began to tell you of Mr. Gretton's, besides that this is not the family secret I have promised to tell. Yes, he was a thoroughly kind manhe gave of his abundant means to the poor and needy; he was charitable, from natural disposition to do kindly and to feel kindly; but he was not so from Christian principle. He was rather too easy in his religious creed, as in all else, too fond of quoting Pope, and that wellknown couplet

For forms of creeds let angry bigots fight,

He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

Alas! alas! one thing he lacked, and he who lifted his head so proudly in the family pew at church, and was wont to boast that his place there had not been vacant more than twice for ten years, had little more thought that prayer was a spiritual communion with God than the thoughtless children in the aisle who played and slept during the solemn services of God's house. Such was Mr. Gretton. His wife, with a far higher intellect, and of a superior order of mind, was nevertheless inferior to her husband in some gifts of heart. Hers was a spirit of perpetual unrest, and there was that in her otherwise fine countenance that reminded you of the restless ocean. Her daughters-but their characters will all be better understood by entering at once into the family circle.

'How I wish Miss Farre would come! I wonder what she is like," said Jane Gretton.

Miss Temple, do be so kind as to pick up this tiresome stitch in my knitting,' said Catherine Gretton, a damsel of fifteen, who made it a point to do nothing for herself which she could by any possibility have done for her, and so Miss Temple and the house-maidens found to their cost.

If she is like her mother,' said Mrs. Gretton, she is all you can wish. I only hope she may not have imbibed some strange notions that her mother had, but she is so young that I think it is not very likely.'

Dear! is she a Catholic?' asked Miss Louisa Gretton, who had very little idea of any peculiarity or error which did not involve the soundness of the Protestant faith.

'How late the coach is! but hark! hark!' and in a few moments the point was determined, for the coach drew up before the iron gate, much to the discomfort of the eager horses, who scented afar off the hay and corn in the manger at the White Hart, and had no notion of being suddenly brought to a stand so near their journey's end; so they pawed, and fretted, and stamped. The coachman on the box grumbled and fretted in his way quite as much as the horses, but a very young lady, escorted by an elderly gentleman, who were passengers, although as quick as they could be, took the matter more quietly, which is quite the best way of taking all matters in this world. And now the luggage was in the hall, and the young lady in the bedroom, Mrs. Gretton smiling welcomes to her, and the Misses Gretton assisting her to unwrap, whilst the elderly gentleman, her father,

was getting sociable with Mr. Gretton by the parlour fire, and telling him of the good roads, the fine travelling, and the agreeable journey they had had. Oh! blessings on those genial spirits who make life a perpetual summer, and have always more tales to tell of the pleasant than the painful. Such a spirit was Mr. Farre's.

His daughter, too, Who could doubt of her sunny nature as she came down to tea in her neat black silk dress and white collar, the dress she had travelled in, for Marion Farre was always dressed; she was simple, neat, and elegant at all times, and as she did not think it necessary to be otherwise on a journey, the consequence was that at its close she was quite fit to be seen.' The tea warmed the cold visitors, and soon they were talking together quite sociably. There is no hour like the tea-hour for travellers, for you may shiver in the frost of a whole day's formality and visitor-like horrors if you arrive at your destination in the morning, but the tea dispels it all at once, and melts the ice most completely. So it was at Barnstaple on the evening in question. What a comfortable fireside it was, round which the little party gathered. How Mrs. Gretton loved to look on the sweet face of that child of her earliest friend, a face from which the father's eyes only wandered to return, and there to rest ever and anon, when the cloud came over his spirit. Marion would charm it away either by a look peculiarly her own, or a cheerful and well-timed word in her own sweet tone of voice. He was a sorrowful widower was Mr. Farre, and had but lately buried the wife of his bosom out of sight. His earthly love now centred on his children, and for their sakes he aroused himself from the melancholy, which at one time threatened to unfit him for life, and for their sakes he felt that the world was not a blank. I wish you had known Marion Farre, his only daughter. Pretty she was not, but beautiful she was, but it was the beauty of the soul, a beauty which lit up her countenance, and gave a pleasantness to features neither regular nor firm. She was come to pay a visit of a few weeks to these early friends of her mother, in order to re-establish her health, which the anxiety and grief attendant on her mother's illness and death had considerably shaken. Her father was going for a business tour on the continent, and Marion was content to await his return in Devonshire. Let us look in upon her after she has been there a week, and begun to feel at home. They were all kind to her, very kind, and she felt sometimes angry with herself that she could not be quite happy, and for the very reason that no one about her seemed particularly so. If we except Mr. Gretton, whose content was somewhat of a negative kind, no one seemed really happy; there were continually those little jars and breaks of the family peace, which, without amounting to positive quarrels, were certainly anything but tokens of love. All for not knowing a certain family secret, and this Marion very shortly discovered.

