\nas lowly as that which the Lord of Heaven, when He came to visit earth,\nhad chosen for His own.\n\nMytton ate his bread and cheese in gloomy silence, which his daughters\nwere afraid to break; the two boys were lingering outside with the\ndonkey. Presently Joe thrust in his flaxen poll at the door, and said,\n\"There be a yellow post chaise coming 'cross the common.\"\n\nAnd May ran out to look at it, either because any kind of conveyance\nwas a rarity in that place, or because the presence of one stern\nirritable man made the cottage uncomfortable.\n\nThe thoughts of Amy had wandered far-away from the scene before her,\nwhen they were suddenly recalled to earth by an exclamation from her\nfather, who was seated opposite to the open door.\n\n\"Why\u2014the chariot is stopping here!\" cried Mytton.\n\nA bald-headed gentleman put his head out of the carriage window.\n\n\"Can you tell me, little girl, if any one of the name of Mytton lives\nin this neighbourhood?\" said he, addressing himself to May, who stood\nwith her chubby finger in her mouth, staring at instead of answering\nthe stranger.\n\n\"That be my father,\" said Joe, grinning with wonder that any one coming\nin a yellow chariot should wish to see him.\n\n\"Is any one wanting me?\" asked Silas, rising and going forth from his\ncottage, for in that quiet spot every word spoken had been heard in the\ndwelling.\n\nInstead of replying, the gentleman opened the door of the chaise and\ngot out.\n\n\"I thought, from the description given me, that this must be the place,\nSharp,\" said he to a younger man who directly followed him.\n\nMytton looked a little surly, like an Englishman who feels that his\ncottage is his castle, and wishes to know on what errand strangers\ncome, before he welcomes or admits them.\n\n\"Have you any business with me, sir?\" he inquired.\n\n\"I have a little business, my good man, which can best be transacted\nwithin doors. My name is Garway\u2014I am from London. Can I have a little\ntalk with you?\" asked the gentleman.\n\nAnd, taking Mytton's silence for consent, he and his companion entered\nthe cottage, followed by Silas and the wondering group of his children.\n\n\"Pray don't disturb yourself\u2014an invalid, I fear,\" said Mr. Garway,\nmotioning courteously to Amy, who had attempted to rise on his entrance\nto offer one of the strangers her chair.\n\nThe lawyers, for such they were, then seated themselves on high wooden\nstools which Mytton had made himself, and the younger man produced,\nto the surprise of the children, not only a large pocket-book, but an\nink-bottle and steel pen, and pushing aside the fragments of bread and\ncheese on the table, placed his writing materials upon it, evidently\npreparing to take notes. This looked like business indeed.\n\n\"Can you inform me,\" said Mr. Garway to Silas, \"whether you are in any\nway, however remotely, connected with the ancient family of the Myttons\nof Oaklands, in Shropshire.\"\n\nThe question brought the blood to the swarthy cheek of the hewer of\nwood.\n\n\"My grandfather's grandfather was the owner of the finest place in that\ncounty,\" said he.\n\nThe children glanced curiously at the strangers, half expecting them\nto laugh at such a boast from so poor a man as their father; but they\nboth looked perfectly grave, and Mr. Sharp dipped his pen, and wrote\nsomething in his book.\n\n\"From what source do you derive your information\u2014I mean, how do you\nknow the fact which you assert?\" inquired Mr. Garway.\n\n\"I have heard my grandfather speak about it often, when I was a boy,\"\nanswered Silas; \"he died afore I was ten years old.\"\n\nMr. Sharp set down the reply.\n\n\"But have you only oral\u2014I mean, do you only draw upon your own memory?\"\nasked the lawyer. \"Can you trace up the family links which connect you\nwith Hugh Mytton, who lived in the reign of Queen Anne? Have you any\nproofs to give that you are descended from him?\"\n\n\"May I be bold, sir, to ask why you put these questions?\" asked Mytton,\nthe strong brawny fist which he was resting on the table actually\ntrembling with nervous excitement.\n\n\"It may be of consequence to you, my good friend, that I should know\nall that you can tell me. I put these questions in no spirit of idle\ncuriosity. The fact is, that the last inheritor of Oaklands, in the\ndirect line, has died, and there is considerable difficulty in tracing\nout to whom the succession legally belongs.\"\n\nThe little rustics stared at each other; they could not understand the\nlawyer's long words, but they could see that they powerfully excited\ntheir father. The veins in his forehead swelled, his hand trembled more\nthan before. A dim idea dawned on the minds of the young Myttons that\nthe fairy tale of the coach and six horses might turn out to be true\nafter all!\n\n\"Now, let me ask you again,\" continued Mr. Garway. \"Have you any means\nof proving your descent from Hugh Mytton of Oaklands?\"\n\n\"I remember my grandfather telling me all about him forty years ago, as\nwell as if it were yesterday,\" stammered forth Mytton.\n\n\"Ah\u2014you remember, but that's not quite enough. Can you tell me the\nnames of your grandfather's parents, when they lived, and at what\nchurch they were married?\"\n\nSilas rubbed his brow, passed his fingers through his hair\u2014looked first\nto the right, and then to the left\u2014but could make no reply to the\nquestion. It was very clear that his memory could not go beyond his\ngrandfather, and the tales which the old man had told. He was unable to\ndeclare, with certainty, even where his own parents had been married.\nMytton could give no distinct evidence on any point, except as to his\nhaving heard in his childhood of the great property in Shropshire,\nowned by one of his ancestors, who used to go up to London once a year\nin a coach drawn by six fine grey horses.\n\n\"But have you no documents, no certificates, no family papers of any\nkind?\" asked Mr. Sharp, upon whose steel pen the ink had dried, while\nhis companion was vainly trying to draw information from Mytton.\n\nMytton caught at the lawyer's suggestion, as a drowning man might at a\nrope.\n\n\"There was a box holding papers somewhere,\" cried he.\n\n\"Yes, in our room,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Fetch it\u2014bring it at once!\" cried both the lawyers and Mytton,\nspeaking together.\n\n\"Can't, it's a hen-coop now,\" muttered the boy, shrinking back, alarmed\nat the fierce expression on the face of his father.\n\n\"You little dog\u2014\" began the enraged man, but Mr. Garway stopped his\nexplosion of rage with a gesture of the hand.\n\n\"Softly, friend, let me question the boy,\" he said. \"If the box has\nbeen made into a hen-coop, what have you done, let me ask, with the\npapers it contained?\"\n\n\"I han't done nothin' with 'em,\" faltered Joe, giving a timid sidelong\nglance at his father.\n\n\"Yes, you patched the window-pane,\" said little May, pointing to the\ncasement in which more than one pane held more of paper than of glass.\n\nMr. Sharp instantly rose, went up to the window, and carefully examined\nthe paper; then shook his head, and returned to his seat.\n\n\"It, is desirable that every fragment of old papers which the box\ncontained should, if possible, be recovered,\" observed Mr. Garway. \"I\nwould have the strictest search made for them at once.\"\n\nOff started Joe and David, almost before the sentence was finished;\nthey were only too glad to make their escape from the room, and their\nambitious hopes were awakened by the gentlemen evidently setting great\nvalue upon what had seemed worthless to them.\n\n\"I has,\" began May, and stopt short in fear.\n\n\"You have what, little woman?\" asked Sharp.\n\n\"Bits in my bag,\" whispered the child.\n\nMytton eagerly snatched the bag from her arm, and emptied its contents\non the table; turning-the bag inside out, to make sure that no scrap\nshould escape his notice. He turned over the soiled printed leaves with\nevident disappointment.\n\n\"Only bits of an old Bible, no use at all,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, my good man,\" said Mr. Garway; \"it by no means\nfollows that an old family Bible, of which these leaves appear to have\nformed a part, should be of no use to us in our search. Many persons\nkeep family records of births and marriages in the blank page of their\nBibles, and if this\u2014\"\n\n\"Ha! Look here!\" interrupted Mr. Sharp, catching up a yellow\nthree-cornered morsel of paper with writing upon it, which had got\nmixed up with the printed portions. \"Here is '\u2014ried June 1, 1714,'\ndoubtless this is part of an old record of marriage.\"\n\n\"If we could only discover the rest of the page from which that was\ntorn,\" cried Mr. Garway. \"I should not wonder if we found that we had\ngot hold of the right clue at last.\"\n\nDiligent search was made amongst the papers which May had put into her\nbag, but not another scrap could be found to match that three-cornered\nbit. The whole cottage\u2014upstairs and downstairs\u2014was searched;\u2014the shed,\nthe yard, the dust-hole, the hen-coop, every likely and unlikely spot\nwas hunted over for paper, and papers were found, but the lawyers,\nafter examination, shook their heads at them all.\n\nThe Mytton family were in a state of violent excitement, all except one\npallid girl who sat by the window, almost unnoticed, because too feeble\nto join in the search. The extreme anxiety to find a page taken from\na family Bible, a page which might possibly help to prove a right to\nan earthly inheritance, sadly contrasted with the utter indifference\nfelt as regarded the heavenly inheritance to which God's Word skews\nthe believer's claim. But that indifference was not shared by Amy: the\nscene of bustle around her suggested holy thoughts to her mind. While\nSilas and the lawyers were eagerly peering over fragments of papers\nbrought by the younger Myttons, the words of a hymn, like soft, low,\nmusic, were breathing peace into Amy's soul.\n\n   \"When I can read my title clear\n      To mansions in the skies,\n    I'll bid farewell to every fear.\n      And wipe my weeping eyes.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nEarthly Hope.\n\nTHE sun's red rim had just sunk over the common; evening would soon\nclose in, nothing had been found, save that one little scrap, which\ncould possibly help even a keen lawyer in finding a clue. The strangers\nrose to depart, sorry to have had their trouble for nothing; the boys\nwere quaking at thoughts of what would follow after the gentlemen had\nleft; for a thunder cloud of gloom had gathered on the face of their\nfather, and the children could read that face too well to expect to\nescape a storm.\n\nMay was standing close by Amy's chair, when, after a severe fit of\ncoughing, her sister bent down towards her and whispered, \"May, I have\njust thought of something; is not my pillow stuffed with paper?\"\n\n\"Oh! Please\u2014please don't say nothing about it!\" was the anxious\nwhispered reply, \"Father will whack me well for tearing it up into such\nlittle bits.\"\n\n\"I will try not to bring you into trouble; but I think that we ought to\ntell father,\" said Amy.\n\nMr. Garway had risen, and was putting on his hat, as he turned to nod\na kindly good-bye to the sick young girl. Amy, with a painful effort,\ndrew the pillow from under her head and said faintly, \"Perhaps this had\nbetter be looked at, it is stuffed with pieces of paper.\"\n\n\"Why did you not tell that before?\" exclaimed Mytton with anger.\n\nAnd in a moment, his rough hand had torn up poor May's work from the\ntop to the bottom, and scattered its contents in a little heap on the\ntable.\n\n\"Plenty of fragments of old manuscripts here,\" said Garway, whose quick\neye instantly detected the yellowish hue and the peculiar fabric of\nmany of the morsels of paper.\n\n\"Ah! I should not wonder if this matched our three-cornered bit,\" cried\nSharp, pouncing upon a tiny piece which held but three letters, \"mar.\"\nHe placed the two fragments together, they fitted exactly.\n\nMytton uttered an exclamation of triumph.\n\n\"We must carefully search over all these bits of paper,\" observed\nGarway, \"and fit in the fragments, if we can, like pieces of a\ndissected map. But this tedious work will take hours, if not days, and\nwe have already been here for a considerable time. We will take away\nthis heap of little scraps, and pursue the occupation at our leisure.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, genl'men, but not one bit of paper shall go out of\nthis cottage!\" cried Mytton, to whom it seemed as if the fortunes of\nhimself and his family had all been sewn up in that pillow. \"Search\nhere till doomsday, if you like it, but I'll not have a scrap of that\nthere heap taken out of my sight.\"\n\nExpostulation was in vain; the hewer of wood, feverish with ambitious\nhopes, would not trust his treasure to the care of the lawyers. The\nhunt for yellowish scraps, which were carefully collected and put\ntogether, went on till darkness closed in, and then the lawyers\nre-entered their conveyance, and drove off to take their dinner at the\nnearest inn, promising to return in an hour.\n\nDuring the time of their absence, Mytton, never so much as raising\nhis eyes from his occupation, went on as if life depended on success,\nsetting one little scrap by another, and muttering savage words,\nwhich made Amy's blood run cold, about the folly which had torn into\nfragments that which might be of such priceless value. It was well for\nthe children that Mytton was too busy with his heap of small scraps, to\nvent his anger in anything but words.\n\nIt was nearly two hours before the lawyers returned, and there they\nfound Mytton, just where they had left him, bending over the table, and\nanxiously examining the stuffing of Mary's pillow by the dull light of\na tallow dip. The children had all gone to bed, for Amy's cough had\nirritated her father, whose nerves were painfully on the strain. And\nMay, after many a long, weary yawn, having fallen asleep on the floor,\nhad been roughly wakened, and sent upstairs.\n\nThe lawyers brought clearer light and sharper intelligence to the work\nbefore them, which was pursued till far into the night. With the help\nof a little paste, all the scraps which could be made to fit into\neach other were arranged into something like order. At last, nearly\nhalf of the flyleaf of the family Bible, with its record in different\nhandwritings of births, marriages, and deaths, stretching over more\nthan a hundred and fifty years, was patched together\u2014the rest of the\nleaf had been irrecoverably lost.\n\nThe lawyers left the cottage weary and sleepy; Mytton went to his\npallet bed, weary, indeed, but so restless that he could not close an\neye till the dawn. It seemed almost as if the labouring man were never\nagain to enjoy a night of sound rest.\n\nA lawsuit was commenced regarding the succession to the Mytton estate,\nwhich, for month after month, dragged its slow length along. Other\nevidence besides the mutilated fly leaf, but partly collected through\nclues which it gave, was brought forward in courts of law. Mytton\nawaited the conclusion of the suit with a restless impatience which\ndeprived him of appetite and sleep. Daily labour to earn a scanty\nsubsistence became intolerable to a man who hoped to find himself the\npossessor of several thousands a year.\n\nMytton and his family almost starved while awaiting the wealth which\nwould, perhaps, never be theirs. Mytton twice sold part of the scanty\nfurniture of his home to scrape up money to take him to London, to\nwatch the progress of his suit. The very flesh wasted from his bones,\nthe poor man grew haggard and wan, and his temper more savage than\never. From morning till night he could think of, speak of nothing\nbut the inheritance which he hoped for, and the same theme haunted\nhis dreams. And this was a man who had had placed within his reach a\nheavenly inheritance beyond all price, yet who had scarcely given it a\nthought! A man who had had in the Scriptures the very title deeds, as\nit were, of that inheritance, and yet had not taken the trouble to read\nthem.\n\nStands he alone in his folly?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nHeavenly Hope.\n\nTHE summer flowers came, and withered away; the days grew shorter and\nshorter. The swallows took their flight to warmer climes; winter was\nstealing on apace, and yet the lawsuit was not ended on which hung the\nsuccession to the Mytton estate!\n\nAmy's feeble spark of life was growing fainter. It was a surprise to\nherself that she had survived to see the winter, with increasing cares\nand hardships around her. But the poor sufferer had not been left\ndeserted; help had been sent her in time of need. The clergyman, who\ncame from a considerable distance to visit the sick member of his flock\nin her lonely dwelling, interested other friends in her case; many a\nlittle comfort found its way to the cottage on the common, which Amy\ngratefully received as a gift from her Father in heaven.\n\nA few days before Christmas, when the wide common looked like an almost\nunbroken sheet of snow, the rough and little used cart-track across\nit being entirely hidden from view, little May sat on her low wooden\nstool at the feet of her sister. The poor child looked thinner and more\nthoughtful than she had done in the spring, when this story opened.\nThere was no sound of wood-chopping from the shed, which was itself\nfalling into decay.\n\nMytton had now gone, as he often went, to the nearest public-house\nto get a sight of the papers, for the tedious suit was apparently\nat length drawing near to its close. The boys did not care to work\nunless their father's eye were upon them; they had run off to amuse\nthemselves, no one exactly knew where. They had little to tempt them to\nstay near the cottage; the last bit of bread that was in it had been\nfinished at breakfast.\n\n\"Oh! Amy,\" sighed poor May, \"I wish\u2014I wish we'd never heard of that\nMytton estate, that those men in black coats had never come near\nour cottage, or found these scraps in your pillow! Looking for that\ninheritance, as father calls it, has been plague and worry to us ever\nsince, and if he don't get it at last, 'twill drive him right out of\nhis wits!\"\n\n\"I fear that disappointment now would nigh break his heart!\" murmured\nAmy.\n\n\"But if he does get it, won't it make him happy, oh! So very, very\nhappy!\" cried May.\n\n\"I don't know\u2014I hope so; but one can't be quite sure with anything\nearthly,\" said Amy.\n\nMay looked surprised at the doubt. \"I'm sure that it will, if father\nonly gets the inheritance,\" she cried; \"but 'tis so very long a-coming,\nI'm afraid it will never be his.\"\n\n\"I believe that I shall enter into mine first,\" said Amy very faintly,\nand her lips formed the words to which she had hardly strength to give\nbreath, \"far better\u2014far better\u2014undefiled and that fadeth not away!\"\n\nThere was something in the countenance of Amy, sweet and placid as it\nwas, that alarmed May, she could scarcely tell why. The child rose\nhastily and ran to the door, she felt more anxious than she had ever\nbefore been for her father's return.\n\nScarcely had May opened the door, when Mytton's shadow fell on the\nthreshold; she had not heard his footsteps on the deep snow. The face\nof Silas was pale with excitement, even his lips were bloodless, and\nwild eagerness was in his eyes. He clutched in his hand a telegram\npaper, having met the bearer in the way. May saw at once that great\ntidings had arrived, but scarcely knew whether Mytton's strange manner\nbetokened the excess of despair or of joy.\n\nShe was not long left in doubt!\n\nWith the loud exclamation, \"I have it!\" The inheritor of Mytton strode\ninto the cottage up to the place where Amy was seated.\n\nPerhaps she had heard the exclamation of triumph, for there was a smile\non her lips, but it might have been left there by a thought of deeper,\nsweeter joy than any that his tidings could give. Amy's expectations\nhad been realised, she had entered on her inheritance of life, and\npeace, and bliss!\n\n\nVery often in succeeding years did May Mytton think on the doubt\nexpressed by her dying sister as to whether the possession of an estate\nwould make their father happy. It certainly never did so. The chopper\nof faggots, uneducated, unfitted to mix in the society of those now his\nequals, proud and shy, afraid of ridicule, and painfully conscious that\nhis rustic manner must expose him to it, was more miserable in his fine\nold mansion than he had been in his lonely cottage.\n\nThe conduct of Joe and David planted his pillow with thorns. They were\nsent to a fashionable school, where they learned, indeed, much that\ngentlemen's sons are expected to know, but with it, acquired habits of\nreckless extravagance and folly. The boys thought themselves far more\nof gentlemen than their uneducated father could be, and Mytton bitterly\nfelt that they did so. They wasted his money, despised his control,\nembittered his life by their excesses, and at last disgraced themselves\nin the sight of the world. To Mytton and his two younger sons, the\ninheritance so eagerly desired had brought sorrow, disappointment, and\nshame!\n\nIt was not so with May, or with Silas her eldest brother. They never\nset their hearts upon riches, nor chose their portion here. They made\nuse of the wealth which they inherited as a trust confided to them by\ntheir heavenly Master, most enjoyed when most laid out to His glory.\n\nFor Amy's short life of suffering had not been spent in vain: the Bible\nwhich she had given, the words which she had spoken, had been of far\nmore avail in ennobling the two who loved her best, than all the broad\nacres of Mytton.\n\nMay, amidst many family trials, pursued her course of usefulness\nin humble faith, cheered by the hope of rejoining her sister, and\nrejoicing with her for ever, in that bright inheritance above which the\nLord hath prepared for them that love Him!\n\n\n\n                              A SAINT\n\n                                 OR,\n\n                      A CHRISTIAN IN CHARACTER.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nThe Patient Restored.\n\n\"I'M glad that you'll have your husband back again to-day, Mrs.\nLaver, and I hope that such a long time spent in the hospital will\nhave set him up for good,\" said Mrs. Batten, the fishmonger's stout\ngood-humoured wife, as she took up the little parcel of snuff which she\nhad just been purchasing at Mrs. Laver's counter.\n\n\"It is time he was back indeed. I've had the shop on my hands these ten\nweeks, or rather, I may say, these six months, for Martin was, I may\nsay, good for nothing long before he took to his bed,\" replied Mrs.\nLaver.\n\nShe was a thin care-worn woman, about thirty years of age, who had in\nher youth been good-looking; but the lines on the forehead, and at the\ncorners of the lips, showed the trace of trouble, and perhaps also of\ntemper. Mrs. Laver's manner of speaking was snappish and short, giving\nan impression, even to strangers, that her life was full of worries,\nand that she had not much patience to enable her to bear them. Mrs.\nLaver's dress was decidedly shabby, and was by no means improved by\nher attempt to make it look gay. Fringe, that did not match her gown\nin colour, had been sewn on to hide the patches; Mrs. Laver had stuck\nfaded roses into her brown-black lace-cap, and dangling gaudy gilt\ndrops were hanging down from her ears. The tobacconist's wife had a\ntrick of jerking her head when anything annoyed her, which set these\nearrings quivering and shaking as if in anger or scorn. Altogether,\nwith her sharp grey eyes, and tightly-drawn lips, Mrs. Laver looked a\nperson with whom few would care to be very closely acquainted.\n\n\"Certainly it's hard upon a woman to have charge of a tobacconist's\nshop,\" observed the fishmonger's wife, glancing at the window, which\nwas darkened with bundles of meerschaums, and boxes of cheap cigars,\nlabels of \"Government manillas,\" and \"fine old shag,\" with pipes whose\nbowls were fashioned into all kinds of fanciful shapes to attract\napprentice boys, and other juvenile customers. Mingled with these,\nprints and ballads, of a very low description, helped to block up the\npanes.\n\nMrs. Laver shrugged her shoulders at the observation; she quite agreed\nthat her lot was a hard one.\n\n\"I'm sure,\" she said, \"that if any one knew the moiling and toiling\nI've had, what with looking after the shop, and keeping things tidy\nand respectable like, minding the child, and\u2014ah! You little brat!\"\nexclaimed Mrs. Laver, interrupting her complaint, to make a sudden dash\nat her little girl, a child of about two years of age, who, having been\nplaced by her mother on the counter, had stretched out her hand to the\njar of snuff left upon it.\n\n\"You're always in mischief, you are!\"\n\nThere was a sharp slap, and then a low sobbing cry; little Annie was\nnot likely soon to forget the maternal lesson against meddling with\ngoods on the counter.\n\n\"Poor little soul,\" said Mrs. Batten, glancing with pity at the child,\nwhose cheek, usually pale, was reddened by the mother's blow, and wet\nwith the tears running down. \"How like she is to her father, to be\nsure! She does not look over strong either. You'll bring her with you\nto Greenwich to-morrow, and your husband too, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Yes, a breath of fresh air on the river would do any one good who had\nto live in this poky little street! Hold your noise, will you!\"\n\nThese last words were addressed by Mrs. Laver to Annie, and accompanied\nby a violent shaking of the little girl's arm, which set the mother's\nearrings quivering.\n\n\"If you go on whining like that, I'll give you to the black man, I\nwill, instead of taking you with me to Greenwich!\"\n\nMrs. Batten had just succeeded in fumbling a lozenge out of her pocket,\nand whether from the effects of the sweet, the threat, or the shaking,\nAnnie was soon quiet enough, though her cheeks still glistened with the\ntears which her mother had not wiped away.\n\n\"We start at two, don't forget,\" said Mrs. Batten; \"if to-morrow is as\nfine as to-day, the steamer is like to be crowded.\"\n\n\"The more the merrier,\" replied Ann Laver, the frown passing away from\nher brow, though its furrow always remained there: \"a bit of a spree\nwill brighten up my man; he had got so gloomy and moping-like when his\nillness was coming on, that I did not know what to make of him. He's\nfond of the river, I know. Good-day to you, Mrs. Batten. We'll be down\nat the wharf before two.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, little one,\" said the fishmonger's wife, as she quitted the\nshop, nodding and smiling at Annie, who, still perched on the counter,\nwatched her with wistful eyes.\n\nThe sweet little face of the child was again very pale, with its\nhabitual expression of patience and thought. Annie did not look like a\nlight-hearted child. One might have fancied, as she sat with her large\nblue eyes fixed on the jars and pipes and papers in the window, that\na good deal was passing through her infant mind, and that not of a\ncheerful description.\n\nThough Mrs. Laver was fond of her only child, there was not much\ntenderness in her manner towards her. Mrs. Laver would have been\nindignant had any one charged her with cruelty, above all towards her\ndaughter; but the harsh word, the hasty slap, the angry threat with\nwhich Annie was familiar, had much the same effect on the poor little\ngirl that a blight has on the tender green leaves of the spring. Annie\nloved her mother, but scarcely as much as she feared her. The little\none wanted more of the sunshine of smiles.