rising as if to shake off the insupportable thought, left her to her own reflections and walked briskly toward the house. His gait was shambling and awkward, his whole person slight and insignificant; and she was still look ing after him and feeling offended, when Mr. Carter, the curate in charge of Aubrey church, came hurrying toward her.

Marian thought she had never seen a lovelier sight than the group of fair young English girls who filled the main body of Aubrey church that day, clad in white and wearing white veils; and the service brought tears to her eyes, as she followed in imagination all these tender young lives.

Nina sat next to Arthur in the family pew,

"No, I have n't. One of the chief servants who's just come was out here a minute ago, but he 's gone in to his work now," said Nina. "Well, suppose we have a look at the rosebushes," said Mr. Carter blandly. "I dare say I'm too early for the Bishop. I fear to disturb him." Nina rose, and they went off amicably together. "I hope and think we 've got everything just as the Bishop would like it. I've been run off my legs, almost, getting everything settled."

"Well, I hope you have got it nicer than it was," said Nina emphatically. "It's so black and dark and dusty. We would n't have such a church in America. Why don't you liven it up and make it pretty? If you 'd give it a good coat of whitewash and paint it red inside, and clean it up, and get some flowers and lights and things, it would be just as good as new. I'll buy you a cross and some candlesticks for it if you want me to."

"Whitewash Aubrey church!" said Mr. Carter, as if Nina had bidden him murder the Queen. "And as to crosses and candlesticks never!"

"Well, why not? I don't know what you mean, but I guess there's no harm in having a church nice and pretty specially when all the houses around are just elegant, and the church looks as if it was built by Noah as old as the hills, and rain coming through the roof, and Browser with her umbrella up to keep it off, last Sunday. Umbrellas are as bad as crosses in churches, I guess, and you'd get for giveness for cleaning it up, anyway," replied Nina with all her own pertness.

"Ahem! You don't understand these things, Nina," replied Mr. Carter, with reserve, after which they made the rounds of the garden, and a few moments later returned to the house.

and took his seat, Arthur was surprised to hear her exclaim under her breath: "Mercy!"

"What's the matter?' he whispered; to which she replied, "Nothing." She had recognized her friend the "Groom of the Chambers," that was all; and was actually, for once, abashed. The Bishop's sermon was short and simple and earnest, and it was meant for the parents and children before him.

The good man's face glowed with a lovely light as he spoke, and Mrs. Aubrey's gentle face reflected it all.

As luck would have it, that very evening, Arthur, after dinner, drifted over to a seat next the Bishop, and from sheer shyness rather than from any insincerity happened to say that he had liked to hear him preach that morning.

"Though I am the dullest preacher in the Church of England?" asked the Bishop, with a smile. Poor Arthur almost sank through the floor, and was covered with confusion, and crimson with blushes. The Bishop put out his hand, and laid it gently on his shoulder.

"Don't make yourself unhappy about it, my dear boy," he said affectionately. "It is the truth. I am not eloquent, and never preached a sermon in my life that I did not prepare with difficulty, and deliver with a halting tongue, and a keen sense of all its defects. But we must each do what we can."

Touched to the quick by this most powerful of all sermons—the sweet humility and goodness of the man - Arthur earnestly begged pardon for his idle speech. It was freely and fully accorded; and they were still talking of life at Oxford, when the door opened and Nina came in. She caught the Bishop's eye, and sank blushing into the first seat she could find. But she was not allowed to stay there, for he called pleasantly, "Come over here, little American, by me"; and Nina went.

"It was the apron that did it, and the kneebreeches. I am sorry. I was dreadfully rude. I did n't mean to be, indeed I did n't," she said confidently, inspired by the kind look on the dear old face.

"Never mind, my dear, never mind. It was the most natural mistake in the world, and, as I told you, not really a mistake at all," said the Bishop, kindly. "I am a servant, and I hope one worthy of my Master. Come now, tell me something of your life at home."

This was the prelude to a long talk between them, and Nina said afterward of him to Marian, "He 's just as nice as he can be; he's a lovely old gentleman, and I do wish he was an American! And, Cousin Marian, I guess I won't be quite so smart next time. Mabel would n't have talked so."

