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very weary and mysterious world to the dressmaker. Why should the innocent suffer thus for the guilty? she asked, despondingly. She was quite an old woman now, among the ribbons and silks and laces that were heaped on the table before her. The night before, she had been up late finishing the mourning for Lucy, and perhaps this was the reason that in a little while she fell asleep. Her work dropped from her hand, and her head sank on one side. The attic, the silk, the laces were all gone, and, instead, rose up before her a lovely garden with fairest fruits and flowers; flowers of all seasons growing together in one harmonious combination; roses with anemones and snowdrops, lilies with primroses and violets, tulips with dahlias and chrysanthemums, buds and blossoms and fruit mingled. She was not surprised, but she was delighted; and, walking along among them, her dress touched their blossoms and roused a dozen sweet odours wherever she moved. Sunshine was abroad in the garden, bright and soft, cheering and lovely, and her weak old eyes that had shed so many tears were not a bit dazzled. A large stone basin full of the clearest water attracted her to stand by it; on its rim letters were cut in a language to her unknown, and they combined so as to form a beautiful flowing pattern. 'It is an Eastern pattern,' she thought; and, while she was thinking this, a young man approached, tall and smiling, and black-haired, and as he came to her she saw he carried a number of dresses on his arm, and he said to her, 'Which dress shall you like to wear?' Before she could answer he gave her a beautiful purple one, with the brightest stars upon it-not of tinsel, but of pure gold-and when she took hold of it her old brown woollen dress fell off, and the beautiful dress was in its place. When it was on he vanished, but now she perceived that the garden was full of people like herself, clothed in dresses of different colours; and amongst them she saw, not far from her, Lucy and her sister Emma. Bells began to ring, a glorious wedding peal filled the air, and from the middle of the basin sprang a fountain of sparkling, flashing water, that danced and rippled to the chime of the bells. She saw Lucy smiling and saying something to her sister about the bells, but they neither of them noticed her. The wedding bells, however, spoke to her, and their words filled her heart with a strange, sweet joy.

Her eyes opened-the garden was gone, the flowers, the fountain, the people, the purple dress; her brown woollen was upon her, her wrinkles and her grey hair; the plain whitewashed attic was round her, but the sound of the bells remained, and instead of the tall majestic young man who had re-clothed her

was one much smaller and meaner, with sandy hair and weatherbeaten face. But he was smiling very pleasantly upon her; he was putting out his hand, and saying, in a voice that sounded far away and strange to her bewildered senses, 'Don't you know me, aunt? I'm Bob, come back safe and sound to work for you and Bessy, now the old folks are gone.' 'Oh, Bob; your mother!' exclaimed Judith, as she recognised him and clasped his rough hand hysterically in hers: Do you hear what those wedding bells say?—

God's love is still the Lord of all

and your mother hears them too!'

'Nay, aunt,' said Bob gravely, for he thought she had lost her reason in the sudden joy; they're not wedding bells at all; they're only ringing in the Foresters.'

'It's my dream,' said Judith. But I believe she liked the sound of wedding bells ever aftor.

SELECTIONS.

THE PURITAN AND CAVALIER HOME CONTRAST.

THE pestilence so constantly hovering over the wretched wastes of devastated Germany had been brought to Netherby by a cousin of my mother's, who had come on a visit to us. He fell sick the day after his arrival, and died on the third day. That evening Tib, the dairywoman, sickened; and before the next morning, Margery, her daughter. A panic seized the household. My father accepted Lady Lucy's generous offer to take charge of Roger and me, we happening to have been from the first secluded from all contact with the sick. Aunt Dorothy made a faint remonstrance. There were, said she, contagions worse than any plague. If her brother would answer for it to his conscience, it was well. She, at least, would wash her hands of the whole thing. But my father had no scruples. He only hoped,' he said, 'that Lady Lucy might touch us with the infection of her gracious kindliness. Olive would be only with her; and as to Roger and the rest of the household, if he was ever to be a true Protestant, the time must come when he must learn, if necessary, to protest.'