\n\nShe had pined wearily for her father, and the two first nights after\nMartin Laver had gone to the hospital, his child had cried herself to\nsleep, \"'Cause Daddy's away, and I can't have his bye-bye kiss,\" as she\nsobbed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nDecision.\n\nVERY quiet and very dull sat Annie on the counter, staring gravely at\nthe window. She could not clamber down from the counter, and she dared\nneither play with anything on it, nor ask to be set down on the floor\nby her mother, who was putting things in order on a shelf, with her\nback towards the little girl. Suddenly Annie uttered a cry of delight,\nstretched out her hands, and in her eagerness to get down from her\nperch would have fallen off the counter, had she not been caught in the\narms of her father, who fondly pressed her to his heart.\n\n\"Ah! Martin, is that you? I did not look for your coming till the\nevening,\" cried Mrs. Laver, turning round, and then giving her husband\na welcome that was not unkindly, though she shewed none of the\nrapturous delight of the child, who clung to her father's neck, and\nburied her face on his shoulder.\n\nMartin Laver was a tall, fine-looking man, and until his illness had\npossessed more activity and strength than most men; but his eyes were\nnow sunken, his face looked sickly, and he slightly stooped from\nweakness.\n\n\"Put that monkey down, she'll tire you,\" said Ann.\n\nMartin smiled, and, shaking his head, pressed his little one to him\nmore closely. He however took a seat, and sat down in the shop, leaning\nhis arm upon the counter. It was such a pleasure to him to feel the\nsoft little hands of his child again stroking his face, and playing\nwith his whiskers, and then the sweet infant lips pressed to his cheek.\n\nIn the conversation between husband and wife which followed, Ann took\nby far the larger share. She told all the gossip of the neighbourhood,\nwhile Martin sat listening, or perhaps scarcely listening, with a\nthoughtful, and somewhat anxious look on his face.\n\nAnn expected a great deal of credit from her husband for the way in\nwhich she had conducted the business during his absence.\n\n\"I cleaned that window with my own ten fingers,\" she observed, \"and\nthat's not what every woman would have done, you may take my word for\nthat.\"\n\nThe expected praise was heartily given.\n\n\"And I've arranged it too, with a pretty bit of taste; those picture\nballads attract the passersby, as fly-papers catch flies, specially the\none about the murder.\"\n\n\"Ah! That reminds me of what I had resolved on,\" said Martin, rising\nfrom his seat.\n\nAfter setting down Annie on the counter, he went up to the window, took\ndown the papers, and examined them, one after the other, dividing them\ninto two sets as he did so. Martin then replaced the larger number in\nthe window, but four of the ballads he laid down on the counter with\nthe words, \"You had better use these to light the fire, my dear.\"\n\n\"Light the fire! My patience,\" exclaimed Mrs. Laver, her earrings\nglancing and twinkling with the jerk of her head. \"Why, each of those\nmay bring us a penny, and I'm not so flush of cash as to use them for\nlighting fires. Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care\nof themselves.\"\n\n\"With me this is no mere matter of money,\" said Martin. \"I want to tell\nyou, dear wife, all that is now on my mind. I've been thoughtless and\ncareless enough in times past, but my eyes have been opened of late,\nand I intend, God helping me, to lead from henceforth the life of a\nChristian man.\"\n\nMartin spoke with some effort, for he knew that his words would rouse a\nbitter feeling of opposition in his self-willed and worldly wife.\n\n\"As a matter of conscience,\" continued the husband, \"I have resolved\nthat nothing immoral or profane shall ever again be seen in my shop.\"\n\n\"Hoity, toity! Fiddlety dee! Here's a pretty kettle of fish!\" exclaimed\nMrs. Laver, in a tone that frightened Annie, and made her stretch out\nher hands to her father. \"I thought that, in the hospital, you'd have\ngot rid of all that stuff and nonsense.\"\n\n\"In the hospital I hope that I have got clearer views both of a\nChristian's hopes and a Christian's duties than I ever had before,\"\nbegan Martin.\n\nBut his wife would not let him finish his sentence.\n\n\"Put back those pictures, I say, and don't let us have any more of this\nsort of thing, which will only keep us in perpetual hot water!\" she\nexclaimed. \"Put them back, or I'll do it myself,\" and she advanced as\nif to take them.\n\nMartin was a poor man, but he knew that God had placed him in the\nposition of master in his own little home. He did not choose to bandy\nwords with his wife, but he gave his answer in his action.\n\nQuickly and firmly, he put the four ballads together, and tore\nthem across, then laid down the halves on the counter. There was a\nresolution shewn by his manner and look, that for a moment overawed as\nwell as surprised Ann Laver. No man is likely really to lose his hold\nover the affections of his wife, by letting her see that her influence\ncannot turn him from what he knows to be right. The husband who wins\nhis spouse's respect is most likely to keep her love.\n\nCustomers now entering the shop, Martin took his place behind the\ncounter and served them, while Mrs. Laver carried off Annie to the\nlittle back parlour. The woman was sullen and out of temper; she\nforesaw that struggle which must take place, sooner or later, in every\nhome, where two who are not agreed on the most important of subjects,\nare coupled together as man and wife.\n\n\"There will be no peace her; I can see that well enough,\" muttered Ann\nto herself. \"He'll be pulling one way, I pulling the other; but let\nhim drag his very life out, he'll never get me to follow him in his\nmethodistical ways!\"\n\nThe jerk which followed this resolution was more defiant than usual.\n\n\"There will be no peace here!\" How often had that painful thought\ncrossed the mind of Martin, as he had lain in the hospital ward,\nsilently resolving, at whatever cost, fully to follow the Lord.\n\nFeeling too weak in health to be able to battle against a woman's\nviolent will, yearning for the quiet, and comfort, and love, which can\nmake even a humble home such a holy and happy place, Martin had looked\nforward with something like dread to the constant domestic struggle\nwhich was likely to follow any attempt on his part to lead a consistent\nlife. Laver could better, far better, have borne even persecution from\nwithout, than the constant jarring with the woman whom he loved, which\nseemed likely to embitter his life. It was as one who girds himself\nand prepares for a painful conflict, that Martin, on returning to his\nhome, resolved from the very first to confess his principles openly,\nto take his stand on the ground of conscience; and while acting with\nconsideration and gentleness towards his wife, never to yield to her a\nsingle point where his duty to God was in question.\n\nMartin had not, however, much opposition to encounter on that day of\nhis return, which chanced to be the last of the week. Perhaps Ann's\nheart, for she had a heart, had warmed towards the husband of her\nyouth, who had suffered so patiently and long; perhaps the sight\nof that pale sunken cheek roused a feeling of pity within her. Ann\nkept truce on the first evening, and gave only a look of careless\nindifference when Martin asked aloud a blessing at his meal, with his\nAnnie's little hands tenderly folded within his own.\n\nAnnie was very unwilling to quit her father when Mrs. Laver, in her\nquick sharp manner, told her that it was time to come to bed, for that\nshe could not keep her eyes open. Those blue eyes filled with tears,\nlittle arms were clasped round Martin's neck, and he only prevented the\nchild from bursting out crying, by a promise to come in a little while,\nand give her a good-night kiss. Mrs. Laver carried Annie upstairs, and\nMartin was left alone with his thoughts.\n\n\"That child is as a piece of my heart, dearer than my life!\" reflected\nthe parent. \"Helpless and weak as she is, able to do little more than\nlisp my name, that very helplessness and weakness only serve to make\nher more dear! She can, at least, cling to me\u2014and love. How gracious\nis God to compare His own tenderness to that of a parent! 'Like as a\nfather pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.'\nAnd all that God requires of us is just what a parent requires of a\nchild, faith, love, and obedience.\"\n\nThere was a proof of love and obedience which Martin knew it to be his\nbounden duty to give; but he, like many other fathers of families,\nespecially those who are married to worldly wives, felt it to be a duty\nvery difficult to perform. For some little time before going to the\nhospital, Martin had found the comfort of private prayer, but he had\nnever yet ventured to propose family prayer to his wife. Martin knew\nthat it would be well to begin the custom on that night; delay would\nnot only be wrong, but would increase the difficulties before him.\n\nLaver reproached himself for the repugnance which he felt to entering\nupon the subject to Ann. Were they not one in the sight of God and\nof man? Should they not be one in their hopes and their actions? But\nMartin knew too well that, in all that regarded religion, he and his\nwife were not one, but severed by a great gulf.\n\nFor several minutes he stood irresolute beside the little crib in\nwhich Annie lay asleep, before he could summon up resolution to say to\nher mother, \"Wife, let us thank God for His mercies, and ask for His\nblessing, together.\"\n\nWithout waiting for a reply, Martin instantly knelt down, and though\nAnn remained standing, she was perfectly quiet while her husband\noffered up a short but very earnest prayer for herself, himself, and\ntheir child.\n\nTo speak was at first an effort, but courage and joy came with prayer,\nand Martin rose from his knees like one who has had a burden rolled\nfrom his heart.\n\n\"Thank God, I have made a beginning!\" thought the husband.\n\n\"Where will this end?\" thought the wife.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nDivision.\n\nAS Martin Laver was still weak from recent illness, he slept till\na later hour than usual on the Sunday morning. It would have been\npleasant to him to have begun his home-life again with a day of rest,\nhad he not more than suspected that, from the opposing views of his\nwife, Sunday, of all days in the week, was most likely to prove a day\nof conflict.\n\nThe first sight which greeted the eyes of Martin, after he had come\ndownstairs in the morning, was that of Ann Laver arranging the pipes\nand cigars in the window.\n\n\"Nay, Ann, no need to take that trouble,\" said her husband. \"I'll put\nup the shutters again. I've asked God's forgiveness for having so\noften broken the Fourth Commandment, and His help to keep it better\nin future. From this time forth, we will neither buy nor sell upon\nSundays.\"\n\nAnn's short truce with her husband was over, and her passion burst\nforth the more violently from having for a while been kept under\ncontrol.\n\n\"I tell you what, Martin, I'm not going to have more of this nonsense!\"\ncried the woman, turning fiercely round on her husband. \"We've hard\nenough work as it is to keep soul and body together, while we do as\nother folk do. Sunday's our best day for business, and, if you're such\nan idiot as to put up your shutters to please the parson, you'd better\ngive up shop-keeping at once, and take to begging, or throw yourself\nand your wretched family upon the mercy of the parish!\"\n\n\"I do not think so,\" replied Martin, calmly. \"I believe that no one\nis the worse in the end for obeying the Word of God in a simple,\nstraightforward way. 'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He\naddeth no sorrow with it.' * But were it not so, had we only the choice\nof a poorhouse with that blessing, or a palace without it, we should be\nfools indeed did we choose the latter. 'What is a man profited, if he\nshall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man\ngive in exchange for his soul?'\" \u2020\n\n   * Prov. x. 22.     \u2020 Matt. xvi. 26.\n\n\"I hope you don't mean to set up for a saint!\" cried Ann, with a\nscornful jerk of the head.\n\n\"I wish to be a real Christian,\" replied Martin \"and the one is the\nsame as the other.\"\n\n\"What stuff you are talking!\" cried Ann, with impatience. \"Of course we\nare Christians, not heathens, though we don't pretend to be saints.\"\n\n\"Saint, which means holy, is the Bible name for all God's servants,\"\nreplied Martin, leaning against the counter as he spoke. \"You will find\nthe word Christian, I think, but three times in all the Scripture, that\nof Saint more than forty or fifty; St. Paul's description of all the\nLord's people in Rome was 'beloved of God, called to be saints.'\" \u2020\n\n   \u2020 Rom. i. 7.\n\n\"I am no saint, and I don't want to be one,\" said Ann Laver, with\nscorn; \"but I know that I'm a baptised Christian, and that is enough\nfor me!\"\n\n\"Simon had but lately been baptised,\" observed Laver, \"when St. Peter,\nthe apostle, said to him, 'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this\nmatter, because his heart was not right in the sight of God.' \u2021 Oh!\nDear wife, suffer me to speak for a few minutes freely on those things\non which our salvation depends. God asks for our hearts, He will accept\nnothing less, and He accepts these hearts that, by His Spirit, He may\nmake them holy.\"\n\n   \u2021 Acts viii. 21.\n\nAnn would not hear her husband to the end.\n\n\"How you veer and change about!\" she exclaimed. \"Before you went to the\nhospital, it was all\u2014'What must I do to be saved?' And now you are all\nfor holiness as the way to get to Heaven.\"\n\n\"No, never, not the way!\" exclaimed Martin, with such energy that his\nwife stared at him in surprise. \"Christ is the Way, the only Way, it\nis His blood that cleanseth from all sin. * But, as some good man has\nsaid, 'He does not save us in our sins, but from our sins.'\n\n   * 1 John i. 7.\n\n\"'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature'; \u2020 he that comes to\nthe Saviour in faith, seeks to follow the Saviour in that 'holiness\nwithout which no man shall see the Lord!'\" \u2021\n\n   \u2020 2 Cor. v. 17. \u2021 Heb. xii. 14.\n\nAnn Laver had never come to the Saviour, nor felt her need of being\nsaved; she was one of the many who choose their own way, and do their\nown will, and yet expect, somehow or other, to get to Heaven in the\nend. She was like a person with bandaged eyes walking towards the edge\nof a precipice, and the attempt to unbandage her eyes, or stop her\non her perilous course, only roused her pride and her anger. It is\nneedless to repeat the bitter things which she said to him whose love\nhad made him speak the truth which she hated to hear. After a violent\nburst of temper, Mrs. Laver, slamming the door behind her, retired into\nthe back parlour, where Annie had good reason to know that something\nhad put her mother thoroughly out of temper.\n\nWith a heavy sigh, Martin Laver went to put up his shutters again. He\nwas so weak from his recent illness, that he had to pause more than\nonce, even when making so slight an exertion. Six months before he\nwould have lifted ten times the weight of a shutter with ease. It was\nsad to feel the once strongly-knit arms so feeble; but it was not this\nsense of weakness, nor the fear of approaching poverty, that drew that\ndeep sigh from Laver's heart. It was the burden of that cross which is\nwont to press more or less heavily upon all who would follow Christ\nfully\u2014that cross of which the Blessed Master knew the weight day by\nday, and which He bids all His servants take up.\n\n\"Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the\nworld, therefore the world hateth you,\" * the Lord once said to His\ndisciples, and through His Word He says so still. Persecution has been\nthe portion of God's saints not only in times when fire and sword were\nused to destroy them, but when hatred could be shewn only in sneers and\ntaunts, that do not endanger life, but deprive it of earthly enjoyment.\n\n   * John xv. 19.\n\nWhile Laver was replacing the shutters, he thought of Christian in\n\"Pilgrim's Progress,\" and how hard his wife tried to stop him when he\nwould flee from the wrath to come.\n\n\"He had to bear her taunts and revilings,\" thought Laver; \"what a hard\nstruggle it must have cost Christian to leave all that had once been\nmost dear. How different would his pilgrimage have been, had he and\nhis wife been of one heart and one mind, and gone through all their\ntrials together! But though his wife would not go one step with him,\nshe followed at last in his track. Doubtless he had prayed for her\nvery, very often, and God answered his prayer, though not till after\nChristian had left this earth and its sorrows behind him. Perhaps it\nmay be thus with us; my poor Ann may remember my words, when I am no\nmore here to speak them.\"\n\nMartin raised his hand to his brow, for a faintness was coming over\nhim. \"God help me to be so careful in my daily conduct, to keep my lips\nand my life so pure, that my wife must own, however unwillingly, that\nin trying to be a better Christian, I am also a better husband, father,\nand friend. When she taunts me with being a saint, may I have grace to\nbecome one indeed, that, at least, she may never think me a hypocrite,\nsaying one thing and doing another.\"\n\nAnn would scarcely speak to her husband during all the time of\nbreakfast, but she missed no opportunity of speaking at him, addressing\nherself to their child.\n\n\"Ah! You want more butter to your bread, do you?\" she cried, pushing\ntowards Annie a slice which she had just cut from the loaf. \"Your\nfather takes good care that we shan't have butter, and it will soon\ncome, I suppose, to doing without the bread too!\"\n\nAnn glanced angrily towards the darkened shop as she spoke.\n\nAnnie held out her little foot to her mother, one of her tiny shoes\nneeded repair, and the cotton sock appeared through a hole in the\nleather.\n\n\"So you want new shoes, little brat!\" cried Ann. \"I only wish you may\nget them! You'll have to run barefoot about the streets soon, and what\nwill you do then, I wonder!\"\n\n\"Ask Daddy carry me!\" lisped the little child, as she calmly went on\nwith her meal, undisturbed by fears for the future.\n\nEven Ann could scarcely help smiling at the unexpected reply.\n\nAnd Martin, as he stooped to kiss his little one, thought, \"if she can\nso quietly trust her father, shall I not trust mine, who is the Giver\nof all good things?\"\n\n\"I suppose you'll be going to some prayer-meeting or other?\" said Ann,\nabruptly, to her husband, as soon as the uncomfortable meal was ended.\n\n\"I am going to church,\" replied Martin, and he could not forbear\nadding, \"I wish we could go there together.\"\n\n\"Oh! I'm no saint, whatever you may be!\" exclaimed Ann, with a jerk of\nthe head. \"I'm going to Greenwich with the Battens and their set\u2014a lark\non the river is a deal more to my taste than all your preaching and\npraying. I shall pay for my trip with my last Sunday's earnings, which\nI've kept for the purpose,\" she added, to give a keener sting to her\ntaunt.\n\n\"I should be the last to wish to deprive you of any harmless pleasure,\"\nsaid her husband; \"but if you spend the Lord's day in such an\nexcursion, it will be without my consent.\"\n\n\"Your consent, indeed, I never asked for it!\" exclaimed the rebellious\nwife to him whom she had vowed before God to obey. \"You go your way,\nI will go mine; with your leave or without your leave, I'm off to\nGreenwich by two.\"\n\nThe husband and wife were, indeed, walking on different paths, such\nas must conduct to different ends. \"Broad is the way that leadeth to\ndestruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is\nthe gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life.\" * These are\nour Lord's own words; but how few act as if they believed them to be\ntrue!\n\n   * Matt. vii. 13, 14.\n\nCrowds press along the broad way, careless and disobedient, yet hoping\nthat, after all, peace and rest and Heaven will be theirs at the end!\n\"Ye shall not surely die\" \u2020 is the Devil's whisper still, and, like\nEve, we are too ready to listen. But let those who would continue in\ntheir sins remember that God hath declared in His word that \"the end\nof these things is death,\" \u2021 and that they who are His servants indeed\nhave their fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.\n\n   \u2020 Gen. iii. 4.     \u2021 Rom. vi. 21.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSabbath Hours.\n\nMARTIN found the time spent in church a time of refreshing, and\nreturned to his home in a quiet, tranquil mood, better able to bear and\nto forbear, with the charity which hopeth and endureth all things. It\ngrieved him, however, to see his wife dressed in as flaunting a style\nas their narrow means would allow, and his child also decked out in\ntawdry finery, wearing a faded red sash, and a blue bead necklace round\nher neck.\n\nThe dinner was as uncomfortable a meal as the breakfast had been,\nthough Mrs. Laver now put on gaiety of manner, in a spirit of defiance\nto her husband. She took pleasure in talking to her child of the\ndelights of the coming treat, the band that would play on the deck\nof the steamer, and all the mirth and fun there would be amongst the\ncompany there.\n\nAnnie was too young to understand or to care much about such things;\nshe was rather frightened at the idea of going amongst strangers, and\nlooking up with her arch innocent eyes into her father's face, she\nlisped out, \"Daddy come too!\"\n\nMartin shook his head, and replied, as he stroked the soft hair of\nhis child, \"No, Annie, father is not going in the steamer, father is\nstopping behind.\"\n\n\"Then Annie 'top too!\" cried the little one, thrusting her small hand\ninto that of her parent.\n\n\"You little goose, do you mean that you will not go with me, and have\nall the fun?\" asked Ann, in an angry tone, which certainly had not the\neffect of making the child desire to do so.\n\n\"No, Annie 'top with Daddy!\" repeated the little one, beginning to cry\nat the idea of being taken away.\n\n\"Oh! I'm sure I don't want you, you'd be only a plague; there's nothing\nso tiresome as having children dangling about one in a steamer; one's\nalways afraid of the stupid brats falling overboard,\" cried Ann, with\na passionate jerk. \"It's time I was off,\" she said, rising from the\ntable; \"your father will have had enough of your company, I guess,\nbefore I come back in the evening.\"\n\nBut here Mrs. Laver was wrong. Never had the invalid more enjoyed\na walk than he did the quiet stroll which he took into Kensington\nGardens on that warm afternoon, to give his pale little girl fresh\nair. How pleasant felt the breeze on his cheek, how bright were the\nrays of sunshine that streamed here and there through the trees, what\na thankful heart was lifted up to God from him who so lately had left\na sick-bed, as he sat quietly on the green grass, with his darling\nplaying at his feet!\n\nAnnie's simple prattle was to her father's ear sweeter than any music,\nand scarcely disturbed the holy thoughts which were passing through his\nmind.\n\n\"Much as I delight in my child, should I be willing that she should\nremain always what she is now, small, weak, and knowing little? I look\nfor growth in her young frame, and if from month to month she never\ngrew taller, I should know that some disease must be stunting my child.\nSo we are told in the Scripture to 'grow in grace,' * every passing\nmonth should leave us more earnest, devout, and humble. If our religion\nbe not a growing one, it is a stunted one, nay, we have reason to fear\nlest it be dead altogether. Faith, true living faith, must expand into\nholiness, as the bud opens into the flower, and the dawn brightens into\nthe day!\"\n\n   * 2 Peter iii. 18.\n\nAnnie and her father were very happy together; and when Martin slowly\nwalked homewards, holding the hand of the little prattler who trotted\nby his side, it seemed to him that but for one trial, he would be one\nof the happiest men upon earth. But the remembrance of his wife was\nto Martin like a heavy black cloud in an otherwise brilliant sky.\nSilently, he prayed for Ann as he walked, though little knowing how\nmuch at that moment she needed his prayers.\n\nScanty as was the evening meal, Annie made it a very merry one. No\nbutter had been left from the breakfast, so she played at spreading the\ndry bread with her spoon, and when her father cut it into pieces, and\ncalled them soldiers, the child ate it as contentedly as if it had been\niced-cake. Then a few empty reels to play with, made the little one\nperfectly happy; and while she rolled them backwards and forwards on\nthe floor, Martin could quietly enjoy the pleasure of reading.\n\nFirst, he read his Bible, then a book which had been lent to him by the\nchaplain of the hospital which he had recently quitted. It contained\nthe Memoir of a missionary's wife, * who had laboured amongst the\nJews in the Turkish province of Moldavia. Martin felt particularly\ninterested in the account given of Nahum, a convert, as conveyed in\nsuch passages as these, which I extract from the published letters of\nthe lady:\u2014\n\n\"I wish I could bring before you an aged man, highly esteemed among the\nJews, and also by the Rabbis, a respectable shopkeeper, a good Hebrew\nscholar . . . He is of an acute and philosophical turn of mind, and was\na bitter opposer of Christianity. Fancy this man brought to the feet of\nJesus, and you will see our most interesting Rabbi Nahum . . . He says\nthat in hours of need he has prayed in the name of Christ, and is now\npraying for strength to confess Christ openly; but he says Abraham was\npraised because he was willing to give up his one child; but he would\nneed to be nine times as strong as Abraham to give up his nine. He\ndesires the prayers of Christ's people.\"\n\n   * Memoir and Letters of Mrs. Edwards.\n\n\"Poor fellow! Poor fellow!\" murmured Martin, pausing for a moment in\nhis reading. \"His was a hard test of faith indeed; but could he not\ntake his children with him?\" And the father glanced fondly at his\nAnnie, before he went on with his book.\n\nSome way farther on in the volume, he again found mention of Nahum.\n\n\"His mind seems more and more decided; he speaks now of baptism, though\nstill indirectly. He acknowledges that faith should trust all things to\nthe Lord, that He is able to do all things for us. But who can withhold\nsympathy from the father of nine children, when taking a step which\nprobably will involve them all in ruin.\n\n\"I feel for him from the bottom of my soul!\" exclaimed Martin.\n\nAfter reading several more pages in the volume, Martin came to the\naccount of the baptism of Nahum with three of his children, after\nbitter opposition from his unconverted wife.\n\n\"She would not eat nor drink, she abused and upbraided him,\" but she\ncould not hold him back from his purpose of openly confessing his\nSaviour. Martin eagerly read the account of Nahum's first meeting with\nhis wife, after the decisive step had been taken, and her passionate\nexclamations of sorrow for her three baptised children.\n\n\"I hear not\u2014I hear not! I die\u2014I die! I will kill them, then I will die!\nAnd indeed,\" wrote the missionary's wife, \"she threw herself on the\nbalcony ready to die. We feared more for the old man. Twenty-five years\nhave they lived together, true, faithful, attached. After she went, his\nanguish was fearful.\"\n\n\"Anguish, indeed!\" exclaimed Martin. \"When I think of this poor Jew's\nheavy cross, I take shame to myself for shrinking from taking up mine,\nwhich is so much lighter. I daresay that he had other troubles to bear\nbesides the fierce opposition of his wife.