Nina liked all the cousins, but especially admired and loved Mabel, who was worthy of all admiration. And Marian smiled at this characteristic expression of penitence. She had said to herself twenty times, "This is just the place, these the surroundings, for Nina. She has liberty, but no license; kindness and affection, but she has to submit to authority; and she has begun to think, to study, to work for others. My task is wonderfully simplified-she is wonderfully improved, and the improvement has not all been on her side either. She has brightened and improved these English cousins of hers, in more ways than one. Mrs. Aubrey told me so yesterday. What a woman she is! She seems to have drawn an invisible circle about her children. As long as they keep within its bounds -and it is large enough to give them plenty of freedom - they do not know that it is there. But when they touch it in any direction, or try to break through, they are soon made aware that they must keep within it. She has the great secret, in fact, of managing childrenthe magnetism of love."

Nina for the next six weeks studied, it is not too much to say, furiously. She won the prize that Fräulein had offered for French. She rode with Mabel and her uncle to hounds, and great was her pluck. She had had some lessons in a riding-school, having been willing to take these few lessons only "because they were n't lessons." But she felt that she must not flinch,

and, with her heart in her mouth at first, bravely jumped hurdles, ditches, fences, because she had told Reggie that "she was an American, and that the Americans could ride as well as anybody." Finally she came to show a dash and recklessness that got her into trouble with her uncle more than once.

"My head was just spinning, and I felt as if I were going over Trinity Church, but I did n't care! I was n't going to let the English beat an American jumping, or anything, Cousin Marian, of course I was n't," Nina said. "And now I go over like a bird, and don't mind a bit. I like it. I'd give anything to ride to hounds and take away the brush from the English once! So I will, too, when I'm grown up."

She taught four of the little Aubreys to dance, and very funny it was to see her do it. She pushed, she pulled, she hauled them about here and there; she buzzed about them like an angry wasp, patience not being her forte; she showed them over and over again "the way to do it," whisked around through the steps like a danseuse, in neat black-satin boots and silk stockings that seemed made for the stage.

At last she burst out with, "You can't waltz any more than a wardrobe! What is the matter with you, anyway? You are all corners, and yet you are just meal-bags and don't know tune from tune! You should just see American girls dance. They don't have to learn. They just dance naturally. Mercy! Look at Gwen galumphing! I can't teach her unless somebody holds her. She 's fallen three times and knocked down all the others and stepped on my toes; and I guess we'd better not try indoors. There is n't room enough indoors for the English dancing. We'd better go out on the grass. I give up!"

But she was really so good-natured, and they took her gibes so amiably, that she did go on with her labors, in spite of these sarcasms; and, as Reggie said, "licked them into shape like a regular frog-eater," before she was done, and actually put them through the lanciers before the assembled household.

Even Thomas conceded that she was "wonderful when it come to the figure-dances"; and Mrs. Aubrey thanked her, and Mabel told her

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she was a dear to take so much trouble," and Nurse hustled her brood off into a warmer room, saying, " And it 's to be hoped as you've thanked your cousin and will teach the others as they grow up, and won't get cooled off too sudden, and wish you 'd let well enough alone." Nurse was always a double-faced person when there were consequences to look for; but a more single-hearted old woman never lived. If they could learn dancing without its affecting their health and morals, well and good; but if it should prove dangerous or demoralizing, nobody need expect her to be surprised. She always said of herself that "she was prepared for everything and for anything."

But she was not prepared at all for what hap. pened the night of their dance. When she had got them all into bed, and left Jane on guard, she went off to the housekeeper's room "for a word," as was her custom. Jane remembered something that was needed in the nursery, went downstairs, and stayed there talking.

Nina, coming upstairs ten minutes later, was for an instant's time paralyzed by seeing a little figure of flame rushing down the corridor toward her. The next, she bravely rushed forward, seized little Ethel, dragged the felt table-cloth from the school-room table with one hand while she held the child with the other, wrapped it tightly around her, and so saved the little one's life.

The hubbub that ensued when this was known is past description- the shrieks, the tears, the explanations of the servants, the terror and gratitude of Mrs. Aubrey, the excitement of the children, the praises lavished upon Nina, and the tenderness with which she and Ethel were ministered to! - for Nina's lashes and brows were burned off, her hair and hands had suffered seriously, and Ethel was even more badly burned.