So much to Aunt Dorothy. To Roger himself he said, in a low voice, as we were riding off, with his hand on the horse's mane,

Remember, my lad, there is no true manliness without godliness.' Aunt Gretel watched and waved her hand to us from the infected chamber window, where she sat nursing Margery; and when I opened bundle of clothes that evening, I found in the corner a little book

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containing my mother's favourite psalms copied in English for usthe 46th (Dr. Luther's own psalm), the 23rd, and the 139th.

Thus armed, Roger and I sallied forth into our enchanted castle. To be disenchanted. Not to be repelled, but certainly to be disenchanted. Not by any subtle spell of countermagic, or rude shock of bitter discovery, but by the slow changing of the world of misty twilight splendours, of dreams and visions, guesses and rumours, into a world of daylight, of sight and touch.

My first disenchantment was the Lady Lucy's artificial curls. She allowed me to remain with her while her gentlewoman disrobed her that evening. I shall never forget the dismay with which I beheld one dainty ringlet after another, of the kind called heart-breakers,' disentangled from among her hair-itself still brown and abundant— and laid on the dressing-table. The perfumes, essences, powders, ointments, salves, balsams, crystal phials, and porcelain cups, among which these heart-breakers' were laid (mysterious and strange as they were to me, who knew of no cosmetics but cold water and fresh air), seemed to me only so many appropriate decorations of the shrine of my idol. But the hair was false, and perplexed me sorely, Puritan child that I was, brought up with no habits of subtle discernment between a deception and a lie.

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The next morning brought me yet greater perplexity. I slept in a light closet in a turret off the Lady Lucy's chamber. The Lady Lucy's own gentlewoman came in to dress me; but before she appeared I was already arrayed, and was kneeling at the window-seat of my little arched window, reading my mother's psalms.

I thought she came to call me to prayers, with which we always began the day at home-my father reading a psalm at daybreak, and offering a short solemn prayer in the hall, where all the men and maidens were gathered, after which we sat down at one table to breakfast, as the family had done since the days of Queen Elizabeth. But when I asked her if she came for this, she smiled, and said it was not a saint's day, so that it was not likely the whole household would assemble, though no doubt my Lady and Mistress Lettice would attend service with the chaplain in the chapel. But she said I might attend Lady Lucy in her chamber, before she rose. accepted, and Lady Lucy invited me to partake of a new kind of I gladly confection called chocolate, brought from the Indies by the Spaniards, which finding I could not relish, she sent for a cup of new milk and a manchet of fine milk-bread, on which I breakfasted. Then she began her dressing; and then ensued my second stage of disenchantment. Out of the many crystal and porcelain vases on the table, her gentlewoman took powders and paints, and, to my unutterable amazement, actually began to tint with rose-colour Lady Lucy's cheeks, and to lay a delicate ivory-white on her brow. She made no mystery of it; but I suppose she saw the horror in my eyes, for she laughed and said,

You are watching me, little Olive, with great eyes, as if I were Red Riding Hood's wolf-grandmother. What is the matter?'

I could not answer, but I felt myself flush crimson; and I remem

ber that the only word that seemed as if it could come to my lips, was 'Jezebel.' I quite hated myself for the thought-the Lady Lucy was so tender and good! Yet all the day, through the service in the chapel, and my plays with Lettice, and my quiet sitting on my favourite footstool at Lady Lucy's feet, those terrible words haunted me like a bad dream : And she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window.' A thousand times I drove them away. I repeated to myself how she loved my mother, how my father honoured her, how gracious and tender she was to me and to all. Still the words came back, with the visions of the false curls, and the paint, and the powder. And I could have cried with vexation that I had ever seen these. For I felt sure Lady Lucy was inwardly as sweet and true as I had believed, and that these were only little court customs quite foreign to her nature, to which she, as a great lady, had to submit, but which no more made her heart bad than the washed hands and platters made the Pharisees good. Yet the serene and perfect image was broken, and do what I would I could not restore it.

My third disenchantment was more serious.