\"\n\nMartin read on as follows:\u2014\n\n\"The dear old man determined on Monday to open his shop, his own shop,\nin a street where there are none but Jews. He did so, it almost cost\nhim his life. Upwards of a thousand Jews assembled, stones were thrown,\nand all manner of abuse heaped on him.\"\n\n\"And I,\" thought Martin, with self-reproach \"have deemed it a sacrifice\nmerely to close my shop upon Sundays, to run the risk of a little loss,\nof having, maybe, one meal less in the day, or a more threadbare coat\non my back! What a small\u2014what a paltry sacrifice seems mine by the side\nof that of this brave old man, with a thousand of his old neighbours\nand countrymen baiting him, yelling at him, trying to stone, so fierce\nagainst him, that I see that it is written a little farther on, 'could\nthey have gotten him they would have minced him into shreds!'\u2014Ah! I am\nglad that the Germans were able to protect him a little.\"\n\nIn Mrs. Edwards' next letter, Martin read more of the dangers of Nahum\nand his Christian children, who had taken refuge under the missionary's\nprotection.\n\n\"The Jews collected in vast multitudes, the uproar became great, the\npolice could not keep peace. Our house had been beset with Jews all day\nlooking over the paling, beating any of the lads whom they found in\nthe streets, throwing stones into the court, &c. At length, at night\nI was awakened by loud noises at the gate; they were trying to break\nin. Nahum and his children were sleeping in a little room near the\ngate; their object certainly was to beat or to murder him, and carry\noff the children . . . A boy on horseback was sent to the Consul for\nassistance . . . Meantime several Germans had encountered the Jews, and\ndriven them back.\"\n\n\"This poor Nahum seems to have led the life of a hunted hare,\" observed\nMartin; \"but the worst of all must have been the division between him\nand his wife. Ah! There seems to be something more about her on the\nvery next page.\"\n\nHe read on\u2014\n\n\"His poor wife held out ten days, begging for a divorce, which he would\nnot grant. At length, both she and her eldest son came at night to our\nhouse with the young child, and there they all are now. They are very\nanxious to be baptised.\"\n\n\"Anxious to be baptised!\" exclaimed Martin, joyfully, half-closing the\nbook. \"Then the tie between man and wife held fast after all the hard\nstrain upon it, and when she could not drag him back from the Lord, her\nhusband drew her towards the Saviour! Here are Christian and Christiana\nin that far-away place, Moldavia!\"\n\nMartin went on with his reading again.\n\n\"Ah! I see that the missionary wisely refused to baptise the wife till\nshe should shew that she really desired to be Christ's, and not merely\nto please her husband. But Nahum had won the victory; his home was to\nbe a Christian home.\"\n\nHere is something more about him in a letter from the lady farther on\nin the book:\u2014\n\n\"In the old man we have exceeding great joy; he reads each morning the\nScriptures with his family, expounds and prays.\"\n\n\"That story of Nahum, the converted Jew, seems as if it were just\nwritten for me,\" cried Martin, laying down the volume on the table.\n\"Here am I, an Englishman, in a Christian land, half-afraid to say to\nmy neighbours, 'I will close my shop on Sundays, because I will honour\nthe law of God,' lest they should, perchance, laugh at me for being 'a\nSaint.' There was Nahum, openly confessing his faith at the risk of\nlosing both property and life! Here am I, grieved and discouraged by a\nfew hasty words from poor Ann; there was Nahum standing firm against\nthe persuasions, the anger, the despair, of his wife, though he dearly\nloved her! A poor kind of Christian must I be! I fear but a coward at\nheart, and ill-fitted to bear the burden and heat of the day. God help\nme, and give me more grace and more courage, and then, perhaps, He will\none day give to me, as to faithful Nahum, more cause to rejoice over a\nconverted and loving wife!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nDarkness and Night.\n\nTHE day wore away, twilight came on, Annie grew tired of her play, her\neyelids were heavy, she almost dropped asleep in her father's arms, as\nhe carried her gently upstairs, and put her to bed.\n\nMartin was vexed, but not alarmed at the prolonged absence of his wife;\nhe knew that Ann would be unwilling to quit a party of pleasure early,\nand he was thankful that his little nestling was peacefully asleep in\nher cot, instead of being kept awake to a late hour in the midst of\nbustle and noise.\n\nIt was not till twilight had given place to night, and storm and rain\nhad come on, that Martin became uneasy and restless. Many times he\nwent to the outer door, and looked anxiously up the street, where\nthe gas-lamps were throwing their yellow light on the brown, wet,\nglistening pavement. Few passed the shop on that rough night, save the\npoliceman on his beat; even the public-house on the opposite side of\nthe way looked empty and dark.\n\nAt last there was the rattle of a cab over the paved road. Martin did\nnot expect his wife to come in such a conveyance and was surprised when\nthe horse was suddenly pulled up, as the voice of Mrs. Batten called\nout from the window:\n\n\"Here! This is the place, the tobacconist's shop.\"\n\nThen, catching sight of Martin standing at his door, Mrs. Batten called\nto him in a more subdued tone of distress\u2014\n\n\"Oh! Mr. Laver, for mercy's sake come and help her. Gently, gently, we\nshall hardly be able to get her out of the cab.\"\n\n\"What has happened?\" exclaimed Martin, scarcely able to utter the\nquestion, Mrs. Batten's tone had sent such a chill of dread to his\nheart, as he threw open the door of the cab.\n\n\"Steamers racing\u2014boiler burst\u2014she is frightfully scalded; we took her\nto a chemist's, where her hurts were dressed, but she moaned and prayed\nto be taken home. I thought she'd have died on the road.\"\n\nMartin heard very few of the words of his neighbour, his whole\nattention was anxiously given to his miserable wife. Fearfully\ndisfigured, her swollen features half-covered by bandages, Ann's\nhusband would hardly have recognised her as the same flaunting woman\nwho some hours before had quitted his home.\n\nIt was a difficult task, even with the aid of Mrs. Batten and the\ndriver, to lift Mrs. Laver out of the cab, and, still more so, to carry\nher up the narrow staircase. Every touch caused agony, and the unhappy\nwoman swooned as soon as she was laid upon the bed.\n\n\"She ought to have been taken to the Infirmary, I said she ought,\"\ncried Mrs. Batten; \"but she would hear of no place but home.\"\n\nLittle Annie, roused from peaceful sleep, started up from her pillow,\nstartled at the sound of voices in the room, and still more so at the\nstrange and fearful-looking figure stretched on the bed so close to her\ncrib.\n\n\"What's that?\" cried the child in terror, pointing at her insensible\nmother.\n\n\"Hush! My lamb, lie down,\" whispered Martin. \"Mother's come back from\nGreenwich, you must make no noise to disturb her.\"\n\nEven in that hour of distress Martin thanked God from his heart that\nhis child had not shared the fate of her parent.\n\nMrs. Batten hurried off in the cab for a doctor, whose arrival was\nanxiously awaited by Martin. When the medical man had come and examined\nthe patient, he pronounced Mrs. Laver to be in a critical state. She\nwas in great pain of body and anguish of mind, and passed the rest of\nthat night in fearful misery. At an early hour of the morning, Martin,\nat Ann's own desire, sent an urgent message to Mr. Vale, the clergyman\nof the parish, to ask him to come and see his sick wife.\n\n\"Laver!\" repeated Mr. Vale, when the message was delivered by Mrs.\nBatten. \"Surely that is the name on the tobacconist's shop in John\nStreet.\"\n\n\"The very same,\" said the fishmonger's wife. \"I used always to see\nwith regret that shop open when I passed it on Sundays,\" observed the\nclergyman, who had once entered it when on his way to church, in order\nto expostulate with Mrs. Laver both on her Sabbath-breaking, and on the\ncharacter of some of the ballads exposed in her window. \"Last Sunday,\nhowever, I noticed that, for the first time, the shutters were up. I\nsuppose that both Laver and his wife had gone on this unfortunate party\nof pleasure.\"\n\n\"No, sir, not he,\" replied Mrs. Batten, frankly. \"I wish that none of\nus had had more to do with the matter than Martin Laver. He had words\nwith his wife, she told me herself, poor soul, about that same closing\nof the shop; he was determined to give up all selling and buying upon\nSundays, and mighty angry was she at what she called his folly; but\nmaybe he was the wiser of the two after all.\"\n\nPoor Mrs. Laver, moaning on her sick-bed, had good cause to come to\nthe same conclusion. What had she procured with those Sunday earnings\nwhich she had reserved for the Sunday treat? A few hours of boisterous\npleasure, to be followed by many weeks of pain! And sickness drew\npoverty after it; for Martin's time was necessarily so much taken up\nwith nursing his wife, and attending to their child, that business was\nmuch neglected, while illness brought many expenses. Ann Laver had to\npay a very dear price indeed for her frolic down the river, undertaken\nagainst the will of her husband.\n\nBut this, it may be said, was quite accidental; Ann might have broken\nthe Fourth Commandment every Sunday in her life, and yet have been\nnever the worse.\n\nNo, never believe that, my reader, all money unlawfully earned may be\ncalled Satan's loan, and at one time or other, a fearful amount of\ninterest has to be paid for every farthing thus borrowed. \"Lightly\nwon\u2014lightly gone,\" says the proverb, but this expresses but half of the\ntruth. Ill-gotten money not only seems to slip through the fingers, but\nit leaves a brand on the soul, and a fearful debt on the conscience. An\naccount is kept, and all must be paid for in this world, in the next,\nor in BOTH! *\n\n   * Christ has paid all debts of His saints.\n\nLet not only the godless rich, but the godless poor\u2014the thief, the\nSabbath-breaker, the wretched earner of the wages of sin\u2014pause and\nreflect on this awful sentence, written in God's holy Book\u2014\"Your gold\nand silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against\nyou, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure\ntogether for the last days!\" \u2020\n\n   \u2020 James v. 3.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nA Way Opened.\n\nTHE next six weeks were for Martin, weeks of sore trial. His wife's\nsufferings brought on her an attack of low fever; his night's rest was\nbroken, his strength exhausted by watching, his business was failing\nat the very time when comforts were most urgently needed. Martin\nlocked his sorrow in his own heart, and let not a word escape that\ncould distress his suffering wife. He strengthened himself in the\nLord, comforting himself with the words of Scripture, \"If ye endure\nchastening, God dealeth with you as sons\" . . . thus dealing with His\nchildren that they may be \"partakers of His holiness.\" *\n\n   * Heb. xii. 7-10.\n\nThe visits of Mr. Vale were likewise a great comfort to Martin Laver,\nespecially as they seemed to have a softening effect upon Ann. She was\noften, indeed, irritable and complaining; the pain which she had to\nendure well accounted for that, but she would at least listen to the\ntruth, and never again did she venture to taunt her husband with being\na saint.\n\nAt the end of six weeks Ann was sufficiently recovered to be able to\ncome again into her shop, and even to take her place behind the counter\nfor a short time, while Martin went to make some necessary purchase.\n\n\"Things seem little changed here,\" said Ann to herself, as she glanced\naround. \"There are the pipes which I tied up myself with a bit of old\nribbon, the ballads too in their place, not a soul seems to have bought\nthem. I fear that business has been terribly slack, and my poor Martin\nlooks ill too; he has never had a chance of getting up his strength.\nHe must have had a hard time of it while I was keeping my bed. Oh!\nMrs. Batten,\" cried Ann, as the portly figure of the fishmonger's wife\nappeared at the door of the shop, \"you see I'm again at my post.\"\n\n\"Glad of it, mighty glad of it!\" said Mrs. Batten, coming up to the\ncounter, but with little of gladness upon her good-humoured face. \"I'm\nafraid you've been hard put to it,\" she added, lowering her voice, \"or\nyour good man would not have had his umbrella and greatcoat in pawn.\"\n\n\"In pawn!\" exclaimed Ann, with a startled look; for she had little idea\nof the extent of the difficulties which Martin had had to encounter.\n\"Are you sure that he has them in pawn?\"\n\n\"As sure as that my name is Betsy Batten. I saw him coming out of\nthe shop, and asked him about it, just as he was turning into the\nchemist's, next door, to pay a precious long bill.\"\n\nAnn bit her lip, and silently turned away to busy herself with sorting\ncigars. Here was a startling confirmation of a fear which had often\ncrossed her mind during her illness, that her husband's business was\nnot thriving, and that, unless matters mended, ruin might soon stare\nthem both in the face.\n\nThe tobacconist's wife said nothing more on the subject, though it was\nnever out of her thoughts, until she and Martin were at their quiet\nevening meal, with little Annie sitting, as usual, upon her father's\nknee.\n\n\"Martin, you're a-hiding something from me,\" said Ann, abruptly,\nlooking full at her husband. \"Don't think I'm afraid to hear truth; I'd\nrather know it right out at once, and so be prepared for the worst.\nWe'll be bankrupt before the winter sets in.\"\n\n\"No, not so bad as that,\" replied Martin, calmly; \"but now that you\nare\u2014thank God!\u2014so much stronger, it is better that you should know\nall. There should never be a secret between man and wife. Ann, I can't\nget on with this business; it is to me a losing concern; I don't make\nenough to pay rent and cover expenses.\"\n\n\"And they have been so heavy, so heavy of late!\" sighed Ann.\n\n\"It is a relief to me to find that Mason, our neighbour round the\ncorner, is willing to take the whole concern off our hands at\nMichaelmas, if you and I agree in thinking that it is better to give\nup the business before we are entangled in debt. If this arrangement\nbe settled, we shall then be clear of the world, though,\" added Laver,\nwith a melancholy smile. \"We shall have little enough left, I fear,\nwith which to begin life again.\"\n\nAnn covered her eyes with her hand, and moaned aloud in her bitterness\nof spirit. \"There's no use in going on longer, struggling to get a\nlivelihood here,\" she murmured. \"My father is dead, my brothers won't\nhelp us; I'm sure don't know which way to look.\"\n\n\"Upwards!\" said Martin, hopefully.\n\nThe word had scarcely escaped his lips when a tap was heard at the\ndoor, and on Martin's rising and opening it, the now familiar form of\nMr. Vale, the rector, entered the parlour. Even little Annie had always\na smile with which to welcome the kindly old man, who used to pat her\non the head, and give her his cane to play with.\n\n\"I ask pardon for interrupting you at your meal,\" said the clergyman,\nmotioning to Martin and his wife to resume their seats, while he took\nthat which was instantly placed for him by Ann. \"I thought, Laver, that\nyou might be the man to help me out of a little difficulty in which I\nunexpectedly find myself now. My Scripture reader, John Hallam\u2014you know\nhim?\u2014came to me an hour ago to inform me that he had just received a\ntelegram from Wales. His father, who lives in a farm there, has been\ntaken dangerously ill, and Hallam is wanted at home. Now, it so happens\nthat at this time there is a particular press of work in our parish,\nand my curate is absent on leave. It has occurred to my mind that you\nmight take my Scripture reader's place for a week, or longer, if his\nreturn be delayed. What do you say to the suggestion?\"\n\nMartin and his wife exchanged glances; it seemed as if a door had been\nunexpectedly opened before them.\n\n\"There is no kind of work which I should like better, sir,\" said Laver,\n\"were I only fit to undertake it. But you see, sir, I've no experience,\nand I should but disappoint you and wrong the people, by attempting to\ndo that which I could not perform well.\"\n\n\"I know enough of your character, Laver,\" observed the rector, \"to feel\nsure that your heart would be in the work, and this is one of the first\nof qualifications. Besides, it appears to me that you have studied your\nBible, and love it. It would be a real relief to my mind if I could\nhave one in whom I could put confidence to take Hallam's place, if but\nfor a week.\"\n\n\"There could be no harm at least in trying me for a week, sir,\" said\nLaver, deeply gratified at having been chosen by Mr. Vale to fill, even\nfor a short period, such a responsible office.\n\nMartin little guessed at that time, that the engagement for a week\nwas to last through many years. The father of Hallam died, leaving to\nhim, as his eldest son, the management of his farm and the care of his\nwidow. But Mr. Vale, in the meantime, had found Martin Laver so zealous\nand useful, so diligent in his work, and so judicious in his way of\nperforming it, that the clergyman was glad to retain him in the office\nof Scripture reader.\n\nMartin had now entered upon the happiest as well as the most useful\nportion of his life. It was his delight, as well as his duty, to\nvisit the widows in their affliction, support the weak, comfort the\nsorrowful, and direct sinners to the Saviour. It was given to the\nhumble labourer to win many souls from darkness into light.\n\nBut perhaps Martin's deepest source of happiness was to be found in\nhis own home. Annie grew up to be all that a father's heart could\ndesire\u2014his helper in all good works. Mrs. Laver also learned to realise\nthe blessedness of living the life, as well as of holding the faith, of\na saint. She learned that whom the Lord pardons and saves, He purifies\nalso, and that faith and obedience are closely linked together in this\nworld, as in Heaven holiness and happiness will both be made perfect\ntogether.\n\n\n\n                             A CONQUEROR\n\n                                  OR,\n\n                     A CHRISTIAN IN LIFE'S STRUGGLE.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nA Storm Down Below.\n\n\"WHAT\u2014she says that she saw the silver paper knife in my box! It's a\nfalse slander\u2014it's a burning shame! I defy her to say so again!\"\n\nThese exclamations were uttered by Miriam Macbean in a voice almost\nhoarse with passion, as she turned suddenly round, and with sparkling\neyes and clenched fist, faced the fellow-servant who had, as she\nthought, accused her of purloining the property of her mistress.\n\nCaroline cowered under the tempest of anger which she had brought upon\nherself, for Miriam looked ready to strike as well as to storm. The\nyoung maid was almost foaming with fury, for Miriam regarded her own\nspotless character as something more precious than life; it had never\nbeen so much as breathed on before, and her naturally fiery temper was\nall in a blaze in a moment.\n\n\"Miriam, there is no use in being so angry,\" said her mistress, Mrs.\nMellor, with quiet dignity of manner. \"No one wishes to accuse you\nunjustly, or to believe anything against you. I merely asked Caroline\nif she knew what had become of the silver knife which, as you are\nboth well aware, usually lies on the drawing-room table. I had missed\nit to-day from its place. Caroline has hunted for it in vain, but\nmentioned that she had seen something like it in your box, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Search my box\u2014turn it upside down\u2014I don't care\u2014I'm not afraid of any\ninvestigation,\" cried Miriam, with ungovernable rage. \"Let her\u2014let that\nviper bring down the box, and there's the key.\"\n\nMiriam pushed it rudely towards the lady. \"You shall see yourself, and\njudge for yourself; I'll not stir a step from this spot until this\nmatter is sifted to the bottom!\"\n\n\"Go and bring down the box, Caroline,\" said Mrs. Mellor, perplexed and\nannoyed at the scene before her.\n\nCaroline was only too glad to escape for a few minutes from the\npresence of the furious girl, and muttered to herself as she ascended\nthe stairs, that she wished that she had bitten her tongue off before\nshe had said a word about seeing that knife in Miriam's box.\n\nMrs. Mellor, feeling very uncomfortable, took her seat on a chair in\nthe kitchen, leaning her arm on the dresser, while awaiting Caroline's\nreturn.\n\n\"I am glad,\" she thought to herself, \"that Miriam has a few minutes in\nwhich to let her passion cool down.\"\n\nBut Miriam looked as if her passion were only glowing to more intense\nheat, as she stood with her arms a-kimbo, her eyes glaring, her cheeks\nflushed scarlet, and on her face an expression of defiance which nearly\nbordered on insolence.\n\n\"Open it\u2014open it\u2014turn everything out, I insist on a thorough search!\"\nshe cried fiercely, as Caroline, trembling, brought in the box. \"I\nshouldn't care a straw if all the world were to see what's in it!\"\n\nAnd with her teeth rigidly set, the young maid watched the movements of\nher mistress, as Mrs. Mellor put the key into the lock, turned it, and\nthen raised the lid.\n\n\"I am sure that I do not doubt your honesty, Miriam; had you not\ninsisted yourself\u2014\" began the lady, as she lightly turned over a few of\nthe neatly packed linens and books which the box contained.\n\nShe did not finish her sentence, for at the moment that she uttered the\nlast word her hand touched a paper cutter of white metal which lay near\nthe top of the box, and Caroline exclaimed\u2014\"That's the thing that I\nsaw!\"\n\n\"This is certainly not my paper knife, though something like it, I\nown,\" said the lady, annoyed at the mistake which her housemaid had\nmade.\n\n\"Certainly it is not,\" muttered Miriam. \"It was the parting gift of\nmy soldier-brother before he sailed from England\u2014and there's about as\nmuch silver in it as there is truth in her!\" And she turned a withering\nglance on Caroline, who appeared extremely confused.\n\n\"I've not a notion what has become of the knife. I've never touched it\nsince I dusted it yesterday,\" said the young housemaid.\n\nMrs. Mellor saw that a fierce storm of words was beginning again\nbetween her two servants, and was determined, if possible, to put a\nstop to this, at least for a time.\n\n\"Caroline,\" she said, \"I hear the house-door opened, your master has\njust come in, go and ask him from me whether he has ordered the fish\nfor dinner.\"\n\nAs soon as Caroline had quitted the kitchen, the lady said, turning to\nMiriam, \"I can permit no high words, no quarrelling in my house; I hope\nthat you and Caroline will make up\u2014\"\n\nMiriam had so completely lost self-control that she interrupted her\nmistress. \"I'll not stop under the same roof with her\u2014I'll not stop in\nany place where I've been suspected of stealing! I hope you'll suit\nyourself, ma'am, I give you warning!\" cried Miriam, with passionate\nemotion, the hot tears rising to her eyes.\n\n\"I should be sorry to part with you, Miriam; you have given much\nsatisfaction to your master and me; I do not suspect you in the least,\"\nsaid the lady.\n\nBut Miriam only muttered, \"I'll not stop, I'll not stop!\"\n\n\"You had better consult your friends before you take any foolish step,\nwhich you might bitterly regret,\" observed Mrs. Mellor.\n\n\"I've no friends in London, or anywhere else, only my soldier-brother\nwho has lately returned from Abyssinia,\" said Miriam; \"he is the only\nrelation whom I have now left in the world.\"\n\n\"Go and consult with him then,\" said her mistress; \"you are much too\nangry at present to be able to judge for yourself.\"\n\nAnd the lady quitted the kitchen, thinking to herself as she did so,\n\"What a valuable servant Miriam would be, if she could only control\nthat terrible temper! When there is nothing to ruffle her, no one could\nperform her duties better, but an affair like this serves to show how\nmuch of the tiger-cat spirit is within her.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe Twins.\n\n\"ANYTHING the matter down in the lower regions, my dear? You look\nannoyed,\" said the mild, placid little husband of Mrs. Mellor, as his\nlady entered the drawing-room in which he was resting himself after his\nwalk.\n\n\"Oh! We've had a tempest in a teapot!\" replied Mrs. Mellor. \"Miriam is\nin one of her tempers.\"\n\n\"I thought that I heard loud voices as I came into the house,\" said the\nquiet, easy-going master, as he laid down on the table a new magazine\nwhich he had been reading as he walked.\n\nThe attention of Mrs. Mellor was attracted by the shine of the paper\ncutter which was placed between the leaves as a marker.\n\n\"Why, there's the very silver knife which has caused all this storm!\"\ncried the lady. \"I never dreamed of your having taken it out of the\nroom.\"\n\n\"I wanted it to cut the leaves of my book. Is any harm done?\" asked her\nhusband.\n\n\"I'm afraid that that paper knife has lost me one of the most honest,\nmost industrious, most steady girls that I ever had in my service,\"\nreplied Mrs. Mellor, who was really vexed at what had occurred.\n\"However, it may not be too late to set matters right,\" she added; and\nafter hastily ringing the bell, she quitted the room.\n\nThe loud voices which her husband had heard from the kitchen were\nsounding louder than ever. Mrs. Mellor had rung the bell rather\nsharply, but it was not till she had more than once called out the name\nof Miriam, that Miriam appeared up the kitchen stairs.\n\n\"Miriam, the paper knife is found; your master had it,\" said the lady\nin a mild voice, intended to soothe the feelings of the maid. \"All is\nright now, all is cleared up; I've no wish that you and I should part\nbecause Caroline made a mistake.\"\n\n\"All's not right,\" said Miriam with petulance; \"hurt feelings can't be\nplaistered up with a word. I can't stop in this house with Caroline.\nI'm going to tell my brother, ma'am, that I've given you warning.\"\n\nAnd the ill-tempered girl, turning her back on her mistress, hurried\nupstairs to put on her bonnet and shawl.\n\n\"What a sad pity it is that Miriam, a good girl in other respects, lets\nherself be so conquered by her temper,\" thought Mrs. Mellor, as, with\njust displeasure, she returned to the sitting-room in which she had\nleft her husband.\n\nThe lady would have thought it sadder still, had Miriam been long\nenough in her service for her to have known all the noble qualities\npossessed by this ill-tempered girl. Miriam had as high a sense of\nhonour as could have been hers had she been born and bred a lady. Her\nlips were never stained with untruth, she never did a mean or deceitful\nthing. Had Miriam found the door of her mistress's store-room open,\nthere would not have been in it one spoonful of tea or one lump of\nsugar the less. Had Miriam discovered the contents of a purse scattered\nover the carpet, Mrs. Mellor's gold would have been as safe in Miriam's\ncare as if locked up in an iron box. There was no wretched purloining\nof trifles, no picking or stealing with Miriam; her conduct was as\nupright when no mortal was near to watch it, as if she had known that\nher actions were witnessed by all the world.\n\nFor Miriam Macbean lived in the fear and love of God. Religion with\nher was no empty name. With all the straightforward earnestness of her\nnature, she had given herself to the service of her Heavenly Master.