"Oh, Nina, how could you do it?" said Catherine, when the excitement was over and she could be heard. "I should have run away, I know I should. I am so frightened of fire! How could you?"

"Americans can do anything that 's got to be done," said the poor child proudly. "Americans never run away; but all I thought of was poor little Ethel being burned up. Just like

that," waving her hand before her face,—“ I remembered Jobson's sister's husband saving his wife's cousin with a rug. Before you could say Jack Robinson it was all over, and I had got her put out. Oh, Cousin Marian!" Here, half fainting, Nina was borne off to bed, where she spent some time, and was almost canonized for gallant behavior. Ethel-poor little soul! was confined to her room for two months, and paid very dearly for one of those small naughtinesses often so productive of grave consequences.

"I just wished to light one match, and Nurse would n't hear of it," she said, whimpering.

And so it came about that Nina, who had come to Aubrey under conditions that brought her into something like contempt, left the place, when the time came, not only loved but really honored by everybody in the household. She was very reluctant to go, but was actually a sufficiently reformed young person to give in cheerfully when Marian and Mrs. Andrews decided that the time had come for them to go to the Continent.

"You can do whatever you want to do, Grandy," she said; "and we can come back before we go home, can't we? I don't want to go, a bit. I just love my cousins. When the English are nice, they are like the little girl with the curl,- very, very nice,— and when they are n't, oh, are n't they horrid! But the Aubreys are half American, and I have n't ever had anybody so nice to play with- and such dozens upon dozens of them! If you can't get along with some, there are always the others; and the twins are perfectly sweet. But I'll go any day you choose, Grandy, and not make a bit of fuss."

"I don't want to go, either," said Grandy. "I'm sure I've never had the kind attention anywhere that I 've had here. There are worse places than England."

"And there's a better one, too, for Americans, Grandy," Nina hastened to say, "and that 's America."

It was just before Nina left Aubrey that Herbert came in one day, red and resolute. "I want to tell you, Nina, that I said all sorts of things about you when you came to Aubrey," he burst out. "I am going to tell you just

It was our good fortune to be present at an important meeting of the "Kheddah," at Chila on the banks of the Ganges, where the Nepalese Government had sent down their magnificent troop of tame elephants, for the chase of the wild ones. They were about one hundred and fifty in number-magnificent, noble creatures!

The two finest among them were the "kings" of the troop, and were called "Bijli Prasad " and "Narain Gaj Prasad." Bijli Prasad, which means, "Lord of Lightning," was such a grand fellow! The width of his brows was so great that he could not put his head through our hall-door; and he knows to the smallest point what a mighty creature he is.

He and his companion, Narain Gaj Prasad, which means "The Peerless Lord," are provided with two slave-elephants, and the only duty of the latter is to fetch and provide fodder for Bijli and Narain Gaj. They do their duty right well. At early dawn, their mahouts, or drivers, drive them into their jungles, and they work like real slaves. They collect the sweet sugar-canes, tearing them up by their roots, the young succulent grasses, and tender leaves, and heap them up in masses which weigh about three hundred pounds each. These loads are put on their backs, and thrice a day they gladly carry

in their burdens and lay them at the feet of their lords.

We went out by moonlight to see the latter fed, and any child would enjoy the strange sight. First of all, the mahout makes a great big camp-fire of twigs and brushwood, and on it he places a large flat iron dish, supported on two bricks. Then he takes wheat-flour and kneads it with water into great round flat cakes, about an inch thick and twice the circumference of a soup-plate. These cakes he bakes on the iron dish.

We were anxious to taste them, and we found them very good. We punched out with our fingers all the nice brown spots, and ate them, piping hot. And to make up to Bijli and Narain for taking part of their supper, we had prepared a treat, of which they are particularly fond. From the bazaar we had brought great balls of sugar-cane juice boiled down and made solid, called "goor" in that country. Each ball was twice the size of a tennis-ball, and in each wheat-cake or "chapati" we rolled a lump of this molasses. You should have seen how the big beasts enjoyed their feed - how their great trunks rested down on our shoulders, always upturned for the forthcoming delicacy! Next morning we went down to the river