CHAPTER III.

"Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires,
The struggles of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires."
LONGFELLOW.

THE day on which Mabel Gordon was to arrive saw the little Wetherills on the tip-toe of expectation, and full of plans for her entertainment and their mutual enjoyment ere the arrival of the much-dreaded governess. The little room which, in spite of Hetty's remonstrances, she was to have all to herself, had been duly prepared, and adorned with little knick-knacks, which the children had vied in sacrificing from their own small possessions. Only Maurice disdained to show impatience or intemperate haste. He spoke not of his cousin the whole of the day; he seemed to be too much absorbed in illuminating to be well aware what was passing around him.

Great, then, was his mother's surprise when, hearing a hammering in Mabel's room, and hastening thither to put a stop to any mischief which might be in course of perpetration, she found that the offender was Maurice.

“What are you doing, Maurice?"

He did not reply. What he was doing was selfevident. Opposite the small white-draped bed he had hung his illumination, as if in the hope that in the light of the morning the sleeper's eyes might open upon it.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life."

A wreath of half-opened flowers, a wee tuft of violets, showing their heads above a thin crust of snow, were suggestive a sermon in themselves. The design was elaborate. Over the first ornate capital was represented the rising of the sun. He had also gathered a bouquet of choice flowers: vivid spiritual geraniums, jonquils, the passion-flower, with a few more delicately tinted. The sight of them was reviving and inspiriting. He adjusted the illumination and the flowers, and then stood back to watch the effect.

"See you, mamma, she will feel lonely and sorrowful when she awakes. She will think of the dead without doubt. That text will comfort her heart, and those flowers will speak to her of life; that is, if she sees in them anything more than an illumination and a bunch of flowers," he said, moodily. "People lose so much through not being able to see.

If they only knew

how happy their eyes might make them, they would have care to open them."

'My boy, Maurice," said the devoted mother, “you are mistaken. It is because you see so well you are so often unhappy."

"I am not unhappy, mamma. I don't know what the word means. I am sometimes sad, disappointed, and humiliated; but so were Kirke White, and Chatterton, and Hartley Coleridge. Only Chatterton was really unhappy, because he had stooped to a forgery, and that ended badly for him. I can rejoice at being sad, for what does Blaise Pascal say,—' Who mourns at not being a king, save a king who has been dethroned?'

He sat on the floor cross-legged; when Maurice broke silence he atoned for the time he had kept it.

Mamma, this world is a very dark, sorrowful place, to read all that newspapers and books with statistics in them say; but who could find it so sorrowful as an angel who, leaving heaven for awhile, had lost her way and was obliged to sojourn here?"

'But, my boy, what makes you think of that unless you already flatter yourself that you are to be one of the great?"

'No, no," he said, passionately, bursting into tears; "that is the mistake you always make; you always, all of you, make; even you do not know me better, my own patient, forbearing, tender mother," and his deep,

sad, searching eyes fixed on her face their wistful

gaze.

"I only think because I'm a boy, a boy who must grow to a man, and because I can read and think, and feel, that I'm linked with the great; and that all that's noble and good is as open to me as to them, were my hand but strong enough to turn the key. Mamma, I am very little; despicably little. Not even those who tease me think me so little and mean as I think myself; but I am not content to be so, I'll be as broad and as tall as I can; I'll add a cubit to my mental stature if it's possible. I'll do it in spite of the pain."

"Maurice, you are exciting yourself; let us join the other children."

Mrs. Wetherill did not fail to tell the children of Maurice's illumination and choice bouquet, also of the thought which had prompted them. "Still waters run deep," she added. A silence fell on the loquacious little group. Presently the charm of it was broken, broken as usual by one of Hetty's rude, ready speeches.

"How droll it will be if, when we are all grown up, Maurice and Mabel get married," and she chuckled and laughed as if the idea was inexpressibly funny.

Then

"You see the train of ideas that is already started in that brain," said Mr. Wetherill to his wife. seeing that Maurice was biting his lips with vexation,

he added, "A flesh and blood beauty you call her, eh, Maurice Lad, thou shalt have thy father's consent. "Twill be the union of mind and matter, and they each have need of the other."

"I should be careful what I say when my words are so constantly played upon," retorted Maurice. "She is just what I have called her; but I find I should always keep my opinions to myself."

"Does Maurice remember that he is speaking to his father?" interposed Mrs. Wetherill.

"Don't reprove him; he is privileged," said Mr. Wetherill, seldom or never standing upon his parental dignity. "But if I am rightly informed Maurice is altogether out of it. The girl is a veritable little blue. She is

'Darkly, densely, beautifully blue.' ”

"Oh," groaned Hetty, "doesn't that mean clever, mamma? Fond of lessons and rubbish. Oh, then, it's Maurice she's to suit, not me! Send them both to the Mauritius, Mr. and Mrs. Maurice.

'Hope she may have

lost the train for to-night. It's certain now they'll be

married when they are big."

"Its certain they will not," growled Maurice.

'But, Maurice, if she is both clever and beautiful,” suggested his mamma, laughing.

If ever I do marry," said Maurice, pensively (for