\nWhen, at her confirmation, in answer to the question whether she would\ntake upon herself the vow made for her at her baptism, she had uttered\nthe solemn words \"I Do,\" that answer came from the bottom of her heart,\nand with a fervent prayer that God would help her to keep her vow.\nMiriam had never forgotten that day, and had often repeated that prayer.\n\nAnd Miriam was not only of a conscientious spirit, she had a warm\naffectionate heart. She and her twin brother Hamil had at an early age\nbeen left orphans, and almost alone in the world. Never, perhaps, had\nbrother and sister loved each other more fondly than did the young\nMacbeans. Often would Miriam recall the days of her childhood, when the\ntwins lived in a country home. There was a brook which flowed near the\ncottage in which they had dwelt, and often, when fording this brook,\nHamil would carry Miriam with tottering footsteps across the water, to\nsave her from wetting her feet. The boy, who was strong and hearty,\nwould never allow that the weight of his dear little sister could tire\nhim.\n\nA slight incident which had occurred when the children were scarcely\nten years of age, had shown how warmly Miriam returned the affection of\nher twin brother. Hamil, when searching a hedge for blackberries, had\nchanced to be bitten by a viper. The boy's cry of terror and pain had\nbrought Miriam in alarm to his side. Child as she was, her little foot\nwas in an instant stamped upon the head of the snake that had wounded\nher brother; her love seemed to take away fear, and catching up a large\nstone, she actually succeeded in killing the reptile.\n\nThen, seeing the small mark of the serpent's bite in Hamil's bleeding\nhand, the brave child, without a moment's hesitation, drew it to her\nlips, and with all her might proceeded, as she said, \"to suck out the\npoison.\"\n\nA farmer who happened to be not far from the spot, and who had seen\nwhat had happened, came up just as Miriam, panting and excited when all\nthe danger was over, was embracing her young brother with a violent\nburst of tears.\n\n\"Well done, my brave little maiden!\" exclaimed the farmer, clapping her\non the shoulder. \"But you did not stop to think that you might have\nbeen sucking poison in while trying to suck it out.\"\n\n\"It didn't need thinking!\" cried the child through her tears. \"I'd much\nrather have lost my life than my brother!\"\n\nHappily neither of the children suffered from the effects of the venom;\nbut Hamil never forgot the proof of affection given to him by his\nsister.\n\nThe tie which united the hearts of the twins did not become weaker by\nthe lapse of years, and parting was a sore trial to both when Miriam\nentered her first place, and Hamil enlisted as a soldier.\n\nMost of the young maid's spare moments were given to writing to her\nabsent brother, and when he was on his campaign in Abyssinia, a letter\nwith the African post-mark on it, filled her with keen delight. The\nletter would be read over and over again, and then hoarded amongst her\ntreasures.\n\nWhen victory crowned the British arms, when Magdala fell, Miriam was\nas proud of her hero brother as if the whole success of the war had\ndepended on the prowess of his single arm. She was almost wild with\njoy when she heard that Hamill was ordered home, and that, after their\npainful separation, she should see her twin brother once more.\n\nGreat joys and great sorrows are often closely linked together;\nsometimes when we are feeling for the sweet ripe fruit, we unexpectedly\nfind the serpent. Miriam had some difficulty in getting leave to go and\nsee her brother, who was stationed for a short time at Greenwich after\nhis arrival from Abyssinia. Miriam's impatience was so great that she\nalmost threw up her place, because she had to wait for two or three\ndays before obtaining this leave.\n\nAt last, with a heart bounding with joy, Miriam set out on her little\njourney in company with Mrs. Smith, a soldier's wife, who was going to\nher husband at Woolwich. Fast went the train, but not fast enough to\nsuit the impatience of Miriam. Short was the journey, but to the eager\ngirl every mile seemed to swell into ten.\n\nWoolwich was reached, and Miriam with her companion was soon hurrying\nup one of the streets.\n\n\"How fast you walk, my dear,\" observed Mrs. Smith with a smile; \"you\nmust remember that I'm not quite so young as you are. I'll get my\nhusband to find out your brother and bring him to our meeting-place at\nthe baker's; for, eager as you are, I suppose that you'll hardly rush\nright into the barracks to see him.\"\n\nMiriam laughed\u2014how merry and blithe was her laugh\u2014and slackened her\npace a little.\n\nAs they turned the corner of a street, Mrs. Smith spoke again, but in a\nlower tone, to her young companion.\n\n\"We had better cross over to the other side of the road; don't you see\nthat soldier in front of us can't walk straight, I'm sure that the\nfellow is drunk.\"\n\nMiriam did not appear to have heard what was said, and when Mrs. Smith\nput her hand upon the girl's arm to draw her across the road, to her\nsurprise she felt that the arm was nervously trembling! Looking into\nMiriam's face, Mrs. Smith saw that she had suddenly turned very pale,\nand that her eyes were fixed with intense emotion upon the form of the\nsoldier in front, though his back was turned towards them.\n\n\"Come, I say, he's in liquor,\" repeated Mrs. Smith in a whisper, \"let's\ngo to the other side of the way.\"\n\nAt that moment the soldier chanced to turn round: it had not been\nneedful for Miriam to see that face\u2014that flushed face: she had already\nrecognised her darling brother in the half-intoxicated man whom her\ncompanion had been afraid to pass!\n\nHamil was not so far gone in drinking as not to recognise Miriam; the\nsudden meeting half-sobered him, and he gave her a loud, much too loud\na greeting. But the red face, the thick utterance, the unsteady gait,\nthe noisy mirth, all cut like a knife into the heart of poor Miriam.\nShe had never thought, till that day, that she could be ashamed of her\nbrother.\n\nShe would have given anything that Mrs. Smith had not seen him, that he\nhad not turned round, but gone on his way. The words, \"I'm sure that\nhe's drunk,\" seemed to haunt her, ringing in her ears all the rest of\nthe day, and breaking her rest at night, after she had returned from\nher miserable visit to Woolwich. Wretchedness made Miriam's naturally\nwarm temper very irritable indeed on that evening.\n\nCaroline wondered what could have come over her, and Mrs. Mellor\ndetermined that she would not soon again give her young servant an\nafternoon's leave.\n\nAfter a sleepless, wretched night, poor Miriam rose before daybreak,\nand wrote a letter to her brother. A very touching letter it was, and\nblotted with her tears. There was not a word of reproach in it, but\nmuch sorrow and more love, and gentle tender counsel, such as a pious\nmother might have given to her son. No stranger who might have chanced\nto see \"Miriam in one of her tempers,\" would have believed that that\ngirl with flashing dark eyes and unbridled tongue could ever have\nwritten such a letter.\n\nWith sickening suspense Miriam awaited her brother's reply. At that\ntime her soul was almost constantly wrestling in prayer. Whether she\nwere employed in dusting the room, or preparing the meal by the kitchen\nfire, or at the wash-tub, Miriam was silently lifting up her heart in\nan agony of entreaty for her twin brother.\n\nThe answer to her letter came before long. Miriam's heart was in a\nflutter as she tore the envelope open, then she could scarcely read the\nlines before her, because of the thankful tears which flowed before\nshe had read the letter half through. Hamil was quite as much ashamed\nof his conduct as his sister had been, and the young soldier had the\nmanliness to own it. He had been led away by evil company, he had\nnot had the strength to resist the temptations which beset a man in\nbarracks, but he promised to struggle against what he confessed to be\nhis besetting weakness, a taste for ardent spirits. Hamil asked his\nsister to pray for him; he would, he wrote, follow her good advice, and\n\"watch and pray\" for himself. He trusted that he would never again give\nhis darling Miriam cause to blush for her brother.\n\nA great weight was lifted from the heart of Miriam; Hamil seemed dearer\nthan ever. Again the sister could go on her way rejoicing in hope.\nTo Miriam's great satisfaction, Hamil was soon afterwards removed to\nbarracks in London.\n\nThough her brother was now so much nearer to her, Miriam was but\nseldom able to see him. She was too upright a girl to spend on her\nown gratification without leave, the time which belonged to her\nmistress. Miriam was by far too honest and conscientious to entertain\neven a brother without her employer's knowledge, and still less at\nher employer's expense. Miriam was a Christian girl, and in this\nbehaved like a Christian. An occasional meeting with Hamil on a Sunday\nafternoon, when they would walk to church together, was all that the\nsister could venture to expect, but this was enough to make her whole\nlife brighter. Miriam looked forward through all the week to her happy\nhour upon Sunday.\n\nMatters had thus gone on quietly for some little time, when the\nunfortunate affair of the silver knife occasioned the scene related\nin the first chapter. From childhood, Miriam had had a hot impatient\ntemper, and though she had often regretted it, she had never striven\nagainst it with all her heart and soul, as against an enemy that was\ndrawing her into serious sin. It was natural to her, Miriam would say,\nand this wretched excuse served in some measure to quiet her conscience.\n\nMiriam saw other people selfish and mean, dishonest and untruthful; she\nknew that her fellow-servant's standard of duty was very much lower\nthan her own. Miriam did not realise that she, with all her scrupulous\nhonesty and piety, was bringing disgrace on her religion by a temper\nquite unworthy of a follower of Him who was meek and lowly; nay, that\nher conduct was actually a stumbling-block in the way of Caroline, who\nalmost dreaded and disliked, while she could not help in most things\nrespecting her.\n\n\"It's all very fine Miriam's pretending to be better than other folk!\"\nexclaimed Caroline, when Miriam, as has been related, left the kitchen\nto obey her mistress's call. \"But her praying, her Bible-reading, and\nchurch-going, don't prevent her from flying out like a fury. I wouldn't\nhave her temper for the world! For all her strict notions, I take it\nthat I'm as much of a Christian as she!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nIn Peril.\n\nMIRIAM, excited and angry still, went up to her little attic to prepare\nfor her walk, carrying up with her the box which Caroline had brought\ndown. With Miriam the storm had not yet blown over.\n\n\"For Caroline, indeed, to talk about seeing anything in my box!\" she\nmuttered, as she put down her burden on the floor with a heavy bang.\n\"She knows well enough that I'd no more stoop to do the mean things\nthat she does, than I'd go begging barefoot about the streets! And to\nthink of mistress listening for a moment to the backbiting sneak! I'm\nglad that I gave her warning! I'd rather be a galley-slave, I would,\nthan stop in a place where I am not trusted.\"\n\nMiriam's mind was like a piece of water that has been violently\ndisturbed, and which can reflect nothing distinctly; every image is\ndistorted and confused. But even before she had quitted the house,\nreason had begun to resume its quiet power, and Miriam to have a\nsuspicion that her own conduct in the affair had not been altogether\neither sensible or right.\n\n\"I wonder if Hamil will think that I have done a foolish thing,\" said\nMiriam to herself, as she went out into the street, where the freshness\nof the air served to help in cooling her temper.\n\n\"He was vexed when he heard of my leaving my last place, just because\nI had quarrelled with the nurse. I shall only have a four months'\ncharacter now, and, after all, four mouths was hardly a long enough\ntime for mistress to know me so well as to listen to nothing against\nme. I wish that I had kept my temper better, but I can't help flaring\nup when any one touches my character. I am so much afraid that Hamil\nwill be vexed. He is so quiet and calm and wise himself, he has such a\nbeautiful temper; I never knew him fly into a passion in all his life!\nHe knows I have been a peppery little thing from my childhood, only I\nnever was angry with him, oh! No\u2014I never could be angry with him!\"\n\nTender thoughts of her brother still further calmed the spirit of\nMiriam; the troubled waters were becoming quiet as a mirror again, and\nthe excited mind could once more reflect. Miriam began now to think\nthat she had come on a useless errand, for it was likely enough that\nshe might not be able to have a word with her brother, who did not\nexpect in the least to see her at such a time, and who would probably\nbe engaged in performing military duty. Besides this, Miriam was by\nfar too modest and well-conducted a girl to go to the barracks alone,\nwithout any proper protection. How was she to let her brother know that\nshe was waiting to see him, and wishing to ask his advice?\n\n\"I do believe that I shall have to go back again just as wise as I\ncame. I've been acting the part of a foolish, ill-tempered child,\"\nthought Miriam, as she slackened her pace, walking up Albany Street\ntowards the barracks. Here, however, Miriam was mistaken, for the\nthought had scarcely crossed her mind, when her glance fell on a tall\nform in uniform that she knew well, on the opposite side of the street.\n\n\"Oh! This is fortunate indeed,\" exclaimed Miriam, \"to think that Hamil\nshould be the first soldier whom I should meet!\"\n\nShe had little time for self-gratulation, however, for as she spoke\nHamil turned aside from the pavement, and disappeared within the door\nof a public-house.\n\nMiriam had been heated by exercise and excitement, but now she turned\nsuddenly cold. The terror which had struck her two months before when\nshe had looked at that same dear form staggering under the influence\nof drink, came over her again, and almost overpowered her. Was her\nbrother, the brave noble-hearted brother, whom she so fondly loved, he\nof whom she had been so proud, was he yielding again to that deadly\nvice, which would sink him lower than the brutes!\n\nMiriam's anxiety for Hamil's safety during the campaign in Abyssinia\nhad been light and easy to be borne compared with what she felt\nnow; for had not her brother owned that a taste for drinking was\nhis besetting weakness, and to what must that taste, if indulged,\ninevitably lead in the end? To shame, disease, and misery, condemnation\nbefore God, things a thousandfold worse than death! Hamil was entering\non the steep downward incline, and what a precipice lay before him!\nThe full extent of her brother's peril flashed on the mind of Miriam,\nand every other feeling yielded to the one desire to save him, as she\nquickened her steps almost to a run.\n\nThe modest young maiden had never crossed the threshold of a\npublic-house, nor had she even thought of doing so before; Miriam had\na natural shrinking from going amongst strangers, and into a place\nwhere it would be unseemly for her to appear\u2014and yet, to the no small\nsurprise of Hamil, as he stood at the bar with a glass of gin in his\nhand, he heard a voice nervously pronounce his name, and, turning,\nbeheld his twin at his side!\n\n\"You here!\" exclaimed the soldier, almost dropping the glass in his\namazement.\n\n\"I must speak with you\u2014it is on a matter of importance\u2014I am leaving\nmy place,\" said Miriam, so breathless with excitement, that she could\nhardly bring out the words.\n\nHamil's first impulse was to toss off the liquor for which he had paid,\nbefore leaving the bar, but he changed his intention, put down the\nuntasted glass, and followed his sister out of the place. The soldier\nwas annoyed that Miriam, even for one minute, should have been seen\nwithin those doors.\n\n\"What brought you here? What had you to say to me?\" Hamil asked, with a\nlittle approach to impatience in his manner; had he possessed less fine\na temper, he would have been angry.\n\n\"Oh! Hamil\u2014how could you, after all that you promised\u2014\" began Miriam,\nbut she could not, from emotion, go on. All that had led her to seek\nher brother on the present occasion, her own affairs, her loss of\nplace, her quarrel with Caroline, seemed to have entirely escaped from\nher mind. She had room there now for but one thought, that of the\ntemptation and danger of Hamil.\n\nThe soldier could very well imagine what was passing through the brain\nof his sister. He felt humbled and disgusted with himself, for when\nhe had entered that public-house, Hamil knew that he was breaking\nthrough many an earnest resolution made to himself, as well as the\npromise made to his sister. The twins walked on for some little way in\nsilence, then, as if by tacit consent, they took the first turn into\nthe Regent's Park.\n\nEntering the enclosure, Hamil and Miriam went over the grass to a quiet\nseat, where they could converse together undisturbed and unheeded by\nany one. Neither of the Macbeans uttered another word until they had\nreached this seat, and sat down upon it; each was busy with bitter\nthoughts which it would be difficult and painful to put into language.\nMiriam, indeed, was beginning to turn her thoughts into prayer, and\nwhen once she was able to do this, half their bitterness was taken away.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nThe Struggle.\n\n\"I KNOW all that you will say, Miriam,\" began Hamil, who was the first\nto break silence, looking down gloomily at the dusty grass before him.\n\"You don't suppose that I've not often thought of my promise, and tried\nto keep it too. I had not so much as entered a public since I received\nyour letter, till a few days ago, and then two of my comrades, jovial\nfellows, laughed me out of my resolutions, and got me to stand treat.\"\n\n\"And so the door was opened to the enemy,\" suggested Miriam, sadly;\n\"you did not find it easy to close it again.\"\n\n\"I'll not deny it, I took more than was good for me, and I was near\ngetting into a scrape at the time. But the worst of it is,\" continued\nHamil more rapidly, kicking up the dust with the heel of his boot, \"the\nworst of it is, that now the thirst and the longing is awakened again,\nand it seems as if I could not resist them! I do not want to disgrace\nmyself, nor to vex you, Miriam, but I hardly am my own master in this.\nNo one knows, but those who have felt it, the difficulties which beset\na man who would get rid of a taste for spirits.\"\n\n\"Hamil, you are a soldier, a brave, noble soldier, one who never, in\nthe field, was daunted or kept back by difficulties,\" said Miriam,\npressing the arm of her brother. \"Remember the fearful mountain passes\nthrough which you went with the army in Abyssinia. Of what long weary\nmarches you have told me, when you had to struggle up heights, through\nstony, almost impassable defiles, till your breath failed, and your\nmuscles were strained, and you felt that your limbs could scarcely\nsupport your weight. But difficulties did not turn you back then. You\nwere the Queen's faithful soldier and were willing to serve her to the\ndeath.\"\n\n\"I could not have held back then,\" observed Hamil.\n\n\"And can you hold back now?\" cried Miriam. \"Oh! Hamil, remember what\nour curate said to us before our confirmation; you and I can never\nforget that sermon. He told us that we are all the enlisted soldiers or\nChrist, with His weapons to bear, and His battles to fight, and that\nfor His sake we must all learn to 'endure hardness.' *\n\n\"Life is our one great campaign, sin is our great enemy, and the Lord\nChrist Himself the Captain of our salvation. If we follow Him we must\nexpect to have to face some difficulties, if we follow Him we must\nfight. Oh dear brother, after hearing that sermon, do you not recollect\nhow you and I went together to the wood in the hollow, and, under the\ngreat beech-tree, prayed that we might indeed be Christ's faithful\nsoldiers and servants to the end of our lives?\"\n\n   * 2 Tim. ii. 3.\n\nHamil heaved a deep sigh; sweet and holy was the remembrance of that\nday in their early youth, when he and his twin sister had resolved\nthat, come what might, they would ever keep steady in the service of\nHim who had Himself triumphed over Satan, and who could make them more\nthan conquerors by the strength of His Holy Spirit. The whole scene\ncame back on the soldier's mind; the golden sunlight streaming through\nthe boughs on the ground strewn with the brown fallen beech-mast, the\nsound of a stream gurgling near, the hum of a bright insect on the wing\nthat had hovered around the twins where they sat on the mossy seat\nafforded by the gnarled roots of the tree.\n\nHamil passed his hand across his eyes as he murmured, \"Would I were now\nwhat I was then!\"\n\n\"You may be more, much more than you were then,\" cried Miriam. \"You and\nI were but as young untried recruits, who knew little of what might be\nbefore us, but who were ready boldly to face an enemy, whenever one\nmight attack us. Now, you are as one bearing the burden and heat of the\nday, you know your enemy\u2014\"\n\n\"A great deal too well,\" interrupted Hamil; \"he has not only attacked,\nbut has got the better of me at last.\"\n\n\"Only for a time!\" cried Miriam, eagerly. \"Never despair, the struggle\nis not yet over! You were, as one may say, a straggler from the ranks,\nyou were not on your guard, the enemy took you at disadvantage. He\nstruck you down for a moment, but you are up and at him again, you\nwon't give in, you'll fight to the end. Is it not written in the Bible,\n'Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you?' * Wrestle against\ntemptation, and overcome it, dear brother, in the name and in the\nstrength of the Lord!\"\n\n   * James iv. 7.\n\nMiriam's eyes sparkled as she spoke, and, as Hamil looked on that\nbright animated face raised so earnestly to his own, the voice of his\nonly sister roused his spirit like the call of a trumpet sounding to\narms.\n\n\"Ah! Miriam,\" cried the young soldier, \"if I had you always beside me\nto keep me up to the mark, I think that something might be made of me\nyet. Come what may, you are always ready to rush to the rescue. It's\nthe old story of the viper again; I wish that you could stamp your foot\nupon my enemy, intemperance, as you did on the venomous reptile.\"\n\n\"You must do that for yourself, or rather you must ask God to do it\nfor you, Hamil, struggling hard yourself all the time. There is such\ncomfort in that text which you and I learned together years ago; 'God\nis faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are\nable, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye\nmay be able to bear it.'\" *\n\n   * 1 Cor. x. 13.\n\n\"Victory over sin is certainly worth a struggle,\" said Hamil.\n\n\"It is worth the hardest, the longest struggle!\" cried Miriam, who felt\nthat her words were making an impression on the mind of her brother.\n\"Oh! Hamil, was it not joy when, after all that you had suffered,\nafter all that you had done, you stood a conqueror in King Theodore's\nfortress of Magdala! Was it not joy when you returned to old England to\nreceive such a welcome as is given to victors alone? But what is such\njoy compared to that of the Christian soldier, one who has been enabled\nto triumph over enemies without and within, the world, the flesh, and\nthe Devil, if, at life's close, he can say with St. Paul, 'I have\nfought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith;\nhenceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the\nLord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.'\" \u2020\n\n   \u2020 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.\n\n\"Miriam, my sister, I thank God for sending you to me,\" said the\nsoldier, pressing the hand of his twin. \"I was throwing down my\nweapons, I was yielding to the foe, or rather, like a deserter, going\nover to his side. I have been worse than a coward in the battle of\nlife. But from this hour, God helping me, I'll stick to my colours,\nand follow my Leader! I'll never set my foot within the door of a\nplace where I know from experience that the enemy would have me at an\nadvantage. I'll pray not to be led into temptation, and I'll keep, as\nfar as I can do so, out of the way of temptation.\"\n\nThe heart of Miriam bounded with joy. She looked on the fine, manly,\nbronzed countenance of her brother, with the expression of calm\nresolution upon it, and felt how great, how glorious is the Christian's\nstruggle against besetting sin, when he engages in it, \"strong in the\nLord, and in the power of His might.\" *\n\n   * Eph. vi. 10.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nA Brother to the Rescue.\n\n\"BUT now,\" said Hamil, \"I want to know what brought you up to our\nquarters when I so little expected to see you. I remember now that you\nsaid something\u2014I don't know exactly what\u2014about leaving your place. I\nthought that you were so comfortable in it,\" continued the soldier.\n\"When last we met on Sunday, you seemed pleased with your master,\nmistress, wages, everything. I hoped that you would stay in that place\ntill my term of service should be over, and we could set up business\ntogether in some snug little home of our own.\"\n\n\"You remember that I spoke to you about my fellow-servant,\" said Miriam.\n\n\"Yes, Caroline, I think, was her name. You described her as a poor,\nill-brought-up girl, who has never been taught that black's black, and\nwho has scarcely found out yet that she has such a thing as a soul. But\nyou were taking her in hand, Miriam, and had got her to read at least\none verse in the Bible every day, and to go to church now and then.\nI'm not the only one,\" added the soldier with a smile, \"whom a little\nsister of mine watches over for good.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that you'll not think me very good when you hear all my\nstory,\" said Miriam.\n\n\"Not another case of quarrelling, I hope!\" cried Hamil.\n\n\"Well, you shall know all, and judge for yourself,\" said Miriam.\n\nAnd she and her brother arose from their seat and recommenced walking,\nas they went on with their conversation.\n\n\"Caroline and I had just finished our dinner,\" continued Miriam,\n\"when mistress's bell rang, and Caroline went up to answer it. She\nwas away for some time, hunting in every nook and corner, as I heard\nafterwards, for a silver paper knife which mistress had missed from the\ndrawing-room table. I knew nothing, of course, to what she was about,\nand was quietly washing up the dishes, when down came Caroline to the\nkitchen, looking as red as your uniform, and, to my great surprise, who\nshould come with her but mistress. Mrs. Mellor looked grave and uneasy,\nand told me of the loss of the paper cutter, keeping her eyes fixed on\nmy face as she spoke.\n\n\"'I have not been in the drawing-room, ma'am, since I helped to clean\nit in the morning,' said I, 'but I remember that the silver knife was\nthen all right in its place.'\n\n\"Mistress seemed more uneasy than before, and then said, glancing first\nat Caroline, then at me, that my fellow-servant thought\u2014fancied that\nshe had seen that paper knife in my box when I had chanced to open it\nin the forenoon, while we were up in the attic together.\"\n\n\"I say!\" exclaimed Hamil, indignantly. \"Did you tell her that you would\nas soon have swallowed the knife as have stolen it?\"\n\n\"Not exactly\u2014though I said something like it\u2014and I demanded that the\nbox should be instantly brought down, and thoroughly searched.\"\n\n\"Right, perfectly right!\" cried Hamil Macbean.