say to myself. It's we who are poor. We have to carry the heaviest burden. Often and often I wish myself in your place." "You wouldn't like our place, ma'am," said Mrs. Fosse rousing up a little; "you wouldn't like gettin' up at five o'clock in the mornin', and goin' out all weathers to feed the pigs, and the chicks, and dig up potatoes; you wouldn't like wearin' the same clothes all the year round, save on Sundays, and never havin' any hands but your own to do every stroke of work about the house to keep it clean and sweet. But, thank the Lord," she added cooling down again, me and Jeremy are not poor!" 66 "No, no, you are not poor," asserted Mrs. Cunliffe emphatically; "but I must say goodbye now, Mrs. Fosse. And I'm to leave my eggs for your pretty Snowdrop to hatch for me? A shilling a dozen it is to be, I think? Yes, that's right, a penny a-piece; and I'll bring the money when the dear little chicks are out of the shell. Good-bye." Mrs. Fosse watched her visitor down the little garden path, with a smile on her face, and a slight shake of her head. "She shall take the full length of her tether this once," she said to herself. She was about to turn back into her house, when she heard her name called in a clear, young, ringing voice. "That's Miss Pansy!" thought old Mrs. Fosse, and her face brightened with a peculiar tenderness; "she always reminds me of flowers, and sunshine, and birds singing; ah! and of bright angels too! Herford 'ud be a dull, sad place without Miss Pansy!" She went down to her garden wicket, and shaded her wrinkled face with her hand, to watch Pansy coming up with swift half-running steps from the beach, where Justin Herford was making his boat secure against the incoming tide. She had grown into a tall, slim girl, with a simple and natural grace in all her movements, and a delicate poise of her pretty head, learnt perhaps from Diana Lynn. There was an assurance of perfect health and undimmed happiness about her, constituting her chief charm, which worked subtly upon those who had fallen upon life's ordinary lot of impaired vigour, and only a moderate share of gladness. Pansy had never been ill, and had known no troubles but those rising from her grandmother's whims, from which her father had always speedily rescued her. She was the idol of the village. From the time when she had been brought a motherless baby into Herford, every mother in the neighbourhood had caressed and petted her. She was simple, and easily pleased by nature. It was almost enough for her happiness to see the sun shining; and she had grown up amid a glad sense of love and joy perpetually surrounding her. She almost worshipped her father. It might be said that as yet she scarcely worshipped any greater being. A vague, conventional idea of God was in her soul; she knelt down to say her prayers punctually night and morning, and never missed church, and sang in the choir with her full, sweet voice, and had a general knowledge of religious truths. Her father, and Mr. Cunliffe, and old Fosse had each sown some good seed in her young heart. But she had had no opportunity, as yet, of learning trust in God through bitter mistrust of man; of cleaving to God because she found it vain to lean upon any fellow-creature. There was no void in her life. Her father was, in her eyes, love and wisdom personified. Herford was like a small kingdom over which she reigned absolutely. Who could be happy if she was not? As she came up to Mrs. Fosse, laughing and almost breathless, she bent down her sweet young face, and kissed the old woman who had been watching for her. "There, mammy!" she said gaily, "that's because you look such a dear, peaceful old darling! I don't kiss everybody, you know; only my father, and granny when she is good, and one person besides, the best, and sweetest, and dearest of all living creatures. Guess who it is." "Not a sweetheart, Miss Pansy?" cried Mrs. Fosse in a tone of real alarm. "A sweetheart!" echoed Pansy with a flash of disdain; "who would want a sweetheart with such a father as mine? No, no, Mrs. Fosse. It's Diana; Miss Diana Lynn, my friend, and my father's friend." "I'm glad it's nobody else, bless the Lord!" answered Mrs. Fosse greatly relieved; "but you spoke so warm and hearty, Miss Pansy, my dear! You're too young yet; and don't you go and throw away your girlhood on a sweetheart. You've got your best days, and make the most of them." "I hate talking about such things," said Pansy with a crimson face, and her head tossed back. "I ran up to ask you to let me have your next brood of chickens, and take care of them for me till they can take care of themselves, for our goose-girl lets them die as soon as they are out of the shell." "Why! I've just gone and promised Mrs. Cunliffe to let Snowdrop hatch a dozen eggs for her," answered Mrs. Fosse in a tone of chagrin. "Mrs. Cunliffe!" cried Pansy, "she heard me say I was going to bespeak a brood from you! And she says she hasn't a place to keep poultry in, and granny lets them run in with ours; and there's always squabbling about the eggs that are due. Mrs. Cunliffe believes every one of her hens lays an egg every day of the year, and she cannot be convinced to the contrary. Well! I must wait, I suppose. But isn't Mr. Cunliffe a good man, Mrs. Fosse?" Pansy checked herself suddenly, because she knew how earnestly her father deprecated anything that might tend to lessen the vicar's influence over his people. "He's a very good man," answered Mrs. Fosse heartily. "Besides," went on Pansy, "I have great news to tell you. We are going to London, my father and I! We set off on our travels next Monday morning, early. Father says now I am nearly eighteen it is time I saw the world a little; but I shall never love any place so well as Herford. I can't imagine being happy anywhere else-not really happy and at home. I shall enjoy going to London; and we are to be away three months, till the end of May, perhaps. Granny is quite wild because Dr. Vye says she must not go after all. She has been counting upon it all winter; and she said she would have another doctor, who would let her go; but my father says she shall not come with us, if there is any risk. Mrs. Fosse, did you ever know two such good men as my father and Mr. Cunliffe?" "No, never, Miss Pansy!" she responded fervently, none save my old man. Eh! but Herford is a favoured place now! Sometimes I'm afraid it's like old Capernaum, lifted up to heaven; and the folks there wouldn't turn and repent, and it was thrust down to hell, for its hardness of heart. There's no upper sort of sin, Miss Pansy, such as Master Justin and Mr. Cunliffe can see; but there's a deal o' natural sin out o' sight. But there! Don't thee look downHerford's a favoured place; a very favoured place." cast. CHAPTER XIII.