boyhood the lives of the saints till your heart has become as one of the golden phials to give out the fragrance of their prayers, is this the shrine to which you will devote yourself? No! buy a painted doll from Mecca. Good Heavens! does it not pain and fatigue you to lower your stature to this dwarfish child's, who would not care to reach yours if she might? But hush! bruised, suffering heart! Be not intolerant, or unbelieving, or scornful in thy pain. Prove thyself rather of the make of the cedar, which, when wounded, sheds around its fragrance.

Hetty entered so abruptly as to startle her.

Mabel,” she said, walking up to her, and looking straight into her eyes, "How do you like her?"

"I know her so little."

"Yes: but what is your impression?"

'Oh, that she is unformed yet-a child. We were prepared for that you know. She is not what I would have imagined for Maurice."

"No, after all the things one has heard him say, and the high standard he sets up for women."

"This girl does not, never will, realise it; but it seems to me he has chosen her as a rest for his spirit, when he unbends. He thinks her loving, innocent and unworldly, and these to him are powerful charms." “She is neither loving, innocent, nor unworldly.” “Hetty!”

“I repeat it; I do not like her; she is thoroughly petted and selfish. Like the Caspian Sea, she will take all in and give nothing out. There is a shifting light in her blue eyes which proves her treacherous. As to her naïvete, it is assumed. She is as conscious of it as she is of her lisp."

"You are hasty, Hetty."

"Time will show, but I have an instinct about people which, though I share it with the inferior animals, is a certain guide. I don't know why things have run so counter to what we might have expected; Maurice doesn't know what is best for his own happiness. Well, I expect the stars don't think so much of each other's light as we do looking up to them. They, perhaps, admire our butterflies and poppies more, if, looking down from so high, they can see them."

"Good night! Mabel, I only know one worthy of my brother Maurice; but I suppose she grew so close to him his long vision could not see her to advantage."

"Good night," said Mabel.

Strange that Hetty, the daring and quick-witted, in giving speech to her convictions, had only spoken out ideas which had crossed Mabel's own mind, but which she had tried to repel as utterly unworthy.

Yet 'twas with but poor success.

"Oh! how can I help myself from hating herhating her," she said, "with my whole heart. Yet I will help it. I will be master of myself; I will, out of this great anguish, attain the height of that to which I aspired. God honours us when He promotes us to the dignity of a martyr's life." And she wept herself to sleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Do not call it sin in me

That I am forsworn for thee,-
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were:
And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love."

SHAKSPEARE.

MAURICE had the grace to assure Mabel that the fact of his being an engaged man and a lover, would make no difference in his affection for her. Still did he hope to find in her a kindred spirit, in whose communion he should gain strength and joy and womanly balms for healing. The best earthly wish he could wish for her was that she might one day be as happy as himself, in which case he hoped that she would still be true to her promise of eternal friendship for him. He specially pleaded that she would take into her friendship his beautiful fiancée.

"She is rich in feminine accomplishments, as you know, Mabel; but, darling child that she is, she thinks too much upon trifles. Intercourse with a mind like yours might strengthen and develop that which, I know,

exists in her, all unsuspected. My touch is not delicate enough; my instinct is not subtle enough to bring into play the hid len springs of a nature like hers, you will be more successful."

It did not seem very likely. Any effort Mabel might make to gain a hold upon her seemed vain as the attempt to grasp a shadow. Even where she thought there was substance was she mocked by the shadow. And she could not help a vague impression that Lizzie disliked her, was on her guard against her; fortified herself against any advance from her, in a way none the less effectual because it was babyish. Mabel soon found that any conversation between her and Maurice on any subject congenial to them, was impossible before her.

The big tears stood in the round, blue eyes on demand, and the sweet, lisping voice said, petulantly— "Now, how unkind you are to talk before me of dull, stupid rubbish I can't take a part in, it's too bad. I hate for people to talk like books, as you and Mabel do."

"I'm not your darling Lizzie; or you wouldn't make me such a dull time of it. It is not because you're going to be a great man, and your name and speeches are in the papers, that you should be no end prosing in your own family. You are like the judge who used to