\n\n\"I called Caroline a viper, a sneak, and I don't remember what names\nbesides; I bade her go and fetch down the box; indeed, I scarcely knew\nwhat I was saying, I was in such a thundering passion.\"\n\nHamil thought, \"Wrong, quite wrong,\" but he made no observation aloud.\n\n\"So the box was brought down from the attic, and mistress opened\u2014I\ncannot say that she searched it. One of the first things on which her\neye fell was your gift; you remember my beautiful paper cutter, made in\nthe shape of a dagger?\"\n\n\"Ah! Caroline must have mistaken it for the silver one!\" cried Hamil.\n\n\"She owned that she had done so,\" said Miriam; \"they are really a good\ndeal alike.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose,\" inquired Hamil, gravely, \"that this Caroline had\nactually herself taken the silver knife from the table?\"\n\n\"No,\" replied Miriam, quickly; \"to do her justice, she is not bad\nenough for that. We soon found what had become of the knife. Master\nhad taken it to cut the leaves of some book that he was reading while\nhe was out walking. He chanced to return home in the midst of the\nbusiness, and everything was explained.\"\n\n\"And so the whole matter ended, I hope,\" said Hamil.\n\n\"No, I gave warning to mistress. She wanted me to stay, but I would\nnot. I can never speak to Caroline again, so how could I stop in that\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Why could you never speak a word to Caroline again?\" inquired Hamil\nMacbean. \"There is at least one word which you should speak\u2014you should\nask her pardon for calling her a viper.\"\n\n\"Ask her pardon!\" repeated Miriam, indignantly. \"Surely you are not\ntaking her part\u2014the part of one who would have blackened the character\nof your only sister!\"\n\n\"Listen to me quietly, dear Miriam, for a minute, and, if you can do\nso, answer me calmly. Did Caroline, or did she not, believe that she\nhad seen the silver knife in your box?\"\n\n\"She must have known me well enough to be sure that I would have\nscorned to touch it!\" cried Miriam, evading the question.\n\n\"People readily believe what they wish to be true,\" observed Hamil.\n\n\"What do you mean? Why should Caroline wish me to be a thief?\" asked\nMiriam, abruptly, looking with surprise into the face of the soldier.\n\n\"By your own account, the knife was lost, had been searched for in\nvain; suspicion must have lain on Caroline herself; she naturally\nwas only too glad to turn it on another, and you yourself own that\nthe paper cutter was like your own, which she had chanced to see in\nyour box. And you must take another thing into account, dear Miriam.\nCaroline has not been able to live for months with you, without finding\nout that your ideas of duty are very much higher than hers. She must\nbegin to suspect that if you are right, she must be wrong, and such\nsuspicion is very unpleasant. The life of every consistent Christian is\na rebuke to a godless world. I believe that this is the chief reason\nwhy the world is so ready to hate him, so eager to pick holes in his\nconduct. I daresay that it was a comfort to Caroline to think that you\nwere no better than herself.\"\n\n\"I am glad that she cannot now have that comfort of thinking me\ndishonest,\" cried Miriam, who was half-amused, half-vexed, at the view\nof the subject taken by Hamil.\n\n\"But she can, and, I fear, does think you violent and passionate,\"\nobserved the soldier. \"Caroline knows that, though you keep your hands\nfrom picking and stealing, you certainly do not keep your tongue from\nevil-speaking.\"\n\nMiriam felt hurt at the observation; had any one but, her twin brother\nmade it, she would have been seriously angry.\n\nShe was silent for a minute, and then said, \"You, who are so calm and\ngood-tempered yourself that nothing ever ruffles you, cannot understand\nthe difficulty of keeping down a quick, hot temper like mine.\"\n\n\"Ah! Miriam, Miriam, are you one to be daunted by difficulties?\" cried\nHamil. \"Remember the words which you spoke a few minutes ago; remember\nall that you said about the struggle, the weapon, the victory. In the\ncampaign of life, woman as you may be, you are as much a soldier as\nmyself. If one enemy rushes upon me from the right hand, another lies\nin ambush for you on the left. Your besetting sin may be\u2014and certainly\nis\u2014very different from mine; but we have both the same need to stand on\nour guard, the same need to watch and to pray.\"\n\nMiriam thought to herself that giving way to temper was a little sin\ncompared to giving way to intemperance. Hamil seemed to read what was\npassing through her mind.\n\n\"You are not tempted to intoxication from drink,\" he observed, \"but you\nare tempted to intoxication from anger. And while intoxicated from one\ncause or the other, we are both led to do and to say things which we\nmay afterwards bitterly repent. Sister, the same Word of God which bids\nus 'be sober,' and 'provide things honest in the sight of all men,'\nbids us also learn of Him who was meek and lowly, and tells us that 'he\nthat ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.'\" *\n\n   * Prov. xvi. 32.\n\n\"Certainly my temper did get the better of me to-day,\" said Miriam,\nfrankly, for she was of a candid and open disposition, and could not\ndeny that she had been violent towards Caroline, and insolent in her\nmanner towards Mrs. Mellor.\n\n\"Ay, let me repeat your own words in reference to myself,\" cried Hamil;\n\"the enemy took you at disadvantage, he struck you down for a moment,\nbut you won't give in, you're up and at him again.\"\n\n\"I don't see what you would have me do,\" said Miriam, looking\ndistressed.\n\n\"Return home, tell your mistress frankly that you know that you were\ntoo hasty, that if she will overlook what has passed, you will be glad\nto remain in your place.\"\n\n\"I should not like to do that, and yet\u2014if it were not for Caroline,\"\nbegan Miriam, in a hesitating tone.\n\n\"Caroline is to be settled with too,\" said Hamil. \"Go to her, tell her\nthat you are sorry that you gave way to anger (though you had enough to\nprovoke you to it, I own), offer to let bygones be bygones, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Never! I could not do that! I could never humble myself so!\" exclaimed\nMiriam.\n\n\"There is pride up in arms!\" said Hamil. \"Satan has not, perhaps, in\nall his army, a more dangerous spirit than he. Stand on your guard\u2014he's\nupon you!\"\n\n\"After all that has passed between us, I could not speak to Caroline!\"\ncried Miriam.\n\n\"Not if it were your clear duty to do so, not in obedience to your\nCaptain's command?\"\n\n\"There are some things too hard for flesh and blood!\" exclaimed Miriam.\n\nHamil said nothing in answer to this; he continued his walk in silence,\nbut bent his steps towards Albany Street, which he soon re-entered,\nMiriam still by his side. He went on without speaking a word, till he\nreached the public-house from which he had been a short time before\nso hastily summoned by his sister. Hamil stood still before it, and\nabruptly bade Miriam good-bye.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Where I don't want you to follow me again,\" he said gloomily, almost\nsternly. \"I have a feverish thirst on me, Miriam; I know that I ought\nto abstain; but there are some things too hard for flesh and blood, as\nyou told me a minute ago.\"\n\nAll that Hamil's words meant flashed upon Miriam Macbean; his danger\nwas, in some respects like, while yet so unlike, her own. Each had a\nduty to perform, each had a sacrifice to make; Miriam had urged her\nbrother to the conflict, and now, like a coward, was flinching from it\nherself.\n\n\"Oh! Hamil!\" exclaimed the poor girl, in a faltering tone of entreaty,\n\"Go back to your quarters at once, and I will go back to my home. You\ndo your duty, and may God help me to do mine, pride shall not win the\nvictory over your sister.\"\n\nA smile and a warm grasp of the hand were all that passed then between\nthe twins. Miriam turned and sped on her way; but ere she reached the\nend of the street, she stopped and looked back with a throbbing heart.\nShe saw her brother's tall form as he strode onwards, far beyond that\nperilous place which he was never to enter again; and the girl's spirit\nrose in thanksgiving and prayer\u2014prayer for herself, thanksgiving for\nhim.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nVictory.\n\nMIRIAM'S ring at the door of Mrs. Mellor's dwelling was answered by\nCaroline. The girl looked pale, and her eyes were swollen as if with\ncrying.\n\n\"Caroline,\" said Miriam at once, for every moment of delay made the\neffort of speaking more painful, \"I am sorry for what passed this\nafternoon between us.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that you are not more sorry than I am!\" cried Caroline. \"I\nwish that silver knife had been at the bottom of the sea\u2014I heartily\ndo\u2014mistress is so displeased with me, and I never thought that I was\ndoing such mischief by speaking a word.\"\n\n\"Let us both forgive and forget,\" said Miriam, and she held out her\nhand.\n\nPoor Caroline shook it readily and heartily, she was surprised and\nrelieved at the thundercloud having so rapidly passed away. Caroline\nwas not of a proud or passionate temper herself and had cowered beneath\nthe tempest of anger which she had thoughtlessly raised.\n\nNothing had ever convinced Caroline so much of the power of religion as\nMiriam's saying, as she did now, \"I am sorry that I used such language\ntowards you.\"\n\nCaroline knew Miriam's character well enough to feel assured that no\nearthly motive would have brought her to humble herself thus to one who\nhad deeply offended her.\n\nMiriam passed up the staircase quickly, her mind relieved of a heavy\nburden. She had found the performance of duty less painful than she had\nexpected, and it was such a comfort to be again at peace with herself\nand with all the world. The beautiful words of St. Paul recurred to\nher mind with more force than they ever had done before: \"let all\nbitterness and wrath, and anger and clamour, and evil-speaking be\nput away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another,\ntender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake,\nhath forgiven you.\" *\n\n   * Eph. iv. 31, 32.\n\nOn the landing-place, Miriam happened to meet her mistress. There was\nstill a grave expression of displeasure upon Mrs. Mellor's face, as she\nthus addressed her young servant.\n\n\"Have you seen your brother, Miriam?\"\n\nOn Miriam's replying that she had just done so, the lady continued, in\nthe same cold manner, \"And what does he think of the hasty step which\nyou have taken in giving me warning?\"\n\n\"He thinks it a foolish one, ma'am,\" replied Miriam, colouring up to\nher eyes, and pressing the bannister tightly with her hand, for it was\nhard to a proud spirit to make the humbling confession.\n\n\"Then perhaps you would wish to remain in my service still,\" said the\nlady, \"and I should be very willing to keep you, and overlook the burst\nof temper into which you were betrayed in my presence, had I reason to\nhope that such bursts would not again recur. But I cannot,\" continued\nMrs. Mellor, \"have perpetual quarrelling in my kitchen; I cannot keep\ntwo servants who will not live in harmony together, I must\u2014and will\nhave my house an abode of peace, as every Christian home should be.\"\n\n\"Oh! Ma'am, if you would but try me,\" cried Miriam. \"Caroline and I\nhave made up our quarrel, and I hope that it will be our last.\"\n\nThe face of Mrs. Mellor brightened. \"If such be the case,\" said the\nlady, \"I will gladly try you again.\"\n\nAnd never had Mrs. Mellor cause to regret having done so. It was not\nthat Miriam was never again tempted to give way to a temper naturally\nviolent; it was not that the hasty word would not rise to her tongue,\nnor the angry blood to her cheek; evil habits and evil tempers are not\nto be conquered without a struggle, sometimes long as well as severe.\n\nBut both Miriam and Hamil had learned to keep watch against besetting\nsins, and knew where to look for help in their time of need; they both\npressed onwards where duty called them, as faithful soldiers of the\ncross; and they hoped one day to join in the song of triumph which the\nredeemed will raise: \"thanks be to God which giveth us the victory\nthrough our Lord Jesus Christ.\" *\n\n   * 1 Cor. xv. 57.\n\n\n\n                              A LIGHT\n\n                                 OR,\n\n                      A CHRISTIAN IN INFLUENCE.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nThe Young Stepmother.\n\n\"THIS is most vexatious, most perplexing; I am sure that I scarcely\nknow which way to turn,\" exclaimed Mrs. Fairley, as she entered the\nroom in which her firstborn babe lay asleep in his cradle, trimmed with\nmuslin, blue ribbon, and lace.\n\nThe lady was very young, and looked even younger than she was. She had\nbut lately left the school-room when she had married Mr. Fairley, a\nwidower, and so had become stepmother to his two children, who were six\nand seven years of age. Little suited was a lively girl, who had never\nso much as paid a bill for herself, to undertake at once the care of a\nhouse and family.\n\n\"Then I suppose that Dr. Blane thinks, ma'am, that Master Tom's rash is\nsomething infectious; I felt sure that it was,\" said the nurse.\n\n\"He says that it is scarlatina in a very mild form, and that Jessy's\nsore throat has been the same, though we never guessed what was the\nmatter with her,\" replied Mrs. Fairley. \"My terror now is for the\nbabe\u2014my little, fragile darling!\" continued the young mother, gazing\nwith anxious love on the sleeping infant. \"His brother and sister have\nthe malady slightly, but for a babe not five weeks old to take such a\ncomplaint might be\u2014I dare not think what it might be.\" And the eyes of\nthe lady filled with tears, for her baby was the very delight of her\nheart.\n\n\"I suppose, ma'am, that you'll join master in London at once,\"\nsuggested the nurse; \"it would be a sad risk for baby to remain in this\nhouse while the scarlet fever is in it.\"\n\n\"I feel as if we must go\u2014and yet,\" said the poor young mistress,\npressing her brow with her hand, \"I cannot bear to leave the other dear\nchildren\u2014above all, when they are not in health.\"\n\n\"Oh, ma'am, Miss Jessy is all right again; and as for Master Tom, he\nwill need nothing but a little care,\" observed Leah, the nurse.\n\n\"If I were but sure that he would have it, I should leave with an\neasier mind,\" said the lady; \"but I must take you to look after baby,\nand I leave the two children with a girl whom I never saw till a few\ndays ago\u2014a girl who has never been in service before. It seems so\nstrange\u2014so unkind.\"\n\n\"Susan looks as steady a girl as ever I saw in my life, ma'am; she\ncomes out of a good nest too; her mother was highly respected, and kept\na school. Depend upon it, Susan will take good care of Master Tom and\nhis sister,\" observed Leah.\n\n\"I wish that I knew what to do,\" said the young mother, with an anxious\nsigh, as she seated herself by the cradle. Before her marriage, Lucy\nhad never had to decide on any matter more important than the colour\nof a dress, or the choice of an amusement. Now she found herself in\na position of serious responsibility as mistress and mother, with no\nexperience, no strength of will, no knowledge of character, to help\nher. Mrs. Fairley wished to do her duty towards her husband's children;\nkind and gentle she always had been to them both, but she dreaded\nscarlet fever much for herself, and a great deal more for her baby, and\ndared not remain at the risk of catching the disease from Jessy or her\nbrother.\n\n\"If I might be bold to speak, ma'am,\" said the nurse, \"I'd say we'd\nbetter be off by the afternoon's train, and none of us go nigh the\nchildren. It's lucky they are on the upper floor, and that they\nhave not been with baby since Miss Jessy complained of her throat.\nBut scarlet fever is the most catching thing in the world, ma'am,\n'specially after the rash has come out. Susan will look after the\nothers, but we must think of the baby. He's sickly, he is, poor\ndarling; a very little illness would make him go off like the snuff of\na candle.\"\n\nMrs. Fairley shuddered at the thought of danger to her child. She\nhastily rose from her seat.\n\n\"You are right, quite right, nurse,\" she said; \"we must leave this\nhouse at once; you had better see to the packing directly. I will\nspeak to Susan myself, and give her the strictest orders, and tell\nher\u2014And, oh! I must write at once to put off the children's party\nthat we were to have had on Friday to keep Tommy's birthday. I must\nsend notes to the Hardys, the Lauries, the Wares. It will be a sad\ndisappointment to poor Tommy and Jessy not to have their young friends,\nbut I'll give them each a new five-shilling piece to make up for their\ndisappointment.\"\n\nAnd so the young stepmother hurried away to write her notes, give her\norders, arrange what dresses she should take to London, send for a\nconveyance, do the twenty little things which were needful to be done\nbefore suddenly quitting her country home, things which might each be\ntrifles in themselves, but which required thought, and care, and time,\nso became serious matters to Mr. Fairley's young wife.\n\n\"I am so vexed to leave Tommy and Jessy under the care of a new\nnursery-maid, a mere girl!\" repeated Mrs. Fairley, as she locked her\ndesk, after hurriedly writing off her notes. \"What will the world say?\nWhat will my husband say? It seems like deserting the children. But\nneither of them can be called really ill, and they will have every\ncomfort which they can require; Dr. Blane is skilful and kind, and\ncertainly. If one can judge by face and manner, Susan is to be trusted,\nyes, I hope, I think that she is to be trusted!\"\n\nAnd repeating this again and again to herself, to quiet her own\nanxiety, young Mrs. Fairley went on with her preparations for her\nsudden journey to London.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nOff to the Station.\n\n\"YES, she is going away, I told you that she was! There's Giles\ncarrying out the big black box, with the cords tied about it, to put it\nup by the coachman!\" exclaimed Tom Fairley in a tone of fierce passion,\nas he stood on a chair by the window, grasping the bars with his hands,\nand looking down on the carriage which was waiting at the door to take\nhis stepmother to the station.\n\nMaster Tom had been ordered to keep his bed during that day, but Tom\ncared little for orders. He was a spoilt, passionate boy, whom his\ngentle new mamma had never been able to manage. He loved Mrs. Fairley a\nlittle perhaps, but he had never learned to obey her.\n\n\"Perhaps mamma is only going for a drive,\" said Jessy, a pale little\ngirl with large dark eyes, who was seated on a foot-stool nursing the\ndoll that had been her stepmother's gift.\n\n\"Going to take a drive with a big corded box, you stupid!\" exclaimed\nTom. \"I tell you she is going to London. Giles is bringing more\npackages out\u2014one\u2014two\u2014three\u2014and there's a hamper besides! There's nursie\ncoming out with baby wrapped up in the large India shawl. She has got\ninto the carriage, and here comes mamma in her pink bonnet. She is\ngoing to London without us\u2014when she promised long ago to take us there\nwith her!\"\n\n\"Mamma won't go without bidding us good-bye!\" exclaimed Jessy, starting\nup from her seat and running to the window with her doll in her arms.\nShe clambered up on the chair beside her brother, and flattening her\nnose against the pane, glanced down as eagerly as Tom at the departure.\n\n\"She will go without bidding us good-bye, she's in the carriage, she'll\nsoon be off!\" And Tom stamped so violently with his shoeless foot on\nthe chair, that he almost pushed off his sister.\n\nThe boy was only half-dressed, for he had lately escaped from his bed;\nhe had neither jacket on his back, nor shoes on his feet; his hair was\na wild mop round a face which looked as red as scarlet, but quite as\nmuch from passion as from fever.\n\n\"She's cruel, she's very, very unkind!\" cried Jessy. \"Betsy told us\nquite true, she doesn't care for us, not one pin, 'cause she is not our\nown mamma!\"\n\nThe last nursery-maid had done great wrong both to her mistress and\nthe children by trying to make the latter think that their stepmother\ndid not love them as if they were her own. More from folly than from a\nwish to do mischief, Betsy had been sowing evil in the minds of those\ncommitted to her care.\n\n\"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of\nGod.\" * But oh! How unblessed must they be who help to destroy peace\nin families, whose tongues, like Satan's own darts, kindle malice,\ndistrust, and jealousy in the hearts of those around them! Well had it\nbeen for the little Fairleys that Betsy had been dismissed from her\nplace.\n\n   * Matthew v. 9.\n\n\"Mamma is looking up at the window, she is kissing her hand!\" cried\nTom. \"But I won't kiss my hand to her,\" he sulkily added. \"Why does she\ngo and leave us! There\u2014she's driving away\u2014away to the station!\"\n\nThe boy jumped down from the chair, and flung himself on his chest\non the carpet, kicking with passion. He could not bear to watch the\ncarriage disappearing behind the trees.\n\n\"I'll never, never again believe that mamma loves me!\" exclaimed Jessy,\nbursting into tears as she got down more slowly.\n\n\"Oh I never say that, Miss Jessy!\" cried the mild voice of Susan, who\nhad just entered the room. She was a bright, cheerful-looking girl of\nsixteen, very neatly dressed, with hair smooth as satin beneath her\nsimple little white cap.\n\n\"I'll say what I choose,\" sobbed Jessy; \"it was very unkind to go\nwithout us, and never even to come to bid us good-bye.\"\n\n\"Mistress is as much vexed as you are about it,\" said Susan. \"Yes,\nindeed,\" she continued, without appearing to notice a volley of angry\nkicks on the floor, by which Tom expressed his utter disbelief,\n\"mistress dared not come near you after the doctor had told her what\nwas the matter with you both, lest she should carry infection to the\nbaby.\"\n\n\"She cares for no one but the baby!\" growled Tom. \"It's unfair, it's\nhorridly unfair.\"\n\n\"Now, Master Tom, will you listen to reason?\" said Susan, turning\ntowards the boy in a cheerful, good-humoured manner. \"Suppose that you\nhad to decide whether your mamma should come and give you a good-bye\nkiss, at the risk of carrying back illness to your own little brother,\nwould you ask her\u2014would you wish her to come to you at such risk?\"\n\n\"She did not want to come\u2014she did not choose to come!\" muttered Tom,\nwho was not inclined to listen to reason.\n\n\"She never thought about us at all,\" cried Jessy.\n\n\"Nay, Miss Jessy, I can answer for it that mistress has been thinking\na great deal about both of you,\" said the young maid. \"She has been\ngiving me such particular directions about your comfort, and the tears\nwere in her eyes when she spoke of going to London and leaving you\nbehind.\"\n\n\"Were they?\" asked Tom, in a softened tone. He raised himself to a\nsitting posture on the floor, and looked up at Susan through the rough\ntumbled hair which was hanging over his eyes.\n\nSome people have an art of putting things in the brightest, fairest\nlight, of smoothing down angry tempers, and raising kindly feelings in\nthe hearts of others. Susan was one who had learned this art in the\nschool of the Gospel. She shewed so clearly that it was no unkindness\nthat had taken the young stepmother away, she made the children realise\nso vividly what sad consequences would be likely to follow should their\nbaby brother take the infection of scarlet fever, that all the storm\nof anger was lulled. When Susan gave to Jessy and her brother the two\nbright crown pieces sent to them by Mrs. Fairley, even the words \"How\nkind!\" came from the lips of the girl.\n\nSusan had, however, a great deal of trouble in coaxing Tom to obey\nthe doctor's orders by returning to his crib. She had no authority to\npunish, and it was very hard to persuade. Susan promised the boy to sit\nbeside him, and read to him, so that the time should not seem dull.\n\n\"I'm tired of every one of my books, they're so stupid,\" cried Tom.\n\"I've read Blue Beard ever so often, and I don't care for any of the\nrest.\"\n\n\"I've a little book of my own, which will be quite new to you, I\ndaresay,\" said Susan. \"It is in my box; I will go for it directly. And\nI wonder,\" she added, playfully, \"whether, when I come back, I shall\nfind Master Tommy in bed.\"\n\nAs soon as the door was closed behind Susan, Tom scrambled back\ninto his crib in just as much haste as he had left it, and pulled\nthe bed-clothes almost over his rough little head, \"to give Susan a\nsurprise,\" as he said. Tom was, perhaps, a little tired and weak, for\nthough the attack of scarlatina had been but slight, the fever had not\nquite left him.\n\nSusan had a soft pleasant voice, and as she read one after another\nof \"Anecdotes of Christian Graces,\" choosing such as would be most\nlikely to interest her young charges, Jessy drew near and sat close\nbeside her, resting her doll upon Susan's knee, while Tom lay quietly\nlistening till his eyelids grew heavy and drooped, and long breathing\nsoon told that the little boy had fallen asleep.\n\nSusan was very young, and she felt that hers was an anxious and\nresponsible charge, left as the two children were entirely under\nher care during the absence of their parents. The burden upon the\nnursery-maid was all the more heavy as the training of the young\nFairleys had been in some points neglected, and in others mismanaged;\nthey did not submit, they would not obey, nor had they learned to look\nup with fear and love to a Father in heaven.\n\nJessy, indeed, before she went to rest, knelt down before a chest of\ndrawers, put her little hands together, and gabbled over something\nwhich was meant for a prayer, her wandering eyes and careless tone\nshowing that she gave not a thought to the solemn act of addressing the\nHigh and Holy One whose Name she was taking in vain every time that it\npassed her lips.\n\nSusan saw all this, and it grieved her, but she felt that she must have\npatience and ask for grace, that she might be a humble means of leading\nto God the precious souls of these two children. Very different from\nJessy's careless \"saying prayers\" was the young servant girl's earnest\npleading when she knelt down by her sleeping charges that night. She\nentreated forgiveness for all her past sins, as one who knows how\nhateful in the sight of God is all sin; she asked for the grace of the\nHoly Spirit to make her heart pure, and to guide all her thoughts,\nwords, and actions. Susan also prayed, and prayed heartily for her\nyoung charges\u2014asking God to enable her to do her duty towards them,\nboth in caring for their health and comfort, and in watching over their\nsouls.\n\n\"Bless me, and make me a blessing to others,\" had been Susan's earnest\nprayer since she had first learned to feel that she was not her own,\nbut \"bought with a price,\" * that she and all her powers should be\ndevoted to her Lord. It was a great comfort to the young nursery-maid\nto be able to go straight to God for the guidance and help that she\nneeded, looking unto Him in all her troubles and cares, and doing her\nwork as unto Him.\n\n   * 1 Cor. vi. 20.\n\nThere was no human being to watch whether Susan faithfully did her\nduty towards her absent mistress; there was no one to find fault if\u2014as\ntoo many girls would have done\u2014she cared first for her own comfort and\nease. But Susan had not read in vain the Word of the Lord: \"Servants,\nbe obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with\nfear and trembling, in singleness of heart; not with eye-service, as\nmen-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from\nthe heart.