It was the last day but one in the new year, and there was, as was usual years ago, as well as in the present day, a vast deal of effort to show all manner of outward rejoicing that time was speeding away. The Christmas Tree fashion had not then been introduced, but a

Twelfth cake, of extraordinary dimensions, and eatables and drinkables of all kinds, were to adorn the supper-table on New Year's Eve. And there was to be a child's party in one room, and an elders' party in another, and plenty of frolic and music for all.

Poor Miss Temple! had she possessed ten pairs of hands, instead of the one pretty little couple with which nature had endowed her, she would have found a use for them all.

'Miss Temple,' called Mrs. Gretton, politely. (Mrs. Gretton was always polite.) Be so kind as to come into the drawing-room directly, I want some ornaments cut for the wax candles, like these Miss Sparks has lent me.'

'Yes, ma'am ;' and Miss Temple went. She had scarcely been seated at her employment five minutes, when John Gretton, who had just arrived at the dignity of a stock, called loudly on Miss Temple. Marion, who had heard as many calls on that name as must, if attended to, have been inevitably followed by severe fatigue, opened the breakfast-room door, and asked what she could do.

'Oh, it is of no consequence, Miss Farre, only that tiresome Miss Temple has pretended to alter my stock, and has spoiled it.'

'How so? Give it to me; I always do these little things for my brother; oh, don't be such a particular gentleman. There, it only wants the buckle removed. I can do that without disturbing poor Miss Temple!'

Poor Miss Temple! John Gretton certainly had never thought that Miss Temple was at all liable to the sensation of fatigue, and he mentally ejaculated with scorn, Poor Miss Temple, indeed!'

Soon, Miss Louisa Gretton came in with a face of great indignation, and furiously rang the bell. I am sorry to use such a word as furiously, applied to a very pretty young lady, but certainly it was quite applicable to her mode of bell-ringing that day. 'Martha, I want you to tell Joseph to run with that parcel that is in the hall, to Bristow's directly, there is not a single pair of gloves there that will fit me nor my sister.'

Yes, Miss;' and Martha looked very cross. But Joseph is only just come home from St. Bees Farm, where he has been to get cook the cream.'

Well, he is in now, I suppose?'

'Yes, Miss; but he has had no breakfast yet.'

'I can't help it, he must take those gloves back, for if I cannot get any there, I must go somewhere else.'

Martha shut the door abruptly, and there was a good deal of grumbling in the kitchen when the order was given. Moreover, it was not attended to, which would not have been the case had it been issued with a little more courtesy and at a more convenient season. Servants are, considering the idea that some persons have of their inferiority and difference to ourselves, wonderfully like their employers in this respect, they do like to be asked civilly, rather than to be ordered, and they will fly on the wings of love much swifter than they will move on the heavy wheels of obligation.

In a few moments more, Mrs. Gretton came in, and had just sat down to write an answer to a letter, which required some thought, when the two elder Master Grettons (Mr. Grettons they liked to be called) youths of fourteen and fifteen, came in from skating with three companions, filling up the sitting-room, and talking loudly, annoyed Mrs. Gretton considerably. "It was not exactly the thing,' Mrs. Gretton remarked, when the boys had left the room for the garden, to bring in these lads to luncheon, knowing how busy every one was that day.' Miss Farre quite agreed with Mrs. Gretton, and considered it certainly was thoughtless. Every one in the house had enough to do surely! Mrs. Gretton pulled the bell.

'Oh, that bell!' called the housemaid, angrily. Indeed, there might be an English song of the bell, without borrowing from our German neighbours. Oh, that bell!'

