probably end in scarcely endurable remorse.

Such forget,

that when God breathed into their souls the breath of life, He left there a void. No created being can fill it upno earthly bliss, however intensely pure or noble, no worldly good, however great can satisfy its cravings. Everybody who thus tries to satisfy it, fails miserably.

So it was with poor Lottie.

This then, she thought, must be her punishment for doing evil that good might come-for once deceiving her father, for allowing herself in a passionate and unaccountable fit of pitying fear, to lose all sense of God's ruling Hand, and the knowledge, that her simple prayers might have availed as effectually towards staying St. Erle in his mad, downward career, as an act of unwarrantable deception could do.

However it was done, and nothing could undo it. The voice of warning had been cast forth, and now she had lived to hear Laura, and not herself, re-echoing that voice.

She had prayed for him, too, and this was the answer to her prayer-not the precise answer she would have wished-not the one she had hoped for. Yet out of those years of keen unbetrayed suffering, came the strength which would make her gentle, kindly, courteous, and bear her calmly through her future life.

They shall be strong indeed

Whom He makes strong;

And whom He comforteth

Shall not mourn long.

She started up suddenly as she heard the approach of a well-known footstep. It was Father Nigel's.

"Here, and alone, Miss Lottie? This is fortunate, for I wish to speak a few words to you. I am come to make a final attempt to alter your purpose."

Has Mrs. Granton been talking to you?" asked Lottie quickly.

"No."

"Then why do you plague me so?" she added wearily. "Is it that I am disqualified for the vocation—is it that you think I am variable-or, do you consider that my motive is unsound? I know that many people laugh at me-Lord St. Erle and his sober-minded brother among the rest. But I don't care one scrap—if I am pleased and content to do the work, who has a right to interfere with me? No one but uncle, or James: they consent, therefore the rest may say what they like, it makes no manner of difference to me." She ceased, ashamed of this feeling and betrayal of vexation, and Nigel regarded her sadly as she stood before him, her eyes flashing, and a bright flush on her cheeks. He saw that she was unhappy.

66

I had hoped," he said in the peculiarly low, deep voice which betokens keen mental suffering, "I had hoped one day to call you my wife,-this is my reason, and the sole one."

"It cannot be !" cried Lottie passionately; "you know it cannot be. Why do you ask me! we have each our own work to do,-each our own suffering to bear,—I mine, you yours. Conjointly we cannot do it. I cannot marry you, Nigel; my deep gratitude and fervent respect are always yours, but I cannot be your wife."

"Is it and excuse the apparent impertinence of the query," said Nigel, his face growing whiter,-" is it, as I have long feared, that you love another?"

"It is," answered Lottie calmly. "I love another." The Master had called him to suffering, and he followed. Conquering every other feeling but that for the moment, he took Lottie's hand in his, and raised it to his

Z

lips. There was a great light in his fine grey eyes, as he said in that same low tone,

"We may yet work together, and perchance in another world-Good bye, good bye, Lottie," and with a few words of solemn blessing, he left her.

Another drop in the bitter cup!

But a thought came to help her, as she knelt once more before the Altar,

"All is right that seems most wrong

If it be His sweet Will."

There we will leave her. She will right herself, she will conquer her suffering, she will learn the sweet, sad lesson of the Crucifix, as thousands have had it to learn before her.

Once more to have felt the clasp of St. Erle's hand, once more to have watched the varying light of those dark eyes, once more to have heard the musical tones of his voice, and the light ringing footstep, which alas! her ear had learnt to love all too well. Yes; for the time being, it had been very blissful.

Loving on,-loving on hopelessly, stedfastly, for ever! It was bitter work! Shallow hearts might forget; Lottie knew that she never could.

So she knelt quietly, her white face with its sorrowful reflection of inward grief turned towards the peaceful Altar. She knelt, and made a little shrine in her heart, and there she placed the weary trouble,-the beautiful God-gift, for it was a God-gift-that love of hers. There she placed it, tremblingly, nay, half thankfully. And there she would cherish it for ever.

Thankfully? Yes, there is much of anomalism in the wondrous workings of our hidden soul-life. May we not live lovingly in the shadow of some great trouble, until

its bitterness turns into beauty? May not a deep sorrow sometimes become sweet unto us, and give that intensity and height to our silent, spiritual existence which we so often crave, even where the intensity is pain?

And is it not thus, by the strange, sharp discipline of our sufferings,-self-entailed or otherwise,-that God frequently teaches us the beautiful attraction of His wondrous Love, not by always permitting the realisation of our own poor hopes and desires, bound as they are by the cramping fetters of a false, perverted judgment, or a blind egoism?

340

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt. and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete;

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant, crying in the night:

An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

IN MEMORIAM.

LIFE is a great reality.

And death is another.

People are born every day, and people die every day. It is nothing fresh; it is the "old old story" over and over again, so often heard, so much a matter of course, that it has ceased to cause wonder.

Death as an evil, is, collectively, nothing. Individually, what is it? We read of it, we hear of it, we see it—but to feel it the cold pang, the physical suffering, the verging on eternity, the presence of the Creator, the glimpse of joy, or the glimpse of woe-ay, this is death.