\" *\n\n   * Eph. vi. 5, 6.\n\nThree times during the night did the anxious young maid rise to see\nif her charges were resting quietly. She gently replaced the coverlet\nwhich Tom had tossed off in his sleep. The night-light placed on the\nsaucer was burning very feebly indeed; it was flickering, dying; in a\nfew moments more it would go out, and leave the nursery in darkness.\nSusan took another from the box, lit it, and stood for a little space\nwatching the tiny spark.\n\n\"I am a poor weak girl,\" thought Susan. \"I can do very little, indeed,\nto show my love for my Lord, but there was one command which He gave\nto all His servants, and so to me amongst the rest: 'Let your light\nso shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify\nyour Father which is in heaven.' \u2020 I cannot serve God as clergymen and\nmissionaries do, learned and holy men who shine as great lights in\nthe world; but may not even I be as this tiny night-light, shut up in\na quiet nursery, where no one cares to look at it, yet throwing its\nfeeble light around, useful according to its power, shining as well\nas it can, though it seems little more than a spark? Even I, in my\nhumble way, may spend and be spent for my Lord, and help to cheer and\nenlighten others, though they be but two little children.\"\n\n   \u2020 Matt. v. 16.\n\nThe thought was a sweet one to Susan, and she fell asleep with the\nprayer on her lips, \"Oh, bless me, and make me a blessing!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nA Dinner-Party.\n\nTOM FAIRLEY arose in the morning perfectly free from fever, and the\ndoctor, when he came in the forenoon, said that the boy would soon\nbe as well as ever, and that in one or two days, should the weather\ncontinue warm, he and his little sister might take a turn in the garden.\n\n\"A turn in the garden indeed,\" muttered Tom, as soon as the doctor had\nleft the room, \"it's not there that I'm going, to trot up and down the\nstupid gravel walks, or make daisy-chains like a baby. Susan, you shall\ntake us to the toy-shop in the town, and there we will spend all our\nmoney, and buy lots of pretty things, and sweeties besides, and make\nourselves jolly.\"\n\nThe boy finished his sentence by spinning his crown-piece on the table,\namusing himself by watching the round half-transparent silver globe\nwhich it seemed to form, till the motion given by his fingers became\nless rapid, and gradually the globe rattled down into its natural form,\nand lay as a piece of money on the table.\n\nSusan waited till the noise of the spinning was over, and then quietly\nobserved, \"I am afraid, Master Tom, that a long time must pass before\nit will be right for you and your sister to shop in the town.\"\n\n\"Why, mamma often takes us there,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Remember that for weeks, if not months, there will be a risk of your\ngiving the fever to any one whom you meet. You carry infection with\nyou.\"\n\n\"Oh, hang the infection!\" exclaimed Tom, angrily. \"I don't mean to be\nshut up like a wild beast in a cage.\" And the boy looked so fierce as\nhe said this that he seemed to have enough of the wild beast about him\nto render the cage a somewhat desirable thing.\n\n\"No one will guess that we have had any fever at all,\" observed Jessy,\nwho, while better tempered than her brother, was less straightforward\nand open. \"See\u2014there are no marks left; and if you are not so cross as\nto tell, no one will know that anything has been the matter with Tom or\nwith me.\"\n\n\"Oh, Miss Jessy, your own conscience would know it; your own conscience\nwould whisper, 'Is it right, for my own selfish pleasure, to run the\nrisk of carrying sickness, and perhaps even death, into some happy\nhome? If I should hear of some poor child catching the fever and dying,\ncould I ever feel happy again?'\"\n\nJessy stared at Susan in surprise. The idea of being guided by the\nsecret voice of conscience in her heart was new to the child, who had\nhitherto cared only to follow self-will.\n\nTom broke out abruptly with the question, \"As you make such a mighty\nfuss about infection, Susan, are you not afraid of catching the fever\nyourself? I wonder that you don't run away in a fright, like mamma with\nthe baby.\"\n\n\"It was your mamma's duty to go; it is my duty to stay,\" replied the\nyoung nursery-maid, with a smile. \"I am not in the least afraid, for I\ntrust in God who careth for me.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that because you trust in God, He will keep you from\ncatching the fever?\" asked Jessy.\n\n\"I did not mean that,\" replied Susan. \"God sometimes lets His people\nhave troubles, and sickness is often one of them; but He helps and\ncheers His servants in distress, and brings them out of it at last.\nGod teaches them sweet lessons of patience and hope and faith, so that\nevery tried Christian will be able to say, sooner or later, 'It is good\nfor me that I have been afflicted.' * If we trust in God, King David's\nbeautiful words may be ours, 'I will fear no evil, for Thou art with\nme;' \u2020 for the Lord will either keep trials away, or He will, by His\npower and love, turn the trials themselves into blessings.\"\n\n   * Psalm cxix. 71.     \u2020 Psalm xxiii. 4.\n\nThe Fairleys would have cared nothing for teaching on the subject of\nreligion from one whose conduct did not show its power over herself;\nbut Susan lived as she tried to teach the children to live, and\ntherefore her words had some influence. Tom and Jessy could see that\nshe who feared God had no other fear, and that while caring for others,\nshe could, with happy trust, leave the care of herself unto Him. This\nwas the children's first lesson of faith in a watchful Providence.\n\nSusan had a good deal to try her temper during the rest of that day.\nThe Fairleys, like most children when recovering from illness, were\nvery impatient and cross; they would not bear contradiction, they\nquarrelled, they broke their toys, they tore their books, they grumbled\nagainst the doctor who kept them in-doors when they chose to go out.\nSusan came in for a large share of their rudeness; but she was quiet\nand patient, never returned a cross word, and did all that she could to\ngive pleasure to those who seemed resolved not to be pleased.\n\nDinner in some degree restored the Fairleys to good humour. After being\nkept for some days on low diet, the children were very hungry, and\nkeenly enjoyed their meal.\n\nAs Tom was finishing a leg of chicken after having eaten a wing, he\nabruptly stopped, struck the handle of his knife and fork upon the\ntable, and exclaimed, as a thought suddenly arose in his mind, \"I\nhope all this nonsense about infection has not made mamma put off my\nbirthday party!\"\n\nHe looked Susan full in the face as he spoke, and her silence was\nanswer sufficient.\n\nKnife and fork were flung to the other end of the table, Tom started to\nhis feet in a violent fury, and Jessy burst into tears.\n\nIt was some time before Susan could gain a hearing. The birthday party\nhad been looked forward to with delight; the Fairleys were very little\naccustomed to disappointment, and knew not how to bear it. Gradually,\nhowever, the storm lulled a little, and Susan was able to suggest a\nfew thoughts of comfort. The children should have a birthday feast\nafter all, she would ask Mason the cook for a little flour, eggs,\nand strawberry jam, she would show Tom and Jessy how to make pastry\nthemselves, and that would be far better fun than having it up from the\nkitchen, or from a confectioner's shop.\n\nJessy dried her eyes, listened and smiled; the child was accustomed\nto the pleasure of eating pastry, but the pleasure of helping to make\nit was something entirely new. Tom's passion subsided into sulky\nill-humour, as he sat balancing his crown-piece on his thumb, then\nthrowing it up and catching it again.\n\n\"What's the use of having a feast with no guests to eat it?\" muttered\nthe boy. \"And what's the use of having money when one is not able to\nspend it?\"\n\n\"Well, Master Tom,\" said Susan, gaily, \"if you can't tell what to do\nwith your money, I know a famous way in which you could spend it; and\nif you want guests, I know how you can get as many as you please to\ninvite.\"\n\n\"You do\u2014do you?\" cried the boy, with eager surprise.\n\n\"It happens,\" said Susan, \"that my dear mother's birthday falls on the\nsame day as yours, and I have been intending, for some time past, to\ngive a feast to four children in honour of the day.\"\n\n\"You\u2014a nursery-maid!\" exclaimed Tom Fairley. \"And pray, does mamma know\nwhat you are after?\"\n\n\"Oh! No,\" replied Susan, smiling, \"no one knows but myself; but\nperhaps, if you are very good, I may let you into my secret?\"\n\n\"But you've no business to invite any one into our house,\" cried Tom,\nin an insolent tone. \"It would be a pretty joke indeed if you could\nhave friends here, when we are not allowed to have one.\"\n\n\"My guests will not eat their dinner here,\" replied Susan. \"I shall\nsend it for them in so clever a way that all the four dinners could be\neasily packed up in my thimble.\"\n\n\"Your thimble! Oh! What do you mean\u2014what can you mean?\" cried both the\nFairleys in a breath.\n\nAnd Jessy added, with a merry little laugh, \"I don't think that such a\nfeast as yours would feed a hungry mouse.\"\n\n\"Ah! Missie, you are quite mistaken there,\" cried Susan, amused at the\nchildren's looks of surprise. \"My guests shall have right good cheer.\nWould you like to know what fare will be provided?\"\n\n\"Let's hear all about it,\" said Tom.\n\n\"What would you think of meat, potatoes, rice, and onions made up into\na nice Irish stew, and a good slice of bread into the bargain? Each of\nmy guests will have this.\"\n\n\"I say!\" exclaimed the astonished Tom, dropping his money in his\nsurprise. \"And can that\u2014meat, onions and all\u2014go into your thimble?\"\n\n\"Not exactly the dinner itself, but the dinner price,\" replied Susan.\n\"And one good thing about my feast is this\u2014I am quite sure that my\nlittle guests will be pleased, not one will go grumbling away. They\nwill most likely not have tasted meat for a whole week before, and will\nenjoy their hot Irish stew as much, perhaps more, than you, Master Tom,\ndid your chicken.\"\n\n\"I don't like riddles,\" cried the boy, impatiently. \"Who are these\nhungry guests of yours? And how can you have them to dinner? Just tell\nus straight out what you mean.\"\n\nSusan was pleased at the opportunity of explaining to her young\nlisteners the simple but beautiful arrangements of the DESTITUTE\nCHILDREN'S DINNER SOCIETY, * by which a half-starved boy or girl from\nthe miserable dens of London is provided with an excellent meal for\nthreepence, bringing a single penny in addition. She spoke of the poor\nlittle ragged wanderers who have never in their lives known what it is\nto have a comfortable home, nor perhaps\u2014till this charity was begun\u2014a\nreally satisfying meal.\n\n   * See \"Ragged School Magazine\" for February 1868.\n\nSusan had been in London with an uncle who kept a cook-shop. She told\nhow it made her heart ache to see pale, thin, barefooted children\nhovering round the place to smell the savoury scent which to them\nmust have been so tantalising, and to gaze through the windows at the\ntempting food which they might not taste. Susan did not say how often\nshe had stinted herself in her meals that she might give to those who\nneeded.\n\n\"I was thankful,\" said Susan, \"to find that God had put it into the\nhearts of the wise and good to feed these poor hungry lambs, and in a\nway so simple and easy that even a servant girl can help a little in\nthe work.\"\n\n\"How will you do it, how will you send your dinners,\" asked Jessy,\n\"when you live so far-away from London?\"\n\n\"Twelve postage stamps can be bought for one shilling; I will put\ntwelve stamps into a letter, and direct it to Mr. Gent, 1 Exeter Hall,\nStrand, London. I will merely write inside, 'For children's dinners,\nfrom a cheerful giver.' And then, when my letter is dropped into the\npost-box, I know that it is all the same as if I had sent off four\ninvitations to dinner. I am sure that four pairs of eyes will look\nbrighter, and four young hearts will be merrier, and I shall enjoy my\nown meals a great deal more when I think of my poor little guests.\"\n\n\"Why, I could have a dinner-party of twenty for my five shillings!\"\nexclaimed Tom, who had picked up his silver crown-piece. \"Mamma never\nasks more than a dozen at a time, and I am sure that the feasting them\ncosts her a lot of money, for I've heard her talking to papa about the\ndreadful long bills.\"\n\n\"I think that I'll get you to change my big piece of money into five\nshillings, Susan,\" said Jessy, \"and take one of them for stamps, and\nsend my stamps with yours, and then there will be eight hungry children\nfeasted, and two 'cheerful givers,' you know.\"\n\nThe eyes of Susan glistened. It was not so much that she was glad that\nthe hungry should be fed, but that she rejoiced at having been the\nmeans of giving to her young charge this first lesson in Christian\nlove. It was for this, and for this alone, that Susan had mentioned to\nany one her own intended deed of kindness. She felt that she could in\nno way teach so well as by her own example; the children might be quick\nto imitate, though they would be slow to obey.\n\n\"You'll not have any of my money for your dirty, ragged beggar-boys,\"\nsaid Tom, laughing, as he chucked up his crown-piece again. \"I'll not\nspend it on mutton, potatoes, and onions, or pack up twenty hot dinners\nin a letter. I know what I'll do, since this stupid infection won't let\nme go to the town. I'll ask Giles to go shopping for me; he shall buy\nme a top, a whip, some string, and all sorts of things that I fancy.\"\n\nJessy came up smiling to the nursery-maid, and slipped her crown-piece\ninto Susan's hand. \"I can't cut this into five bits, you know, but you\nwill get Giles to change it, and buy the twelve stamps for the dinners.\"\n\nSusan took the money with a thoughtful air.\n\n\"Are you not pleased?\" asked Jessy.\n\n\"I was just thinking,\" observed Susan, \"that it would never do to pack\nup infection in the paper.\"\n\n\"Could you do that?\" cried Tom in surprise. \"I never heard of anything\nlike this horrid infection!\"\n\n\"I know of one thing that is like it,\" said Susan, gravely, \"the\ninfection of a sinful example. Evil spreads from one soul to another,\nas fever from person to person. Oh! How grievous it would be by one's\nworks or one's words to give something far worse than any sickness to\nthose whom we love.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" observed Tom, \"that bad men are shut up in prison that\nthey mayn't infect other people with their wicked example.\"\n\n\"There are many who do harm in that way, whom no one would think of\nshutting up,\" replied Susan. \"The selfish, the idle, the worldly, the\nproud, may be spreading the infection of their faults around them, and\nyet their company may be thought very good, and not dangerous in the\nleast. No one would willingly take a fever, but how many willingly take\nbad advice, and follow an evil example.\"\n\n\"But what is to be done about the dinners?\" interrupted Jessy. \"It\nwould never do to pack up scarlet fever with potatoes and mutton.\"\n\nSusan considered for a moment or two. \"Giles seems very good-natured,\"\nshe observed. \"Perhaps he would kindly take the trouble of not only\nbuying the stamps, but putting them up in the letter!\"\n\n\"That will do famously,\" cried Jessy.\n\nSusan then removed the cloth from the table, and carried away the\nplates and dishes. The heart of the young maid warmed towards her\nlittle charge.\n\n\"I doubt that my dear young lady ever before thought of helping the\nneedy,\" reflected Susan, \"and now she does so simply from kindness of\nheart; she knows nothing yet of mercy to the poor, shown as a proof of\ngrateful love to the Lord. But it is well to make a beginning,\" said\nSusan to herself, as she carried the tray downstairs. \"The time may\ncome when Jessy will delight in doing good, with the means and power to\ndo much, such as I never will have.\n\n\"Ah! The tiniest spark that glimmers in a night-light may kindle a\nvery large fire, or a beacon that will be seen for many miles round!\nWho knows but that, by God's blessing, a poor nursery-maid's simple\nteaching may be the means of drawing children's hearts to the Lord; and\nthat these children, in future days, may be burning and shining lights,\nso as both by their words and works to glorify their Father in Heaven!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nBattle in the Nursery.\n\nSUSAN felt shy of speaking to Giles about writing a letter for her,\nand sending the stamps. She would far rather not have told her little\nsecret to the man-servant, who, she feared, would laugh at her plan.\nBut Giles, on the contrary, was pleased as well as amused at the idea\nof sending dinners to Exeter Hall.\n\n\"I don't mind putting up a third dozen stamps of my own,\" said the\nbutler, as he pulled out his brown leather purse to give change for\nJessy's crown-piece. \"I like this notion of giving dinners, and I've\noften an odd shilling to spare that I never should miss. I was one\nof twelve children myself, and know what a struggle it costs even a\nman in good work to fill so many hungry mouths; I can't think how\nthe orphans get fed at all. I'm going to the town to-morrow, so I'll\nget an envelope ready in the morning, and I'll mention the matter to\ncook\u2014dinners are just in her line; I should not wonder if she, too,\npulled out her shilling.\"\n\nThere are thousands of households in our land where kind hearts and\ngenerous hands would be ready to aid in such works of love, if so\nsimple a way of doing good were suggested. In the servants' hall as\nwell as in the drawing-room \"cheerful givers\" would be found. Well\nwould it be, if in every rich man's kitchen, where the fire roars up\nthe chimney, and the joint turns round on the spit, and the place is\nfilled with the scent of steaming soups and savoury dishes, a little\ncollecting-box were kept for \"Destitute Children's Dinner Society,\"\ninto which those who never themselves know want might sometimes drop in\na penny unseen, to help friendless little ones, faint and pining with\nhunger.\n\nSusan was delighted at her unexpected success. \"How good does come out\nof evil!\" thought she. \"But for this fear of conveying infection by\nwriting the letter myself while nursing my little patients, I should\nnever have dreamed of mentioning the matter to Giles. I should quietly\nhave dropped my letter into the post-box, and my fellow-servants would\nhave known nothing about it. My poor little shilling is likely to grow\ninto four, and this is not the best part of the business: three persons\nmay begin from to-day to take a pleasure in feeding the poor, and who\ncan tell how many meals to the hungry, and what rich blessings to those\nwho care for them, may spring from so tiny a seed as my mentioning that\ngood society to little Miss Jessy to-day?\"\n\nSusan was returning upstairs with a very light heart, when the sounds\nwhich reached her ear from the nursery made her quicken her steps to a\nrun. There were screams either of passion or of pain, and when Susan\nopened the door she saw Tom, scarlet with rage, holding Jessy's doll\nby the feet, and banging its head against the fender, while the little\ngirl was vainly struggling to rescue her toy from his hands.\n\nIn another minute, Mrs. Fairley's pretty gift would have been battered\nto pieces, had not Susan darted forwards, wrenched it away from the\nhold of the boy, and put the doll on the top of the cupboard, beyond\nthe reach of the furious child.\n\nTom's passion was instantly turned upon her who had dared thus to\ninterfere between him and his sister. He flew like a wild cat on Susan,\nstruck her with violence, and then actually bit her on the arm, then\nflung himself on the carpet, kicking and roaring with passionate fury.\n\nThus cruelly attacked by a cowardly bully, Susan felt at first anger\nas well as pain. Had her master been in the house, she would have\ncomplained to him, and Master Tom might for once have met with the\npunishment which he so richly deserved.\n\nBut poor Susan had no one to appeal to, and she had been given no\nauthority to inflict chastisement herself. She must bear and forbear,\nand by patience endeavour to overcome evil by good.\n\n\"Oh! The bad, bad boy\u2014how he has hurt you!\" cried Jessy, indignantly,\nas Susan drew up her sleeve, and showed the marks left by his cruel\nteeth on her arm. \"I wish I could beat him\u2014I do!\"\n\n\"When Master Tommy thinks quietly over his conduct, I am sure that he\nwill be sorry that he has hurt his poor nurse,\" observed Susan, in a\ntone of gentle reproof.\n\nThis was all which she trusted herself to say on the subject.\n\nShe occupied herself in quieting and comforting Jessy. The hair of the\ndoll, rudely torn from its head, was picked up by Susan, smoothed, and\nreplaced; a few stitches repaired the doll's dress, which had been rent\nin the struggle. Jessy was soon made happy again, and then listened\nwith interest to the account given by Susan of her conversation with\nJohn. The young nursery-maid forgot her pain when seeing the pleasure\ncaused by the news that sixteen guests instead of eight were likely to\nbe invited to share the hot Irish stew.\n\nSusan, for the rest of the day, took no outward notice of Tom, except\nby attending to all his wants. It would not be wise or right to treat\nhim as if nothing had happened, until he should ask forgiveness; this\nwould be to make him think lightly of his sin.\n\nSusan's silence towards him was more distressing to the boy than would\nhave been the passionate chiding or even slap which he would have had\nfrom Betsy, had he treated her half as ill as he had treated Susan.\nTom tried indeed to show that he did not care for being in disgrace,\nand for the first half-hour made as much noise as he could, spinning\nhis crown-piece, drumming with his feet, and singing snatches of rude\nsongs to make-believe that he was happy. But Tom could not keep up this\nshow for long; Susan's patience tired out his passion. The boy became\nsilent, sulky, and sad; Susan could not help thinking that Tom was\nashamed of himself, though too proud to own that he was so.\n\nIn the meantime, the young maid made Jessy as happy as possible,\nplaying with or reading to her in a soft low tone, to which Tom could\nlisten if he would, as he sat with his back turned towards her, pulling\nan old basket to pieces, and scattering the bits on the floor.\n\nWhen the children's bedtime drew near, Susan, remembering the careless\nway in which Jessy had said the Lord's Prayer, thought that she could\nnot better employ a few minutes than in giving her charge a short and\nsimple explanation of the holy words, which had so often passed her\nlips without her mind having an idea of their meaning. Susan took Jessy\nupon her knee, and explained as well as she could how great and holy\nis the Being who permits us to call Him \"Father,\" and how the bright,\nhappy angels do His will in the glorious Heaven above. It was sweet to\nSusan thus to feed her Lord's little lamb.\n\nWhen Susan came to the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer, Jessy\nlooked pleasantly into her face and observed, \"God always gives me\ndaily bread, and meat, and nice things besides; won't God be pleased\nthat I am going to give some to the poor little hungry children?\"\n\nSusan kissed the child, and replied, \"The Lord is always pleased when\nwe try to do His will, by being kind to His poor.\"\n\nWhen the fifth petition in the prayer was explained, again Jessy looked\nfull into the eyes of her nurse. \"Can you forgive Tom out and out?\"\nasked the child.\n\n\"I can\u2014I do,\" replied Susan.\n\n\"I can't, and I don't,\" cried Jessy.\n\n\"Oh, dear Missie, we must pray for the spirit of forgiveness, for\nwithout it we dare not hope to be forgiven by God. The Lord has taught\nus mercy and love to those who have wronged us; not only by His words,\nbut by His blessed example.\"\n\nAnd then to her quiet, attentive hearer Susan told that touching story\nof prayer even for murderers, which, while it is a lofty theme for\nangels, falls sweetly on the ear of a child.\n\nSusan did not speak long, for she feared to weary Jessy. The servant\ndid not know what force her own gentleness and kindness gave to her\nwords. Jessy felt that Susan, who thought and talked about holy things,\nwas a very different person in her conduct and ways from what Betsy\nhad been\u2014she who never cared for religion. Even a child could draw\nthe conclusion that what made Susan good must be good\u2014that what made\nSusan happy would be likely to make herself happy; and a wish arose in\nJessy's heart that she might grow more like Susan. The tiny night-light\nwas already casting its radiance around.\n\nAfter Jessy had laid her little head on her pillow, Susan put Master\nTommy to bed. The little boy still seemed sulky, neither attempted to\nsay his prayers, nor bade good-night to his nurse. He carried his money\nwith him to his bed, and thrust it under his pillow.\n\n\"Master Tom,\" said Susan, gently, as she bent over the child, \"I could\nnot bear to go to sleep till I had asked forgiveness of God, and of any\none whom I might have treated unkindly.\"\n\nTom made no reply, but pulled his coverlet over his head, and turned\nhis face to the wall.\n\nThe boy was struggling against the better feelings which were rising up\nin his heart. The teaching and example of Susan had made quite as deep\nan impression upon Tow as upon his sister, but pride and temper were\nstrong within him. Tom fell asleep muttering to himself that he was not\nsorry, he did not care! As for begging pardon\u2014that was a thing which he\nhad never done in his life, except when he had been in immediate fear\nof a flogging from his father.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nSilver Turned into Gold.\n\nTOM's sleep was, however, troubled, and did not last very long. He\nawoke feeling restless and thirsty. He wished to call for some milk\nand water, but the room was so still that he fancied that Susan must\nbe asleep, and if she were at all like Betsy, there would be no use\nin trying to awaken her. The candle had been put out, only the tiny\nnight-light was gleaming, casting long black shadows from curtains and\nbed-posts upon the nursery wall. Nothing was heard but the ticking\nof the clock, and to the nervous ear of the boy it seemed to tick\nstrangely loud.\n\nConscience was awake in Tom's heart, and in the stillness of night, its\nvoice was louder than usual. The child softly drew back the curtain\nof his crib, and looked towards the corner where he supposed that the\nyoung nurse was lying asleep.\n\nHe saw Susan kneeling before a chair, her head bowed down on her\nclasped hands; in the quiet hour, when she believed that her charges\nwere slumbering, she was pouring out her heart to her God.\n\nThe boy watched, but did not dare to disturb her. Even he, young as\nhe was, could feel that real prayer made that room a more holy place.\nSusan was speaking to One who could hear, to One who was near; the\nanswer to the young servant's prayers was already seen in her life.\n\nWhen Susan arose from her knees, Tom softly called her by her name. In\na moment, the nursery-maid was by the side of her charge.\n\n\"Did you want anything that I can give you?\" she gently inquired.\n\n\"Were you praying for me?\" asked Tom, in a low and earnest tone.