-A SEASON IN LONDON. FOR the last ten years Mrs. Herford had had her own way without check. Justin was one of those men, conscious of their own strength, who are extremely indulgent to the women related to them, and who feel that any unnecessary assertion of their authority is tyrannical. He was over scrupulous in his chivalrous deference towards his mother; the more so as he felt that there was no very deep esteem and respect for her character in his inmost heart. It was now, therefore, an almost unbearable trial to her to be debarred from accompanying her son and granddaughter to London. She was still under sixty; and time had not made those ravages upon her good looks which are manifest in many faces. There were no finely-drawn lines of thought and sorrow upon her smooth forehead, and her light blonde hair scarcely showed a streak of grey, while her slight and small figure was still quite young in its erectness. When she was well dressed, and she was always well dressed now, she might easily pass for being fifteen years younger than she was; and nothing pleased her so much as to be taken for Justin's wife. She neither felt nor looked like a woman of sixty, for her mind had not grown at all since her marriage with Richard Herford, thirty-three years ago. It had attained all the maturity of which it was capable during her first marriage and widowhood, and had never ripened into mellowness, but remained green and hard like fruit that has grown in poor and stony ground. She had set her heart upon passing this season in London; and now a serious attack of bronchitis had compelled Dr. Vye to forbid the journey, and above all the exposure to so great a change of climate. Justin was by no means grieved. He very decidedly preferred taking his holiday with Pansy alone; though he had been too considerate of his mother's feelings to suggest such a course. He was compassionate, and unwaveringly patient and forbearing towards her; but he had never loved her since she had married the old man whose estate he was now possessing. The impression made upon the boy had been too deep and indelible, ever to pass away altogether as he grew into manhood. He had not left Pansy's training to his mother. The only point on which his will had clashed with her wishes was that of sending the girl to a boardingschool. Pansy had never left home, and he had chosen her governesses himself; asking no one's opinion, except Diana Lynn's. Silently, though not quite unsuspected by Mrs. Herford's hundred-eyed jealousy, Diana had directed Pansy's education, and found in so doing the sweetest occupation of her dreary life. Justin was little over forty, and the last ten "Then Pansy ought to stay with me," she said peevishly. "If there was any danger we would both stay,' ," he answered; 66 but you are to have Jenny Cunliffe with you, and you often say Jenny is more like a grandchild to you than Pansy. But there is Vye coming up the drive. Now we shall have his last word." years had given him an air of distinction and "It's of no use, Justin," exclaimed his of genial dignity, which had not characterized mother, the Saturday before their departure, him as the poor and reserved Vicar of Her-"I must go, and I will go. If I'm too ill to ford. The consciousness of being a good go, I'm too ill to be left. It's all a nasty landowner, and a magistrate looked up to as trick of Dr. Vye's to keep me here. I'm quite one of the best on the bench, sat well upon well enough to go with you, I'm quite sure." him. He was a tall, vigorous, handsome "My dear mother," he answered firmly, man, and like his mother looked even younger "Dr. Vye says the east winds in London than his years. The certainty of being listened might be fatal to you, and you hardly catch to had made him more fluent, on the platform them here. It is tedious for you, I know; of the many meetings he was invited to attend, but there is no danger, if you take ordinary than he had ever been in his pulpit. He was care of yourself." a leader of politics in the county, and reckoned upon as one of the strongest men of his party. Sir John Fortescue, the senior member for the northern division of the shire, made much of Justin Herford; especially since he had published a pamphlet on Sir John's favourite measure. Many a time had Pansy's pretty face flushed, and her eyes glistened through happy, unshed tears, as she had listened triumphantly to the applause elicited by her father's well-turned and well-considered sentences. He was engaged to speak at sundry meetings, religious and political, during April and May, to London audiences; and she felt assured beforehand that his eloquence would create a wonderful sensation; for Pansy had never heard an orator to compare with her father. Justin himself looked forward to these appearances upon a wider stage with diffidence, not unpleasantly flavoured with the recollection of the flattering opinions uttered by his bishop, and Sir John and other critics, well acquainted with London speeches. Both he and Pansy were about to make their first appearance before the world, on the world's own stage. Justin had taken care