infrequently an intruder. She had delicate health, and, like every mother of a large family, many cares. Often did she bring her burden to the meek-spirited high-souled woman, who had enjoyed so much and lost so much, but who seemed to have for others

"A heart at leisure from itself,

To soothe and sympathise."

Then Florence, remembering Him who pleased not Himself, made many sacrifices of the solitude she loved for Mrs. Wetherill's sake. Mr. and Mrs. Wetherill

highly esteemed her. Ere many months had passed

the influence of her formative hand had left its mark on every one of their children, especially Maurice, who secretly adored her. The boy was sweetening, as she said he would; but a certain apparent irritability was inseparable from him. Could that have been taken away it would not have been Maurice. Insensibly he was learning chivalry in a very beautiful school. Better than the perusal of a Heloise correspondence, or of the feats of the Crusaders, was his daily study of the characters around him. From his mother he learned to reverence the maternal tenderness and self-denial and care, which made her the pitying angel of his hours of pain. Both from Florence Dalgleish and Mabel he learned the refinement of womanly genius and intellect, the height to which it is ofttimes capable of soaring,

for all its lack of strength. In after years Maurice owned to an intense sympathy with woman's trials, woman's cares and disappointments, which was the fruit of these months of home education.

It is well for every man to be, in some degree, in early life, indebted to female culture.

But while Mabel Gordon was, in a sense, nearer and dearer to Maurice than any sister he had, her affection for him became to her an entire absorption. The bond between them was an intellectual one. All the subjects that they had in common were intellectual, so there seemed little danger in their intercourse considering their extreme youth.

But, alas for any young girl when she has within her the soul of a woman. Alas! for any gifted woman who thinks she can allow her head in a friendship in which her heart shall take no part, or against which make no protest.

Florence Dalgleish saw the danger, and warned Mrs. Wetherill; she could do no more. Mrs. Wetherill only

laughed at the warning.

Often did our pair of students seek the stone terrace; often, when they went to the sea, did they walk by the foaming billows and exchange the thoughts that burned, but no word of attachment ever passed between them.

They talked, indeed, but it was of God; of the wonderful world He had created; of the laws by which He ruled it; of their own little inner world; but they never spoke of love.

One evening on that stone terrace Maurice brought to Mabel's mind Mrs. Dalgleish's lesson on characterbuilding. "That lesson left its mark on me," he said; "I believe I have been less selfish, less proud, less narrow ever since; but I still feel disgusted with myself. Wouldn't it help us both, Mabel, if we promised here, in each other's sight and in God's, that we, too, would be, in her words, good, and noble, and large, that we would walk in the world as children of a king, among the wounded with balms, among the sorrowing with comfort, among the evil with rebukes? I cannot prize my life unless I make it a beautiful thing."

Neither could Mabel. To her it seemed grand at that moment to join hands with Maurice, and consecrate her whole life to self-abnegation and goodness, while only the stars looked down on them. She felt at the moment as if Maurice were her priest. She thought of the six young men who had taken vows together on the starlit summit of Montmartre, and, putting her hand within his, she said, "I promise, here, with you."

Maurice held her hand, looking with no words up to the silent heavens. Ah, young, ardent, and unwise! who knew how to look up, but not how to look down. Florence had spoken to them of a foundation and of a corner-stone, but they never thought of that!

CHAPTER X.

“Lo, in the sculptur'd window niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah, Pysche! from those regions which
Are holy land."

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

AT the end of a year our young gentleman's term with his fair preceptress expired. He was to be one of six students studying classics and mathematics for five hours per diem under a learned clergyman, who sought by taking pupils to increase his narrow stipend. In his own peculiar, earnest manner he thanked Mrs. Dalgleish for the pains she had taken with him, declaring that he should still make many a demand upon her kind assistance out of the hours of school. But Florence told him that he had been drawing from a vase, not a fountain; and she expected that he would soon be longing for a deeper draught than was in her power to supply.

Mabel felt in the schoolroom like a climbing plant that has lost its tree. Not, indeed, because of innate weakness, but because of the strength of her affections.