\n\n\"Yes; I should not be easy about the children under my care, unless I\noften prayed for them,\" the nursery-maid replied. \"I am afraid that you\nwent to sleep without asking a blessing for yourself, and so there was\nall the more need that I should ask it for you.\"\n\nTo Susan's great surprise, the child's arms were suddenly thrown\nround her neck, and in the voice of one struggling against a sob, he\nexclaimed, \"Oh! Susan, I'm sorry\u2014so sorry that I hurt you so much!\" His\nrough little head was on her shoulder, and her dress was wet with his\ntears.\n\nGently and tenderly Susan forgave, and tried to soothe the boy. She\ndid not, however, as in mistaken kindness some might have done, tell\nhim that his fault was nothing, that he need not trouble himself about\nit. But she assured him how freely and gladly she forgave it, and told\nhim to seek forgiveness from God, and ask from Him that grace by which\nalone he could conquer his temper in future.\n\nSusan then brought milk and water to relieve the feverish thirst of her\ncharge, beat up his pillow, and made him as comfortable as it was in\nher power to make him.\n\nTom was in a nervous excited state, and wished Susan to stay by his\nbedside.\n\n\"I feel so hot and restless,\" he despairingly said, \"I never shall get\nto sleep.\"\n\n\"Shall we pray the Lord to give you sweet sleep?\" asked Susan.\n\nTom looked at her in surprise. \"Can we pray about things like that?\" he\ninquired.\n\n\"Oh! Yes, we can bring all our little troubles and trials to our Lord,\"\nreplied the young maid. \"It is He who giveth rest both to the soul and\nthe poor weary body.\"\n\nPerhaps the first time that Tom Fairley had ever asked anything from\nGod with a desire and hope of having what he asked for, was when he\nprayed on that night for sleep. When he had done so, he thrust his\nlittle hand under his pillow, pulled forth his silver crown-piece, and\ntried to force it into the hand of his nurse.\n\n\"This is for you\u2014you shall have it for your own, it's to make up\u2014\"\ncried the boy.\n\n\"No, Master Tommy, no indeed\u2014I thank you all the same,\" said Susan,\ndrawing back her hand with decision.\n\n\"Take it for the hungry children, then,\" persisted Tom.\n\n\"Not now, dear, certainly not now; you are tired and sleepy, you have\nhad no time to think over the matter,\" said Susan, who would have\ndeemed it wrong to take advantage of the excited state of the child,\neven to help a charitable cause. \"Turn round and go to sleep now, dear\nboy; perhaps you may think in the morning of some quite different way\nin which you would like to spend your money.\"\n\nTom was too sleepy to reply; his mind was growing calm and his eyelids\nheavy. The touch of Susan's soft hand was lulling him to rest, with\nthe sound of her soothing voice as she repeated a simple but beautiful\nverse\u2014\n\n   \"This night I lay me down to sleep,\n    I give my soul to Christ to keep;\n    Wake I soon, or wake I never,\n    I give my soul to Christ for ever.\"\n\nThe young nurse did not quit Tom's side till he had sunk into deep,\nsweet slumber.\n\nSusan had expected that Tom would change his mind in the morning\nregarding the way of spending his crown; but she had done the boy\ninjustice. The heart of Tom Fairley was like rich and generous soil\nwhich had been covered with a thick growth of weeds: there was much\nthat was noble in him, but it had never till then been drawn forth.\n\nTom was heartily sorry for having struck and bitten the gentle girl who\nhad so carefully and tenderly watched over his comfort. He was resolved\nto make what amends he could, and as Susan would accept none of his\nmoney for herself, he insisted that every penny of it should go in\nthe way which he knew would please her most. Tom refused to taste his\nbreakfast till Susan should have carried his crown-piece to Giles to\nincrease the number of invitations to be sent to destitute children.\n\n\"Well, to be sure, I never knew money grow like your shilling!\"\nexclaimed Giles, when Susan, with pleasure beaming in her eyes, brought\nhim the crown-piece to add to the little collection.\n\n\"Master Tommy gives it, and with all his heart. May he never know, dear\nchild, what it is to want a meal!\" cried Susan.\n\nGiles smiled good-humouredly as he turned the crown-piece round and\nround. \"Four shillings and five make nine,\" he muttered, \"that's an odd\nnumber, and would buy an awkward lot of stamps to send in a letter.\nI'll do the handsome thing myself\u2014and follow this new fashion set in\nthe nursery; 'tis but one shilling more to give\u2014I'll turn all the\nsilver into one little bit of gold, and send it safely in a registered\nletter to Exeter Hall. We'll have a grand dinner-party amongst us, and\ninvite forty young folk at once.\"\n\nIt was keen delight to Susan to feel that her little offering of one\npiece of silver had been\u2014as it were\u2014changed into gold; that where she\nhad meant to give food to four, she had been the means of spreading the\ntable for forty!\n\nBut far more important than the extension of this little work of\ncharity in the dwelling of Mrs. Fairley, was the good which Susan's\ninfluence was silently working around her in the hearts of those who\ncould watch the \"tiny night-light\" of her example. The little Fairleys\nwere learning lessons of piety and love which were likely to make them,\nwhen they should grow up, holy and happy Christians, influencing in\ntheir turn, perhaps, hundreds of their fellow creatures.\n\nLet no servant of God, in however lowly a state, think that \"one\ntalent\" may safely be buried, or the feeblest light safely be hidden.\nEspecially let those who live amongst children remember how great the\npower of their own influence may be for evil or good. Those who have\nshowered blessings on thousands may have received in the nursery their\nfirst impressions of religion. A servant girl of whom the world never\nhas heard, may be found on that day when all secrets are known, to have\nhelped to form the character of a Wilberforce or a Howard.\n\nTo some Christians whose lives have been very obscure, may yet be\nfulfilled that glorious promise, \"they that be wise shall shine as the\nbrightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness\nas the stars for ever and ever.\" *\n\n   * Daniel xii. 3.\n\n\n\n                          A THANKFUL GUEST\n\n                                 OR,\n\n                      A CHRISTIAN IN COMMUNION.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nBack Again.\n\n\"THAT's he\u2014that's he\u2014hurrah! Look, wife, look! He's a-sitting on the\nbox of the coach that we may see him the better! Hurrah!\" And with a\ncheer which came from the heart, Michael Garth lifted the straw hat\nfrom his wrinkled brow and grey hair, as a carriage drove rapidly along\nthe country road, by the side of which stood his neat little cottage.\n\n\"Bless him! Bless him!\" faltered old Martha, grasping eagerly her\nhusband's arm with her trembling fingers, and straining her dim eyes\nto see the vicar's sailor son returning after ten years' absence from\nEngland.\n\n\"He sees us\u2014he minds us!\" said Michael.\n\n\"He's a-lifting up his cap\u2014cheer, Mat, cheer\u2014are ye dumb, lad!\" cried\nMartha to her grandson, a red-haired lad of sixteen, who had come\nrunning from the plough to see the officer drive past.\n\nMat cheered, and his grandfather cheered; hearty and strong sounded the\nold man's voice\u2014if an old man he could be called who had none of the\nweakness or infirmity of age.\n\nAnd Lieutenant Harry Maude nodded and smiled, and shouted out as he\npassed a kindly greeting to the good old couple whom he had known from\nhis childhood.\n\n\"He's not changed\u2014not a bit changed!\" cried Michael, as the carriage\nrolled away down the dusty hill. \"A trifle older, may be, and a trifle\nbrowner, and he hadn't them fine whiskers afore; but there's just\nthe same smile, the same merry look, as when I lifted him, over the\nfive-bar-gate when he was a little chap no higher than my knee.\"\n\n\"How happy the vicar and all the ladies will be,\" said Martha, wiping\nher eyes with her apron, for the pleasure of seeing the young master\ncome back had made them fill with joyful tears.\n\n\"Ay, to have him at home again, and after such dangers,\" cried Michael.\n\n\"Warn't there a shipwreck?\" asked Mat.\n\n\"A shipwreck\u2014a dreadful one,\" answered the old labourer. \"Didn't ye see\nthe account of it in the 'Times' the vicar lent me, and which went the\nround of the village till the paper a'most dropped to pieces, 'cause\nevery one wanted a reading. I forgot\u2014my memory's not what it was\u2014ye\nwere on the job at the farm down in Surrey. Master Harry there, he did\nwonders, brought off a lot of poor souls, I can't mind me how many, but\nI knows as he got thanks and praises without end. And the Queen\u2014bless\nher!\u2014sent him some medal\u2014I take it she was proud of him, she was!\"\n\n\"We are all proud of Master Harry!\" cried Martha. \"If I was the Queen,\nI'd make him a duke. I hopes now he's got such a deal of honour he'll\nnot be above thinking of poor folk like me.\"\n\n\"He'll not forget us, not he!\" said old Michael, rubbing his chin.\n\"Master Harry won't never forget us. We'll have him at the cottage\nto-morrow, I'll be bound.\"\n\n\"Nay, nay, old man, we mustn't look for that,\" said Martha. \"Mind ye\nwhat a many years he's been from his family, and what lots they'll have\nto say to each other, and what a many friends will be coming to see the\nlieutenant. We mustn't expect him to-morrow, nor the day after, for\nthat's when the Squire's daughter is to be married, and Master Harry\nwill be at the wedding, on course.\"\n\n\"He'll be bridesman, I s'pose,\" observed Michael.\n\n\"And more looked at and thought of a deal than the bridegroom himself,\nsave by Miss Lily the bride,\" said old Martha, as she turned and\nre-entered her cottage.\n\nThough the good woman had expressed her belief that a visit from\nLieutenant Maude was not to be expected for two days longer at least,\nthere can be no doubt that she kept her cottage in as high a state\nof preparation as if he might at any moment appear. There was not a\nspot on her pots and pans; not a speck of dust rested on the rows of\nplates (willow-pattern), that adorned the shelf on the wall, nor on her\nclean washed floor. Fresh snowdrops were put into the broken-handled\ncrockery-teapot, which served as a jar for flowers. The glass of the\ncase which held the stuffed owl which Harry in his boyhood had so often\nadmired, was rubbed as bright as a mirror.\n\nMartha took into daily wear that green shawl which the young sailor had\npresented her with before going abroad, and which she had reserved for\nhigh days and holidays, as she had deemed it \"much too good for a poor\nold body.\"\n\nEven the approaching wedding of Miss Lily was a small event in the\neyes of the old labourer and his wife, compared to the return to the\nvicarage of \"brave Master Harry\" from sea.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nNeglected Duty.\n\nIF there was pleasure in the cottage at the officer's return, what\nwas the joy within the home of his parents! Perhaps there was not a\nmore cheerful group in all England than that which gathered round the\npastor's fireside on that cold evening in March. There were eager\nquestionings, pleasant replies; every eye was turned towards Harry\nas he sat with his feet resting on the fender, and his mother's hand\nclasped in his own. Harry had much to relate which every one wanted to\nhear, and half the tale seemed untold when, at a later hour than usual,\nthe family retired to rest, after the evening prayer had been prayed,\nand the evening hymn sung by voices which trembled with thankful joy.\n\nBefore breakfast on the following morning, as the vicar was taking his\nusual early walk round his lawn, he heard a quick step behind him, and\nthen Harry's hand was laid on his arm.\n\n\"Ah! My boy, glad to see you! I could hardly have a word with you\nyesterday, your mother and the girls seemed resolved to have you all to\nthemselves,\" said the vicar, as he wrung the hand of his son.\n\n\"It is so delightful to be at home once more!\" observed Harry, while\nhe sauntered along the gravel path at his father's side. \"Everything\nlooks just as when I left it, I could fancy myself, as in old times,\njust returning from school. It was a pleasure to me yesterday to see\nthe familiar faces of good old Garth and his wife, who were standing in\nfront of their cottage. I suppose that the hulking lad at their side\nwas 'little Mat,' whom I remember at the Sunday class, when I made my\nfirst essay at teaching. Precious hard work it was to ram anything into\nhis brain!\"\n\n\"Mat is a good lad, though not a bright one,\" observed the vicar. \"As\nfor the Garths, there is not a more honest fellow in the village than\nMichael, and Martha is one of the kindest-hearted creatures that I ever\nmet with in my life.\"\n\n\"I recollect,\" remarked the young officer, \"that there was only one\nthing about the Garths which you used to regret in old days. They were\nsteady in attendance at church, but they were not communicants then.\"\n\n\"Nor are they now,\" said the vicar, stopping for a moment in his\nwalk. \"It is to me a strange, an almost unaccountable thing, that\nGod-fearing, God-serving people such as they, who attend the Lord's\nhouse, and prize His Word, should yet, month after month, year after\nyear, turn their backs upon His table.\"\n\n\"They brought their children to be baptised,\" remarked the lieutenant.\n\n\"Ay, and their grandchild too,\" added the vicar, resuming his walk;\n\"the Garths would have looked upon themselves as heathen had they\nneglected the one sacrament ordained by our Lord, while, apparently\nwithout any scruple, they constantly neglect the other. I have preached\nin public, and spoken in private on the subject, but still I am grieved\nto see three-fourths of my flock leave the church before the communion\nservice begins, and the Garths always amongst them.\"\n\n\"Have they ever given a reason for this?\" asked Harry.\n\n\"I doubt whether they have any reason which they could put into words,\"\nanswered his father. \"Garth agrees to everything that I say, will, as\nhe says, 'attend some day, but not yet awhile;' his wife folds her\nhands, looks down, and says nothing. I suppose that if either of them\nwere to be taken dangerously ill, I should be sent for in haste to\nadminister the communion to the sick; as if they thought that there was\nsome charm in the service to smooth their journey through the Valley of\nthe Shadow of Death, or that life-long disobedience to their Master's\ncommand could be atoned for by one dying attempt to do His bidding\nwhen, perhaps, the mind would scarcely have power to grasp the meaning\nof the service.\"\n\n\"Or death may come suddenly, as I have seen it come so often to the\nstrong and the young,\" observed the naval officer. \"How little we\ncan tell whether, when our summons comes, we shall be left one hour\nfor preparation! I remember when I was ashore in one of the West\nIndia ports, I ventured to say something to a friend of mine, a young\nmerchant, who was showing me kind hospitality, about his practice of\ndoing business on Sundays. He answered me with perfect good humour,\nthat he was obliged to work hard, for that he had set his heart on\nscraping up enough to take him home; that he would act very differently\nwhen in old England again, there he would take his rest on Sundays, go\nto church, and attend to his soul.\"\n\n\"'Now, I've no time,' added he.\n\n\"'My friend,' I ventured to observe, 'I often think of a proverb of\nZeller\u2014'\n\n   \"'\"The Americans say that time is money, the Christian says that\ntime is Grace!\"'\n\n\"The merchant smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Poor\nfellow! His time of grace was to be short! He was seized with yellow\nfever that night, and remained unconscious of all that was passing\naround him, until called to meet his God!\"\n\nA shade of sadness passed over the face of Harry Maude, as he recalled\nthe last moments of the poor young man who had been so busy in making\nthe money which he was never to spend, as to have no time to spare in\npreparing for that eternity on which he so soon was to enter!\n\nThe vicar and his son walked on some paces in silence, then Harry said\nin a more cheerful tone, \"I think that I'll drop in at Garth's cottage\nto-day; I know that the kind old folk won't be sorry to see me enter it\nagain.\"\n\n\"And you might find some opportunity, Harry, of giving a word in\nseason.\"\n\n\"I'm a little shy of doing that,\" replied the young officer; \"I don't\nfeel myself fit to teach others, there's so much that I myself need to\nlearn.\"\n\n\"But you have learned two things, my son, which are the very root and\nfoundation of all Christian knowledge; you have learned that you are\na sinner, and that Jesus Christ is a Saviour. It is not the minister\nalone who is bound to spread the glad tidings of salvation. The woman\nof Samaria, as soon as she had found the Messiah, left her water-pot,\nand hastened away to carry the good news to all whom she met.\"\n\n\"I believe that it is a cowardly feeling of shame that so often keeps\nus from speaking on the subject of religion,\" said Harry; \"at least it\nis so with me.\"\n\n\"Certainly cowardice is the last thing of which any one but yourself\nwould have accused the winner of the Albert medal,\" observed the vicar\nwith a smile. \"You showed, on that awful night of the shipwreck, how\nready you were to risk your life or limb to save the bodies of your\nfellow creatures; you are scarcely the man to flinch back when far more\nprecious souls are in danger. But here come two of the girls to seek\nyou; our sailor is not likely to be left much to himself after ten\nyears of absence. Let us go and meet your sisters, my son.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nA Service of Obedience.\n\n\"I TOLD you he'd come, I told ye, mistress!\" exclaimed Michael Garth,\nin a tone of triumph, as he glanced in through the open cottage door at\nhis wife, who was darning her good man's stockings.\n\nUp started old Martha at the words, the threaded needle dropped from\nher fingers, and the stockings from her knee.\n\n\"Maybe he's only taking a turn down the road,\" she began, as she\nhurried to the door.\n\nBut, before the sentence was finished, Harry Maude was striding up the\nnarrow garden path which led up to the cottage, and, the next moment,\nhe was heartily shaking the brown, hard hand of old Michael.\n\n\"So glad to see you both! Shall I come in?\" asked Harry.\n\nAnd, as Martha's smiles and curtseys gave the reply, the officer bent\nhis tall head, and entered through the low doorway into the cottage.\n\nMartha, in a flurry of pleasure, dusted with her apron the arm-chair\nwhich she had already twice dusted that morning; but Harry was too\ngallant to deprive the old dame of her accustomed seat, and took\npossession instead of a rush-bottomed chair. Michael stirred the\nwood-fire to a blaze, such being perhaps his idea of a warm welcome,\nand stood with his cap in his hand, pleasure written in every line of\nhis wrinkled, but still rosy face.\n\n\"How well I remember this cottage!\" cried Harry. \"And what pleasant\nvisits I used to pay here when I wanted my fishing-rod mended, or my\nkite put to rights, or advice about my sick rabbits! There is my old\nfriend the owl with his staring glass eyes, the sampler framed on the\nwall, with the flowering tree worked on each side, and the text down\nthe middle; the little crockery cow on the mantelpiece, the old prints\nof George III., Wellington, and Nelson, the kettle on the hob, the big\nlog on the hearth, just as I used to see them all here ten years ago!\"\n\n\"I wonders as how you han't forgotten such like things, Master Harry,\"\nsaid Mrs. Garth, with a smile of gratification, \"such a power of fine\nsights as you must have come across in your travels.\"\n\n\"I have seen a good deal,\" observed Maude, \"for I have been in all the\nfour quarters of the globe since I last crossed this threshold. But\nof all the fine sights which have met my eyes, there was not one that\npleased me like that of the faces of kind old friends.\"\n\n\"Ye'll not be leaving home in a hurry again, I take it, master,\" said\nold Michael Garth.\n\n\"I hope only for a very short time, but I must go up to London\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"Go up to Lunnon!\" repeated both the Garths in surprise; and Martha\nadded, \"Why, sir, ye only came from it yesterday.\"\n\n\"I must return thither to-morrow for all that, but only to remain there\none night.\"\n\n\"It must be a mighty business to keep you tossing to and fro like a\nfootball, a hundred and fifty miles each way, as if Lunnon weren't\nfarther off than yon church,\" said Garth. The honest labourer had never\nmade one such journey in the course of all his long life.\n\n\"I should ha' thought as how ye'd ha' needed a little rest,\" observed\nMartha.\n\n\"I do need rest, for I've been much knocked about,\" replied the young\nsailor, \"and I'd fever in the Channel, and have not yet picked up\nmy strength. But for all that, sick or well, I'm bound for London\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"Maybe you've a lot of money to get there,\" said old Michael Garth.\n\n\"Not a farthing; not even will my travelling expenses be paid,\" replied\nHarry.\n\n\"But sure and sartain, sir, ye can't go to-morrow, it's Miss Lily's\nwedding-day!\" exclaimed Martha. \"Don't you wish to be at the marriage?\"\n\n\"I do wish it much,\" said Harry Maude. \"It is a disappointment to me\nnot to be present, but I am obliged to give up the wedding, for the\ntrain starts for London at eleven.\"\n\n\"Well\u2014to be sure!\" murmured Martha Garth, lifting up her hands in\nsurprise.\n\nMichael's curiosity was fairly aroused. \"What, going all the way\nto Lunnon, and just for one night, and the wedding given up, too,\"\nhe muttered. \"Might I be bold enough to ask, Master Harry, what is\nhurrying ye hither and thither like this?\"\n\n\"Simply an invitation to dinner,\" replied Harry, smiling at the looks\nof astonishment exchanged between Garth and his wife.\n\n\"Why, sir, ye can ha' dinners and to spare here\u2014every house open to ye\nwithin ten miles round!\" exclaimed Michael. \"Sure and sartain, if I was\nyou, I'd not go a-travellin' three hundred miles for one dinner!\"\n\n\"Perhaps if you had received such an invitation as I have,\" replied the\nyoung naval officer, \"you would hold a different opinion.\"\n\nAnd, leaning back in his chair, Harry drew from his breast-pocket a\nlarge envelope with a red seal bearing the royal arms, which enclosed\na card which he took out, and handed across the deal table to Martha\nGarth.\n\nThe old lady began fumbling for her spectacles, but her husband, whose\nsight was better, was at her side stooping to look over the card,\nbefore Martha had fixed her glasses on her nose.\n\n\"Her Majesty's commands! Well\u2014if ever!\" exclaimed the labourer.\n\n\"Dearie heart! To dine with the Queen! What an honour!\" cried Martha,\ninvoluntarily half-rising from her seat.\n\n\"I don't wonder ye couldn't put aside such an invitation as that, sir,\"\nsaid Michael, \"let what might come in the way!\"\n\n\"My Sovereign's invitation is a command,\" replied the loyal young\nofficer. \"At whatever inconvenience or cost, loss of time or of\npleasure, I am bound to obey it.\"\n\n\"And you'll be proud to obey it, I'll answer for that,\" said Michael\nGarth; \"you'd go to the Queen's table, if you'd to travel all the three\nhundred miles a-foot, with shoes, or without 'em.\"\n\n\"Would you do so?\" inquired Harry, turning a quick searching eye upon\nthe old man.\n\n\"The Queen's not like to ask such as me,\" replied Michael, with a short\nlaugh, and he looked down on his fustian jacket and hob-nailed boots.\n\n\"But if our Sovereign were to do so, if that card of invitation had\ncome to you in your cottage with your and your wife's names upon it,\nso that there could be no room for mistake; would you have thrown it\naside, and let the day pass without so much as taking any notice of the\ngracious message from your Queen?\"\n\n\"No, surely,\" replied both of the Garths in a breath.\n\n\"Though,\" Martha added, \"neither of us be fit at all to appear before\nHer Majesty. We should feel strange enough, I take it, amongst all the\nlords and ladies; we'd be no fit company for them.\"\n\n\"But ye see, wife,\" observed old Michael, \"if the Queen invited poor\nfolk like we, she'd not expect much from us, she'd put up with our\ncountry ways; but, if we disobeyed her, and flouted her kindness, the\nQueen, mind ye, might be angered.\"\n\n\"And with just cause,\" observed Harry Maude. \"Now, will you forgive\nme,\" he continued, leaning his arms on the table, and bending forward\nin the earnestness of his speaking, \"will you forgive me if I remind\nyou that you both have received\u2014not merely once\u2014but very many times, a\nmost gracious invitation, which is also a command, from your Heavenly\nSovereign, the King of kings? He bids you appear before Him at His\ntable to partake of His Holy Supper; you know better than I can know,\nhow you have received the gracious invitation.\"\n\nBoth the cottagers were taken aback by this sudden turn which the\nconversation had taken.\n\nMrs. Garth uneasily twisted about in her fingers the card which she\nstill retained.\n\nMichael was silent for some moments before he replied, \"Ye see, sir,\nthere's such a difference!\"\n\n\"A difference indeed,\" said the naval officer; \"we are a thousand times\nmore bound to obey a Heavenly than an earthly monarch, and the honour\nand privilege of being bidden to God's table are a thousand times\ngreater than those of appearing at the Queen's.\"\n\n\"I don't gainsay that, sir, I don't gainsay it,\" replied Garth; \"but\nthere be some difficulties, you see\u2014\"\n\nHarry waited for the labourer to finish his sentence, but as he either\ncould not, or would not, the officer spoke again.\n\n\"I suppose that there are few duties, Michael, which we might not find\nsome excuse for neglecting. For instance,\" he held out his hand for\nthe card which was returned to him by Martha, \"I might find plenty\nof excuses for not obeying my Queen by going up to London to-morrow.\nI might plead that I had just returned to my home after a very long\nabsence, that my family were unwilling to part with me, that I was\nweary of travelling, that I was expected to attend at a wedding, and\nwas very anxious to do so. I might make such excuses, and others\nbesides, and even persuade myself that they were good ones; but in\ntruth not one of them, nor all of them put together, would really be\nsufficient to acquit me of disloyal, undutiful neglect of my Queen.\nNow, my friends, suffer me to entreat you to ask yourselves honestly,\nas in the sight of the Lord, will your excuses for never attending His\nHoly Supper be such as you will venture to plead when you stand at the\nlast great Day in the immediate presence of your King?\"\n\n\"I never had it put to me afore like that,\" said Garth, looking fixedly\ninto the fire.\n\n\"There are various lights in which we may regard the Lord's Supper,\"\ncontinued Harry, \"the first and most simple, perhaps, is this; it is\na feast to which His faithful subjects are specially called by the\ngreat King, whose invitations are commands. Turn to the parable which\nthe Lord himself has given to us. * Observe the gracious invitation,\n'Come, for all things are now ready.' Notice the excuses made by those\nwho should have been joyful guests, the ground bought, the oxen to\nbe proved, the wife that had lately been married. Were these excuses\naccepted?\"\n\n   * Luke xiv.\n\nMartha looked troubled and uneasy. \"I al'ays say as how we should go up\nto the Table one of these days,\" she said, \"but somehow or other, the\ntime seems never to come.