Dear young ladies, who pull at that ivory handle so thoughtlessly, did your ancles and your backs ever ache from weariness? Has your chest ever felt oppressed or your heart beat with undue exertion, with that perpetual running up stairs and down,—that unending life on foot? Something of this sort passed through Marion's mind as Martha, pale and breathless, for she had been making beds at the topmost story of a tall house, answered the twice repeated summons.

'Martha, did you give the order about the additional cream to cool ? ' 'Oh, yes, ma'am, the boy has been back with it this hour.'

That was all, and now Martha had to toil up stairs once more, with how many chances, do you think, of being rung down again and again on matters about as frivolous? Marion, whose mother had certainly taught her, among other peculiar' tenets, that servants do not like to be interrupted in their work, and are as liable to feel overdone and fatigued as their masters and mistresses, ran up stairs, and quickly making her own bed, had just accomplished it when Martha and the under-housemaid entered the room. Martha looked so astonished that Marion laughed.

'I often make my bed at home, Martha, when the servants are busy. I have not made it look so nicely as you would have done though.' 'Oh, dear, Miss Farre, if my missis knew it how angry she would be!' 'Nonsense, Martha,' said Miss Farre, cheerfully. Now can I do anything else for you? You don't look well.'

'No, miss, I got up with a wretched sick headache, and I think that makes me cross,' said the poor girl, bursting into tears.

How small a thing will comfort our fellow-creatures! how will a word softly spoken, a look of tender sympathy, a touch, or some little act of kindness, lighten a whole load of pain and grief!

Martha said so herself when she drank a little simple mixture which Marion's experience in that distressing form of headache rendered it expedient for her to keep by her.

Ah, I could serve her without weariness.'

Marion then went down stairs to see what assistance she could render there. Miss Temple's work went on slowly enough. If Martha cried out, Oh, that bell!' the poor governess might well cry,

'Oh, those young ladies' voices!" They seemed to think her very slow, and indeed did not scruple to say so, and Mrs. Gretton, though she did not say so, looked the very words. And Emma Temple, who had a heavy heart, for she had only that morning heard of trouble at home, in the return of her only brother dangerously ill from college, felt that her fingers would not move nimbly, and that her tears would fall.

I cannot think how it is,' said Mrs. Gretton, but Miss Temple always seems "out of sorts,' (she meant out of spirits), 'when we have anything going on out of the common way; and as to Martha, she is an excellent servant, but has such a temper, I really must get rid of her-but servants are all alike, they really get so uppish and so particular about their work, that I think we shall soon have to change places.' Marion was so unaccustomed to hear complaints of servants, or to see them treated in any other manner than as trusty friends, only removed by the providence of God and by their imperfect education from being our associates and companions, that she was amazed. She had certainly observed a want of hearty good will in the service of the house, but she could not believe that this was the result of innate badness and degeneracy in the race of maids. No, they were just the same as servants always have been and always will be, human beings, with human affections, feelings, and sympathies; and she very often thought that for her part, if she were so rubbed, and reproved, and worried, the finer parts of her affections might be worn away, and that she should not feel it very easy to perform services with a smiling face which were so sternly exacted. This might be a peculiarity of Marion's, but I assure you it made her very amiable, and the servants at her father's house were of the same opinion.

Marion was too well bred, and too humble to expostulate with Mrs. Gretton, so she merely remarked that Martha had a headache, which might account for her being less brisk than usual. The day wore on, and really it was a matter of some doubt with our simple-minded Marion, whether the festivities in the evening could possibly overbalance the misery, anxiety, and heart-burning, the worry and flurry of the preparations; but she exerted herself with laudable activity; it was not so much what she did nor what she said, but the spirit which pervaded every place she visited was a gentle and a peaceful spirit.

'Dear me, how thoughtful of Marion,' said Louisa and Catherine Gretton, when Marion volunteered her services as shopper for a few forgotten articles, and came, cold as was the day, equipped for her walk.

'Well, I never heard of the like in a young lady,' said cook, who, having been delayed in the manufacture of a syllabub for lack of lemons, and being unable to find any one at liberty to purchase them, betook herself to grumbling as a resource.

'I never knew such a sweet young lady. Think of her not only going to buy me the lemons, but what's more, think of her bringing them home at once, that I might not be kept waiting. Well, I should never mind what I did for Miss Farre.' 'No, nor I,' said Martha.