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and ungrateful I was to him to-day! He was speaking of selfishness as a universal fault. I said I was not selfish, and he put his hand on my head, and whispered, 'Now, what do you think of from morning till night is it not Lady Elinor, in some form or other?' How frightfully true it was! and because it was true I was so angry! but he only smiled and said, 'There's some use in scolding you, my dear, for you take it so ill, that one knows it goes home!' He read me something out of a magazine, which, after he left the room, I copied, though I would not acknowledge that I was struck by it. Self & Co. is a good Christian firm, provided the "Co." be sufficiently comprehensive; but Self alone, all Self, and with no thought beyond Self, is a miserable, sordid piece of case-hardened impracticability, abhorred of all good angels, and with which no one who believes in the three Christian graces desires to have anything to do. We spoke of Self alone. The phrase is incorrect. Self never is quite alone. Segregated from all mankind,

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the self-worshipper is an object of special and peculiar interest to the Father of Evil. Self and Satan "cotton cotton" to one another, and the latter becomes the silent partner of the former-so it is Self & Co. after all! Let all whose affections strike inward, but neither outward nor upward, be assured that the pleasantest sensation their self-adoration can ever give them, is as far beneath the exquisite enjoyment which flows from the exercise of charity, mercy, and lovingkindness, as God's footstool is beneath His throne.'

"I must arise from this abyss of selfishness; but how? Oh, if I had some one to love that I could pour devoted thought and feeling upon-some one to look up to, up and away from Self-I could learn to be unselfish, I think. But no one loves me best of all; I am no one's first object. Dear, kind Miss North, how earnestly she spoke! It would be a wonderful thing to love God; the great, holy, marvellous God. Surely that would fill the heart; but how impossible!"

The first step toward the truth is to feel the need of truth. The first earnest longing for the morning makes us turn from all other lights, whether star or taper. Before the first spring of the steed upon its onward career, the barriers which stayed its progress must fall or be shattered. So it was with Lady Elinor. So it is with every soul educating BY God FOR God.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TOUR.

And he led them forth by the right way."-Ps. cxii. 7.

"The soul that sees Him, or receives, sublimed,
New faculties, or learns at least to employ
More worthily the powers she owned before;
Discerns in all things, what with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then she overlooked."

"But truths on which depend our main concern,
That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn,
Shine by the side of every path we tread,
With such a lustre he that runs may read."

"What end should cause us take such pain,

COWPER.

But that same end which every living wight,
Should make his mark, high heaven to attain?

Is not from hence the way that leadeth right,
To that most glorious House that glistereth bright,
With burning stars, and ever-living light."

SPENSER.

TIME had passed on. The 10th of January took Leslie North away from Woodleigh Mordaunt, leaving a sorrowful blank in the Corner House, and beneath the pointed roofs

and painted beams of its opposite neighbour. What was very strange also, was that Lord D'Arcy in the Castle, and little Barney in the kitchen, as well as Aunt Hester in her sick-room, had felt as if nothing had gone quite smoothly and pleasantly since that identical date! At first, Barney did little but dig his knuckles into his eyes, and utter Irish howls in the back-green, which quite upset Flora's weak nerves. Afterwards, he comforted himself by building various castles in the air, which mysteriously enough seemed connected with Miss North's studies in the Roundel, and which resulted in Susan's announcing in great consternation,---" Please ma'am, Barney says that he's going to be a missionary instead of a tiger!"

At the Castle, the winter seemed very long. A cough and other symptoms of delicacy still remaining, Dr. Brown thought it unwise to expose Lady Elinor to the rigours of an English spring; it was therefore settled that she should go abroad for a few months, accompanied by her father and brother, while

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