\"\n\n\"I fear that you are not sufficiently in earnest on the subject,\"\nobserved Harry. \"Were a message to be brought to you from our Queen,\nyour mind would be fixed upon it, you would scarcely think of anything\nelse.\"\n\n\"You see, sir,\" said Michael Garth, \"if we neglected the Queen's\ninvitation, we should never be likely to get a second; but there's not\na month as passes but we have an opportunity of staying to Communion,\nand so, it may be wrong, I don't deny it, but one's more inclined to\nput off.\"\n\n\"Ah! You wait for the convenient season,\" observed Harry, gravely,\n\"forgetting that present neglect may be sin, and that by future\nobedience, if we be permitted to live to show it, we cannot make\nup for the past. Opportunities lost are blessings thrown away, we\ncannot recall them again. Let us not forget, in regard to taking the\nSacrament, that the same voice which bade us watch and pray and keep\nthe commandments, said also, 'This do in remembrance of Me.'* And had\nwe no other reason for partaking of the Holy Communion, no special\nbenefits to hope for, it should suffice to make us do the bidding of\nour King that this is A SERVICE OF OBEDIENCE.\"\n\n   * Luke xxii. 19.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nA Service of Hope.\n\nTHERE was silence in the cottage for a short space of time after Harry\nhad finished the last sentence.\n\nMichael Garth continued to look fixedly into the fire, with a\nthoughtful expression upon his weather-beaten face. His wife watched\nhim anxiously, wishing that he should be the first to reply. Presently\nGarth turned from the fire, slowly seated himself beside it, and\nresting his hands on his knees, began\u2014\n\n\"All you've said, sir, is true; but I don't feel us how I'm fit yet to\ntake the Lord's Supper. I've been a hard-working man, I've no learning,\nand I don't think I'm good enough yet; that's the long and short of the\nmatter.\"\n\n\"And there be such terrible words about taking the Communion\nunworthily,\" said Martha, timidly.\n\n\"Those terrible words were written to the Corinthians, who were\nactually guilty of intemperance when they met together for their\nlove-feasts,\" replied Harry Maude. \"It is impossible, as our services\nare conducted, that we could offend as they did.\"\n\n\"But sure, sir, we can take the Lord's Supper unworthily,\" observed\nGarth.\n\n\"Yes, assuredly, if we dare to approach the Table when living in\nwilful sin,\" said the officer. \"If we keep the leaven of malice and\nwickedness in our hearts, we are unfit to partake of the feast. If\nwe are acquiring money by fraud or theft, we are unfit to partake of\nthe feast. If we are denying the Lord who bought us, we are unfit to\npartake of the feast.\"\n\n\"God forbid that we should do any of these things, sir!\" exclaimed\nhonest Garth. \"I'm no better than others, I know, but I'd never touch a\npenny as was not my own, and I don't bear malice, I hope, towards any\nliving creature.\"\n\n\"No, I'm sure he don't!\" cried the goodwife.\n\n\"Depend upon it, my friends,\" said Harry, \"there is nothing which\nunfits a believer for appearing at the Table of his Lord, but that\nwhich would unfit him for Heaven\u2014self-righteousness and wilful sin. If\na man be really unprepared to partake of the bread and the wine, he has\ncause to fear every hour of the day\u2014he has cause to fear when he lies\ndown at night, lest death should suddenly overtake him\u2014because he is\nunprepared to die.\"\n\n\"But though we mayn't be living in wilful sin, yet we're far from being\nwhat we should be,\" said Michael Garth, thoughtfully shaking his head.\n\n\"And so were those whom our Lord Himself chose to appear at the very\nfirst Communion service that ever was held upon earth,\" cried Harry.\n\n\"Why, sir, they were the holy Apostles who took the bread and wine from\nour Lord's own hands,\" said Michael.\n\n\"And what were those Apostles but weak, erring men, whose spirit was\nwilling, but whose flesh was weak?\" asked young Maude. \"Did not our\nLord, when He called them around Him, know that some of them had just\nbeen disputing which should be the greatest? Did He not know that, in\nthe course of a few hours, all would forsake Him and flee? Did He not\nknow that one, the foremost amongst them, would deny Him with curses\nand oaths? The Lord knew all this, and yet He invited His Apostles to\nshare His Holy supper. Would He have praised for humility, or rebuked\nfor disobedience, any one of them who should have refused to come,\nsaying, 'Lord, I feel that I am not worthy?'\"\n\n\"There was no fear that they should refuse,\" murmured Martha, \"they\nwould not have dared to keep away when the Lord bade them come.\"\n\n\"But it seems that disciples in the present day dare to do that\nwhich Apostles would not have ventured to do, refuse their Lord's\ninvitation,\" said Harry.\n\n\"But ye see, sir,\" observed Garth, after a pause, \"it was all such\na new thing with the Twelve; there had never been anything like the\nCommunion before.\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Harry, quickly; \"the Christian feast of the Holy\nSupper is founded on the Jewish feast of the Passover, which our\nLord Himself kept in obedience to God's command. If you turn to the\n12th chapter of Exodus, you will find that on one particular evening\nin the year, every Israelitish household had to partake of a lamb,\nin remembrance of the firstborn of Israel being spared, through the\nsprinkled blood of a lamb, when the firstborn of Egypt were slain.\n'This day shall be unto you for a memorial, said the Lord, all the\ncongregation of Israel shall keep it.' * A Jew who should have\nneglected attending the Holy Feast would have shewn, by such neglect,\nthat he cared not for the blood of sprinkling, that he did not choose\nto cast in his lot with that of the Lord's chosen people.\"\n\n   * Exodus xii. 14, 47.\n\n\"But surely, sir,\" said Michael, earnestly, \"we Christians in Britain\nare not bound to keep a Jewish feast.\"\n\n\"No more than we are called upon to sacrifice a lamb,\" replied Harry,\n\"and sprinkle its blood on our door-posts. Our sacrifice was offered\nonce for all, when the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the\nworld, died on Calvary for us. But the feast which he ordained in place\nof the Jewish Passover, is to be kept 'till He come.' \u2020 What are the\nwords of St. Paul on the subject? 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed\nfor us: therefore let us keep the feast.'\" \u2021\n\n   \u2020 1 Cor. xi. 26.     \u2021 1 Cor. v. 7.\n\n\"I never understood afore that the Passover had anything to do with the\nLord's Supper,\" said Michael.\n\n\"It was what is called a type of it,\" replied the officer. \"The\nIsraelites in the Passover celebrated their deliverance from death,\nand the bondage of Egypt; Christians celebrate in the Communion their\ndeliverance from eternal death, and the bondage of sin. The Israelites\nrejoiced in the gift of Canaan, Christians rejoice in the gift of\nHeaven. The Israelites, when starting on their long journey through the\ndesert, gained strength in body by partaking of the food which they\nate by God's command. Christians, in their long journey through life,\ngain strength in soul by partaking also, by God's command, of bread and\nwine, with faith and repentance.\"\n\n\"Oh! My friends, let us never forget this. If we feel that we are\nsinful and weak, let us go to the Lord's Table for grace and strength\nto struggle against sin, grace and strength to press on towards Heaven.\n'Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.' * The\nChristian Communion is not only a service of obedience, it is also a\nservice of hope, and a service of joy.\"\n\n   * Heb. x. 22.\n\nHarry rose as he finished the last sentence, but the old labourer did\nnot rise; Michael did not wish his visitor to quit the cottage just yet.\n\n\"Then really I may be angering God by leaving this thing undone,\" he\nbegan, rather as if speaking to himself, than as addressing any other\nperson present.\n\n\"I am afraid that wilful neglect of anything which we are bidden, in\nthe Bible, to do is sin, a sin of omission,\" said Maude. \"We are apt\nto think little of such sins; and if we abstain to a certain degree\nfrom doing what we ought not to do, we are seldom much troubled by the\nconviction that we have left undone that which we ought to have done.\nBut God's Word teaches a different lesson. The barren fig tree cumbered\nthe ground, not because it brought forth bad fruit, but because it bore\nno fruit at all. The man with one talent was reproved, not because he\nhad misspent the money, but because he had not used it for good.\"\n\n\"In our Lord's own account of the Judgment, He tells us not of the\nsentence which will be passed upon those who have injured, robbed,\nor murdered His poor; but that which awaits those who have neglected\nto help them. This shews us most clearly that God marks our sins of\nomission. I would not have ventured thus to speak to you, my friends,\"\ncontinued the young officer earnestly, \"had I not feared that, almost\nwithout knowing it, you might be committing this sin by neglecting\nan ordinance of God. I own that I have often myself thus offended by\nleaving known duties undone, and from the bottom of my heart I join in\nthe dying prayer of Archbishop Usher, 'Oh! God, forgive me my sins,\nespecially my sins of omission!'\"\n\n\"Amen!\" murmured the old labourer, and his wife, as she folded her\nwrinkled hands, faintly echoed the \"Amen.\"\n\n\"And once more I ask your pardon for having spoken thus freely,\" said\nHarry Maude, holding out his hand to Garth with cordial frankness of\nmanner. \"But I had it on my heart to entreat you not to miss a blessing\nby neglecting a duty, and turning away from a service of obedience, of\nhope, and of joy. Every loyal subject of the Lord, when of ripe years,\nis invited to the Table of his Heavenly King, and it is his blessed\nprivilege as well as his bounden duty to appear there as a thankful\nguest, looking forward to the time when he, through Christ's merits and\ndeath, shall be welcomed to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at\nthe glorious feast in the Kingdom of Heaven.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nA Service of Love.\n\nHARRY MAUDE quitted the cottage, and Michael and Martha returned to\ntheir occupations, the one digging in the garden, the other mending\nstockings by the fireside. But the old man bending over his spade, and\nhis good wife over her needle, were both reflecting on what they had\nheard.\n\n\"To think of his taking us to task like that! But he meant it\nkindly\u2014yes, he meant it kindly,\" murmured Martha to herself as she\ndarned. \"He'd not have us treat our great and merciful God as we would\nnever dare to treat our Queen. We've been a-shutting ourselves out from\nthe feast in church; I pray God He mayn't shut us out from the Feast up\nabove.\"\n\nBut though Michael and Martha thus pondered over the subject, neither\nof them felt inclined to talk about it.\n\nWhen Mat came in from the plough, his grandmother told him that \"young\nMaster Harry\" had come to see them, but not one word did she repeat of\nthe conversation that had taken place, except that part which simply\nrelated to the invitation from the Queen. The husband and wife avoided\neven speaking to each other about that subject which was uppermost in\nthe minds of both.\n\nEvening closed in; the aged couple and their grandson sat down to their\nsimple supper, and, while they ate, chatted about the morrow's wedding,\nand the sailor's return, and the Queen's invitation, and other topics\nof the day.\n\nBut when the meal was over, and Martha had cleared away the fragments,\nMichael, from his seat by the hearth, gravely addressed his wife.\n\n\"Martha, I've been a-thinking about what you and me was hearing to-day\nabout these same sins of omission\u2014that's the word\u2014leaving undone what\nought to be done. You and me\u2014we reads our Bible on Sundays reg'lar\nenough; but I mind me that the parson told us in church that we should\nno more do without our daily reading of Scripture than without our\ndaily food. Suppose now you bring the Book. It's late to begin the\ncustom, seeing we're both growing old, but there's the less time for\ndelay, so we'll read a bit o' the Bible to-night afore we go to our\nrest.\"\n\n\"Ah! Michael, I've often thought of this, but I didn't like to be the\nfirst to speak about doing it,\" said Martha, as, after dusting the\nlarge Bible with her apron, she set it on the deal table before her\nhusband, and then pushed the little brass candlestick towards him, that\nthe light from the candle might fall on the Book.\n\nMichael slowly opened the holy volume, slowly turned over page after\npage, before he found the passage which he sought. Then, in a solemn\ntone, tracing the lines as he read with his finger, the old cottager\nbegan the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke.\n\nMat sat very quiet and attentive at his grandmother's side; the cottage\nseemed to the lad to have become as holy a place as the church; and\nthough his grandfather certainly could not read like the parson, the\nlad thought to himself that somehow or other the words went just as\nstraight to the heart.\n\nMichael read on slowly and steadily till he came to the end of the 19th\nverse, and then his voice faltered, the finger which rested on the page\ntrembled, and, with a deep sigh, the old man closed the Bible.\n\n\"Be you not well?\" asked Martha, anxiously.\n\nHer husband leant back in his chair, and pressed his hand over his eyes.\n\n\"It's not that, wife, it's not that,\" replied Michael, removing his\nhand. \"It was those words\u2014'twas the bidding us do this 'in remembrance\nof Me.' I couldn't abide the thought of having so long neglected the\ndear Saviour's dying wish, let alone it's being the King's command. You\nsee,\" continued Michael, addressing himself to his grandson, \"I have\nknown what it was to receive a dying request, and to treasure it up,\nand keep it, as if 'twere a bit of my life. Your Granny knows the story\nwell, but, maybe, you han't heard so much about it.\"\n\nThen, after pushing back his chair from the table, and again passing\nhis hand across his eyes, Michael Garth began his simple tale.\n\n\"I had as good and kind a mother as ever lived, and, I take it, never\nson loved mother more than I did. When I was a lad, not much older than\nyou be, I sickened with the fever which was a-spreading all through the\nvillage. My mother she watched me day and night, and would scarce stir\nfrom my bedside till the doctor he said as how the worst was over.\n\n\"But the worst was not over,\" continued Michael with feeling, \"for she\nhad caught the fever from me, she had, and on the day when I first\nrose from my bed, my mother lay a-dying upon hers! I was just able to\ncrawl to her side, to get her blessing, and to hear her last words. I\nhalf wished in my grief that the fever had taken us both away, so there\nwould have been no sore parting for either. My mother drew from under\nher pillow my father's silver watch, which she had kept ever since she\nhad lost him. She was so weak she scarcely could hold it, and her voice\nwas so faint that I had to bend down close to catch her last words,\n'Keep it for my sake;' they was the last words as ever she spoke. I\ncould not answer, a lump was in my throat, but I vowed in my heart that\nI'd never part with that watch to my dying day!\"\n\n\"And you never did!\" exclaimed Martha. \"So that there old watch is\nlocked up safe in yon box at this moment.\"\n\n\"I treasured that watch, I wore it by day, I put it under my bolster\nby night, often and often did it bring my mother to my mind, it seemed\nlike a bit of herself. If I was a-tempted to go wrong, the very sound\nof its ticking when I wound it up at bedtime seemed like a warning\nvoice from her grave. Years passed on, and I married, and a family\ncame\u2014bless 'em\u2014and after that great troubles. You mind that hard\nwinter, wife, when I was ten weeks out of work, and we scarcely knew\nwhere to turn to get a crust to keep soul and body together!\"\n\n\"I can never forget it,\" said Martha; \"we lay down hungry, and we got\nup hungry, and were well-nigh driven to part with the bed beneath us\nfor rent.\"\n\n\"I was well-nigh driven to part with something else,\" observed her\nhusband. \"Many and many's the time that I thought of my silver watch as\nthe one thing that I could turn into money; but I al'ays shrank back\nfrom doing that, I counted it would be a'most like trampling over my\nmother's grave. One day I was pretty near desperate; there was the rent\nunpaid, and the little uns crying, and I started off for the town where\nthe pawnbroker lived. When I came nigh the place, in sight of the three\ngilt balls, I pulled out my watch, it seemed to throb like a living\nthing in my hand. I stood stock still and looked on it, and all the\ndeathbed scene came back upon me as fresh as if I had just left it, the\npale face\u2014the wistful eyes\u2014the faint whisper, 'Keep it for my sake.'\n\n\"I turned back, Mat, I couldn't go on; I had had my long trudge for my\npains; thinks I, it's rather starve outright I will, than break the\nlast command of my mother.\"\n\nThe voice of Michael sounded husky, and Martha raised her apron to her\neyes.\n\n\"And better times came,\" observed Mat.\n\n\"Ay, lad, better times came,\" said Michael; \"but I've not finished the\nstory of my watch. It was about seventeen years ago, the very winter\nwhen ye was born, lad, and a sharper winter never I knew. I was coming\nhome one evening, a cutting wind was a-blowing, which seemed to pierce\nto the very marrow. The stream was quite frozen over, I thought it\nwas hard enough to bear me, and to save going round by the bridge, I\ntried to cross on the ice. The first step I took there was a crack. The\nnext\u2014the ice gave way, and down I splashed into the water.\"\n\n\"The stream ain't very deep,\" observed Mat.\n\n\"Quite deep enough, lad, to make a plunge into it on a bitter cold\nevening no pleasuring matter,\" said Michael. \"I was any way up to my\narm-pits, and a bit cut by the ice besides. I scrambled out with a\nlittle trouble, shivering and wet, my teeth chattering with cold, and\nmy hands a-bleeding with the ice. But the first thing as I thought on\nwas my watch, I clapped my hand to the little pocket which your Granny\nhad made in my jacket on purpose to hold it; the pocket was empty, the\nwatch had slipped out into the stream in the struggle and scramble.\"\n\n\"It warn't likely to be worth much after being in the water,\" said Mat.\n\n\"Worth, lad! It warn't the money's worth as I cared for!\" exclaimed\nthe old man. \"Had it been a brass farthing as had been given me as a\nkeepsake by a dying parent, it would ha' been more to me than a purse\nof gold! I didn't take much time to think about it, the day was short,\n'twas already getting dusk, if I waited, the under-current might drag\nmy watch down where I never should find it again. Back I plunged into\nthe deadly cold water, striking my arms right and left to break the\nice, and to keep in the life which was well-nigh frozen out o' me,\nfor a numbness was a-creeping over my body. I searched and searched,\nfeeling about the bottom, now with my feet, now with my hand, and more\nthan once I got right under the ice, and lost my breath, and thought\nit was all over with me. I've done many a hard day's work in my life,\nbut the toughest job as ever I had was the seeking 'mid the ice for my\nwatch on that piercing night in December.\"\n\n\"But you found it at last,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Ay, ay, I found it at last,\" rejoined the old man, a gleam of honest\npleasure lighting up his weather-worn face; \"warn't I glad when I\nfound it warn't a round pebble as I had touched with my foot, as I was\nafeard at the first! I brought the watch up out of the water, after I'd\nbeen a-hunting, gasping and struggling, shivering and freezing, the\nbest part of an hour. It was the thought of the words, 'Keep it for my\nsake,' as gave me strength to hold on; and though I had to lie in bed\nfor a week, and had rheumatics that I didn't shake off till the summer,\nall along of that search under the water, there was something as\nout-matched the trouble and the pain\u2014it was such a comfort to my heart\nto know that I'd kept the dying request of my mother!\"\n\nThe tale was not a now one to Mat, but it was one which, by the family\nof Michael, was always heard with interest, and it had deepened in the\nminds of his children and grandchildren impressions of filial reverence\nand love. The old silver watch, thus handed down from generation to\ngeneration, was\u2014and was likely long to be\u2014a precious relic in the\ncottager's home.\n\nWhen Michael had finished his story, his grandson observed, \"I don't\nsee why you should ha' thought about that watch when you was a-reading\nthat chapter just now.\"\n\n\"Do you not see, lad, it's all plain enough to my mind!\" exclaimed\nMartha. \"Your grandfather was willing to suffer hunger and hardship,\ndanger and chill, sickness and pain, rather than neglect the last wish\nof a dear mother who had taken her death from watching over him\u2014\"\n\n\"And yet,\" interrupted Michael Garth, finishing the sentence for his\nwife, \"never till this night have I taken to heart the dying wish of\nOne who has loved me better than ever did my mother, and has suffered\nmore for me than ever a mother suffered! I've read His words, and\nscarce given them a thought\u2014God have mercy upon me, a sinner\u2014for my\nheart must have been more dead than a stone!\"\n\n\"Ah! Michael,\" said old Martha, leaning forward on her chair, and\nlaying her hand on the arm of her husband, \"there was something which\nMaster Harry missed out when he spoke to us to-day so anxious and\nearnest about attending the Holy Communion. He said that the Lord's\nSupper be a service of obedience, and a service of hope, and he was\nright enough there; but it's more than that, it's a service of love\nbesides. How the holy angels must wonder that those for whom the loving\nLord poured out His very life's blood, can go on year after year\nas\u2014shame to us we have done, neglecting His dying command\u2014as if He had\nnever spoken, or they had never heard the words\u2014'This do in remembrance\nof Me!'\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nOne Family.\n\nBRIGHT and cloudless rose the sun on the following morning. The air\nwas balmy as in May, and the budding leaves on the boughs, the early\nwild-flowers under the hedges, all seemed to rejoice.\n\nHarry Maude was up as early as the sun life was too full of happiness\nfor him, for the young officer to care to waste the fresh morning hours\nin sleep. He gave his early moments to God, and found that:\n\n   \"His morning smiles bless all the day.\"\n\nThough young Maude could not, on account of his journey to London,\nattend the wedding service, he accompanied his sisters, who were\nbridesmaids, to the Grange, before he started by the train. The Maudes\nfound the family of their friends, the bride included, at their early\nbreakfast, a cheerful meal, at which Harry and his sisters joined as\nwelcome guests. The sight of the happiness of others was ever a source\nof happiness to the young lieutenant. One of the brightest hours of his\nlife was that spent at the Grange amongst old friends and companions\nupon that bridal day. Pleasant is it to fulfil the command, \"Rejoice\nwith them that do rejoice.\"\n\nThough the young officer quitted with regret the cheerful circle\nof his friends, yet it was, perhaps, with a feeling of yet deeper\ngratification that he appeared on the evening of that day in the\npresence of his Queen. He sat at the board of his Sovereign, a welcome\nand honoured guest, because he had nobly done his duty, because in the\nhour of trial and danger his courage had never failed. Thankfulness,\nand not pride, beat in the bosom of Harry; he gratefully acknowledged\nthat it was God who had helped him in need, who had strengthened his\narm and nerved his heart, who had carried him safe through dangers,\nand crowned him with honour and joy. That evening, when on the young\nofficer rested the approving glance of his Queen, was one which to his\ndying day he would recall with gratification.\n\n\"Earth's pleasures are fleeting, and its honours are passing away; the\nbridal feast and the royal banquet may both be joyous, but they belong\nto those things which Time sweeps from our view at last, as though they\nhad never been. God be praised, who hath prepared for His children\npleasures that abide, and glory that never shall end!\" So thought Harry\non the following Sunday, when, for the first time since his departure\nten years before, the pastor's family, as an unbroken family, met in\nthe House of Prayer.\n\nIt was deep joy to the sailor to pass once more down the\nwell-remembered aisle, with kind familiar faces around him, to occupy\nonce more the very seat where so often, when a boy, he had listened\nwith reverence to the voice of his father proclaiming the message of\nGod. It was deep joy to join again in worship with the friends of his\nyouth in that church, to which memory so often had turned during long\nyears of absence.\n\nHarry did not leave it after the sermon was ended, he and his family\nall remained to join in the service of obedience, the service of hope,\nthe service of love. There, indeed, they could enjoy the sense of\ncommunion, not only with their Heavenly Father, but with all His family\nin heaven and earth\u2014there they could realise that all true Christians\nare one in Christ, united with the angels above, and the spirits of the\njust made perfect.\n\nIf anything could have added to Harry's happiness at that sweet and\nsolemn hour, it was to know that the Garths were worshipping near him.\nThere were the grey-haired labourer and his wife, and their young\ngrandson beside them, sharing for the first time, but not for the last,\nthe privilege and blessing of drawing nigh to the Lord at His Table. As\nwith meek reverence and love they obeyed their Master's command, faith\nraised their thoughts to the great Feast above, to which all God's\nservants are bidden. \"Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom\nof God.\" * \"Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of\nthe Lamb.\" \u2020\n\n   * Luke xiv. 15.     \u2020 Rev. xix. 9.\n\nMy reader, this is a solemn subject, and should it be one to which\nyou have not yet given much thought, most earnestly would I commend\nit to your prayerful attention. May we duly prize the privilege of\nChristian Communion while yet we remain upon earth, nor refuse the\nloving invitation so graciously given to penitent sinners\u2014\"Come, for\nall things are now ready.\" * And when this life is over, and earth\nitself shall have passed away, may we, through our Saviour's merits, be\nreceived at the heavenly feast above, as rejoicing and thankful guests!\n\n   * Luke xiv. 17.\n\n\n\n               HYMN.\n\n   OBEYING Christ's command, oh! Lord,\n      I come, a thankful guest,\n   In no polluted tattered robe\n      Of human merits dressed,\n   But in my Saviour's righteousness,\n      The spotless wedding-vest.\n\n   Unworthy as I own I am,\n      Thy feast of love to share,\n   For His sake hear my humble cry,\n      For His sake grant my prayer;\n   And let Thy mercy cleanse my soul.\n      And shed Thy Spirit there!\n\n   Oh! Make me one with Thy dear Son,\n      To Him my soul unite,\n   A branch of the Eternal Vine,\n      Not fruitless in Thy sight:\n   Thine own on earth\u2014Thine own in heaven.\n      Through ages infinite!","title":"The battle of life : $b or, What is a Christian","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":54211}