without you. My soul cries out for you; yes, and the ambition that once promised to be my guiding star."

For all answer she but turned clingingly, impulsively to him. He drew her towards him till her golden head was bowed beneath his, and he could see it as the shadow of leaves outside was flung upon it. Then he whispered softly—to himself, not her,

"And when the nations praise me, they shall praise thee also."

Again there fell a silence, more eloquent than speech. On Mabel's face there sat the sweetest look.

"Tell me, dearest, what are you thinking of?" "Shall I ?"

"How can you refuse ?"

"I was thinking how wonderful God's ways are. He made me give you up to Him, Maurice; yes, though I rebelled; and when I had yielded, and put you out of my life altogether, He smiled and accepted the sacrifice; but see, He has given you back to me again.”

"Yes, and so does God often deal with us," said Maurice, with bowed head.

"Watch over me, Maurice; don't let me idolise you; don't let me love you too well."

"Too much to ask of any man," said Maurice, "Trust us, we will never chide our wives for loving us too well. Darling, the best way we can antidote Idolatry is by helping one another to love God better."

THE EPILOGUE.

"I laid my soul before his feet,
That images of pure and sweet,
Might walk to other men on it.
"I was content to feel the step
Of each pure image, let those keep
To mandragore who care to sleep."

E. B. BROWNING.

THE orator's voice had ceased; the short-hand writers were folding their scrolls; the throng was dispersing. It was the largest hall in London; yet it had been crowded from end to end. The excitement had been intense. Many who had taken seats had been in them nearly all day, for fear of losing the right of occupancy, and for some of the seats an almost exorbitant price had been given. One could not see such numbers brought together by the power of one man, without asking what was the secret of that power.

Oratory has, in all ages, wielded an immense force, both over the body social and the body politic; yet, in this case, the orator was without the usual oratorical accompaniments, he had not the broad, full chest, nor

the full-lipped mouth, volumed with sound like an organ-pipe, which seem so essential for the filling of an immense building with voice. Neither had he the words of thunder, nor the thoughts of flame. It would be difficult, indeed, to say wherein his great strength lay. Nevertheless, the fact remained, that one attenuated, suffering man, of stern features, and dark, hollow eyes, of quick, but deep vibrative voice, could keep spellbound for hours any number of people who might collect to hear him. His logic was clear and forcible; his thoughts were deep and profound; his metaphysic reasonings subtle and astute; his figures were chaste and illumined through their transparency, as by a lamp wine-fed; the flowers of his rhetoric were culled from classic soil, or from those sacred groves to which all literature and art are so vastly indebted; and he spoke on subjects high soaring, or deep sounding, or at home and familiar.

He brought within hearing the trumpet blast of those whose echoes are still vibrating down the corridors of time, and swept them through the winding passages and deep ravines of complex human hearts. He discoursed on individual influence till almost every man was ready to hang his head for the lamp that had no oil; or the oil of which was noxious. He had the gift of sympathy. One said his sympathy was a golden key to

which the hardest lock must yield. He was never more eloquent than when on the theme of "woman's ministry on earth," of her toil, her cares, her tears, her crown. He was a champion for chivalry; not after the romantic, medieval ideal, but after the true and Christian.

This night he had even paused in his rapid flow of words to say what himself had owed to the ennobling, refining influence of a woman's formative hand, with its delicate, careful touch, and, hearing this, one woman, beautiful, though past the meridian of her days, drew her widow's veil closer over her face, that she might weep behind it. Many present, au courant of the gossip of great men, thought of what was said in select circles of the orator's gifted, scholarly wife; her reputed familiarity with classic lore and poetic literature; her devotion to him in his high career. While they were still musing, their minds were brought back with sharp rebound to follow again the track of the shining thread which, for a moment, had been lost. When the wonder of the audience was at its maximum, the speaker's voice ceased; the curtain, as it were, fell upon him. To some simple ones, he might have been "by a cloud received out of sight," so long they remained gazing where he had stood.

But, in the ante-room, exhausted and faint, the beads

of perspiration thick upon his brow, he lay-the powerful orator-lay back submitting to those tender assiduities which only one knew how to render him; not omitting any, yet making no remark. Presently a rap was heard at the door, and a lady, in deep black, entered.

"Mr. Wetherill," she said, throwing back her veil. "Oh, I would fain call you my boy, Maurice!"

And you shall call me your boy, Maurice," he said, rousing himself.

"Mrs. Dalgleish; oh Mabel!"

The greeting from both assured her that they had not forgotten the heart of their childhood.

"I am so glad," she said, "to see you united. I always hoped that it might be so. You were made each for the other. I felt quite angry when I heard you were engaged to Miss Howard."

'Ah, I blundered there. Mrs. Dalgleish, I was not aware you were a listener to the little tribute I paid you to-night. You know, therefore, that it was sincere. I do owe you, my sweet friend, so much, both on my wife's account and my own. Do you remember your lesson on character-building? We only half learned that lesson. We forgot the other half till the Spirit brought it to remembrance. Yet, boy and girl though we were, e did promise that we would be noble; we would be