At the ringing of the great tower bell for dinner, summoning the household, and inviting all within hearing to share the hospitality of the Hall, a cavalcade swept up the avenue, consisting of the family of a neighbouring country gentleman. Lady Lucy, who was seated at her broidery frame in the drawing chamber, was evidently not pleased at this announcement. They always stay till dark,' she said, and question me till I am wearied to death, about what the queen wears, what the princesses eat, or how the king talks, as if their majesties were some strange foreign beasts, and I some Moorish showman hired to exhibit them. Lettice, my sweet, take them into the garden after dinner, or I shall not recover it.'

Yet, when the ladies entered, she received them with a manner as gracious as if they had been anxiously expected friends. I reasoned with myself that this graciousness was an inalienable quality of hers, as little voluntary or conscious as the soft tones of her voice; or that probably she repented of having spoken hastily of her visitors, and compensated for it by being more than ordinarily kind. But when it proved that they had to leave early, and she lamented over the shortness of the visit, and yet immediately after their departure threw herself languidly on a couch, and sighed, What a deliverance!' I involuntarily shrank from her to the farthest corner of the room, and watching the departing strangers, wished myself departing with them.

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I stood there long, until she came gently to me and laid her hand kindly on my head. I looked up at her, and longed to look straight into her heart.

Tears on the long lashes!' said she caressingly. matter, little one?'

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My eyelids sank, and the tears fell.

What is the

What ails thee, little silent woman?' said she, stooping to me.

I threw my arms around her and sobbed, 'You are really glad to

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have me, Lady Lucy; are you not? You would not like me to go? She seemed at first perplexed.

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You take things too much to heart, Olive, like your poor mother,' she said at last, very gently. Those ladies are nothing to me; and your mother was dear to me, Olive, and so are you.'

But in the evening, when I was in bed, she came herself into my little chamber, and sat by my bedside, like Aunt Gretel, and played with my long hair in her sweet way; and then, before she left, said tenderly,

My poor little Olive, you must not doubt your mother's old friend. I am not all, or half I would be; but I could not bear to be distrusted by you. But you have lived too much shut up in a world of your own. You wear your heart too near the surface. You bring heart and conscience into things which only need courtesy and tactics. You waste your gold where beads and copper are as valuable. I must be courteous to my enemies, little one, and gracious to people who weary me to death; but to you I give a bit of my heart, and that is quite a different thing.'

And she left me reassured of her affection, but not a little perplexed by this double code of morals. That one region of life should be governed by the rules of right and wrong, and another by those of politeness, was altogether a strange thing to me.

It was Monday when our visit commenced, so that we were no longer strangers in the house by the following Sunday. But we were not prepared for the contrast between the Sundays at Davenant Hall with those at Netherby. At our own home, grave as the day was, there was always a quiet festival air about it. The hall was fresh swept, and strewn with clean sand. My father and my aunts, the maids and men, had on their holiday dresses. That morning at prayers we always had a psalm, and the mere thrill of my voice against my father's rich deep tones was a pleasure to me. Then after breakfast Roger and I had a walk in the fields with him, and he made us hear and see a hundred things in the ways of birds, and beasts, and insects, that we should never have known without him. One day it was the little brown and white harvest-mouse, which, by cautiously approaching it, we saw climbing by the help of its tail and claws to its little round nest woven of grass suspended from a corn-stalk. Another day it was a squirrel, with its summer house hung to the branch of a tree, with its nursery of little squirrels; and its warm winter house, lined with hay, in the fork of an old trunk; or a colony of ants roofing their dwellings in the wood with dry leaves and twigs. Or he would turn it into a parable, and show us how every creature has its enemies, and must live on the defensive, or not live at all. Or he would watch with us the butterfly struggling from the chrysalis, or the dragon-fly soaring from its first life in the reedy creeks of the Mere to the new life of freedom in the sunshine. Or he would point out to us how the field-spider had anticipated military science; how she threw up her bulwarks and strengthened every weak point by her fairy buttresses, and kept up the communication between the citadel and the remotest outwork. Or he would teach us to distinguish

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