to provide the means of doing so with a kind of quiet grandeur, suitable to his station. He did not like to be stinted in his expenditure while dwelling in London; and he desired Pansy to look her best, the more so as Lady Fortescue had graciously offered to be her chaperone, whenever she wished to go where chaperones were necessary. He had been very frugal in his personal expenditure in order to provide these funds; for he had made the discovery so quickly made by us all, that really his larger means were not much more elastic than his small stipend as vicar had been. Herford Court, and his position as landowner, could not be kept up as they should be, on much less than its full income; and as he had added an extra hundred a year to his friend Cunliffe's living, it had required strict economy to secure any surplus on his annual outlay. Dr. Vye's last word was that Mrs. Herford could not possibly go. He would not answer for her life if she went. Then she tried to make him say that she must not be left, but that he mocked at. There was no risk at all, if she would simply take care of herself, and keep in a mild, equal temperature. After an animated dispute Mrs. Herford took herself out of the room in high dudgeon, leaving Dr. Vye and her son together. "I've just come from Rillage Grange," said Dr. Vye; "the old squire is on the verge of delirium tremens, and there's that saint, Diana, hovering about him like the angel she is. If there ever was a living saint on earth, it's Diana Lynn." Justin's face clouded, and his brows contracted a little. There was but one flaw in his prosperity, one cloud in his sky. His love for Diana had grown and deepened during these ten years. What it may have lost in impetuosity and passion it had gained in strength and faithfulness. It seemed as if he was bound to stand by and see her suffer a martyrdom from which he had no power to deliver her. This was growing intolerable to him. "Is there no chance of the old drunkard's death?" he asked with a sharp and impatient ring in his voice. "Well, not much," answered Dr. Vye with a half smile," not if I can prevent it, you see. Of course I shall do my utmost to keep him alive ; and I fancy I can drag him through. I know quite well that if I merely withheld such and such remedies an accursed life would be taken away out of many a household; and the saints, like Diana, would come down from their crosses. But what am I to do, Herford? I'm sent for to spin out the miserable thread of their lives to the very last moment; and if I did not do all science and practice teach me, I'm neither more nor less than a murderer." "Is he very bad?" inquired Justin, the frown darkening on his face. "He's so bad," replied the doctor, "that I've banished Miss Di from his room, and sent in two strong men to sit up with him. I've hired a nurse for him, too, from the village here, Leah Dart; a strong, robust, handsome woman, with more muscle in her arm than in mine. She has promised to go, on condition that she is not called a servant. I told her I could get a real lady from London if she did not come, and that decided her. She is to have unlimited authority over the old fellow; and she'll keep Diana out of the room, I'll wager. That is exactly what I wanted." "Then you think there is no danger for him?" said Justin. "Not much," he answered. "Of course there are always chances; but he has pulled through many a time, and he'll pull through now. His constitution is as strong as an elephant's. So is Miss Di's. Look at her with all her troubles, as sound as a bell, with a head as clear as her skin, and that is like alabaster. She is a splendid woman, and to think of her being sacrificed to that beast!" Justin's face reflected the disgust upon Dr. Vye's; but he gave a turn to the conversation. It displeased him to hear the old doctor himself speak of Diana in such homely terms of admiration. He would see her for himself, that very evening; his poor Diana! Why had she been so bent upon her course of self-sacrifice ten years ago? Why had she chosen her father before him? He had seen the manner of her life, lived beside it, admired and pitied it; but he could not understand it. With him she would have passed her days in happiness and peace; she would not have had a wish unfulfilled, if he could have met it. They suited one another; there was no barrier between them; they were equals, able to walk together side by side, with no fretting strain or sense of inequality. Yet she had chosen to stay with a brute, who trampled upon her affection, and treated her as he would not dare to treat the meanest of servants. "He treats her worse than a dog," thought Justin, whose own dogs were dear friends and companions to him. If Diana's father loved her as he loved Pansy he might have had patience; but now he could not endure the knowledge of her daily martyrdom and purgatory. "THERE WERE SHEPHERDS ABIDING IN THE FIELD.” HE sun's last ray had long from Bethle- | So long by ancient prophecy foretold, hem's hill Departed, and the dancing stars of night Lay stretched a fertile tract of meadow land, In tender watch o'er their defenceless flocks. Might now be realised. "Oh Lord, how long," Cried old Benaiah, in his fervent zeal, "How long dost thou defer our eager hopes? Why tarry thus thy chariot wheels? Lord, Oh Send forth, we pray, the holy promised seed, The son of David; let these aged eyes Behold Messiah's glories." Here he ceased, And prostrate on the ground the faithful four In silence wrestled with the God of heaven. Deep and yet deeper grew the solemn hush; The quivering leaves upon a thousand trees Were motionless, and listened as in awe To catch the footfall of their coming Lord; Mute silence fell upon each bleating lamb And every little blade of grass was still. But now a whisper faint the silence breaks, A low sweet murmur, strange and undefined, That floated softly and mysteriously Around these praying men, till gathering strength, |