Notices to Correspondents.

A Reader of the Churchman's Companion. We have never heard of the book you name, "Margaret, or Prejudice at Home," we shall be glad if any of our correspondents can tell you if it is out of print.

Accepted: "S. Ode;" "Hymn for Whitsun Day;" "Saint John Baptist." Declined with thanks: "The Priesthood;" "One Catholic and Apostolic Church."

“I WISH, Ruth, you would call on those people who are come to Cliff Cottage," said my brother, one Monday morning, as we were returning from matins. 66 They came in the early part of last week, and as neither of them was at church yesterday, I am afraid there must be some grave illness. I saw Dr. Sumner's carriage at the gate as I passed on Saturday night. I was asking Mrs. Grant about them, but she was less communicative than usual, only vouchsafing the information that they had taken her rooms for three months, and were 'quality folks.'

"And so,” I laughingly rejoined, "you wish me to do the polite to them. If they had taken Betsy Dawe's front parlour you would have seen them yourself before Sunday. Indeed, I think, as vicar of the parish, you ought not to send me alone. If they are really ill they want to see you more than me; if they are stuck-up, stand-upon-ceremony people, I do not wish to know anything of them; they ought to have remained at Burton, and not have come on to quiet, out-of-the-way Leighscombe."

"Be that as it may, Ruth, they are at Leighscombe, and being here it is our duty to see if they are in need of any attention that we can show them. I am sorry to ask you to go alone, but you know how much work I have cut out for to-day. It would be impossible for me to get away in anything like decent time, and I do not wish another day to pass without their being called on."

I put my hand over his mouth, saying, "You know I mean to go when I have had my little grumble, so do not lecture; you will want your breath for the vestry meeting, I am sure."

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"Yes, I knew you would not refuse to do what I ask you,” he replied. "But I am afraid you must often long to escape all the worries I bring on you, by returning whence you came. I am not sure that I ought to keep you, but what would become of the boys without Aunty Ruth,' or of their father either for the matter of that ?” "O, Arthur!" I exclaimed, "do not make me think you are really getting tired of my stupidity."

He bent his grave face down close to mine, and said, with a smile, "Ruth, you are a brave little woman, and know, I am sure, the joy of work for the Master, so it matters not where you find it.”

We had reached the vicarage gate, and he left me humbled by his praise, from the very consciousness of how little it was merited.

Leighscombe is a quiet fishing village on the south coast of England; its population, poor and rough, gaining their livelihood in the precarious callings of miner and fisherman. The town, as they were pleased to designate the largest group of houses, lay in the hollow of the cliff, as it sloped down to the beach, which shut in by a projecting rock made a safe harbour for the little fishing craft, though very difficult of access in stormy weather, and many a brave fisherman had found a watery grave when close to his own cottage. The church and vicarage stood half a mile from this beach, near another hamlet which had sprung up in the vicinity of a prosperous mine. Further inland still were a few respectable farmers, who with the shopkeepers, owners of vessels, and mine agents, made the aristocracy of Leighscombe society.

Cliff Cottage was prettily situated a little away from the rest of the village, in a sheltered nook, overlooking the beach, which on that side was approached by some rough steps cut in the rock. It had been built by an old coastguardsman with the savings of many years, and at his death it made a provision for his widow, who always found people glad to take her cheerful little rooms during the summer months, and enjoy the seclusion of Leighscombe in preference to the gaiety and high prices of Burton, a fashionable watering-place about five miles distant. A few other visitors we got of a much humbler class, but they were consumptive patients from a large neighbouring town, the air at Leighscombe and Burton being considered particularly beneficial in chest affections; they rarely came however until they were in that stage when all chance of positive recovery was hopeless.

My brother had been a fellow of his college, and Leighscombe was a college living. He was the eldest, and I the youngest of a large

family, all scattered their various ways in the world. I had been a great deal with the good Sisters of Newtown after the death of my parents, and I thought I had a vocation for the life. I had no family calls. I was advised to wait until I was twenty-one. I did so, but still to be a Sister was my one desire. I entered on my novitiate. All seemed so sure and happy, but God had willed it otherwise. It wanted but a month of the two years' probation when Arthur's wife died and left him with three babies. He did not ask me to come to him, he was too unselfish for that, but my own conscience told me that it was my duty to help him in his sore need. It was a bitter struggle to give up the life I had chosen for myself. I had talked of detachment, now I had to learn how hard a lesson it is to put it into daily practice. I sought advice, but I knew full well how I should be counselled-plain and straight before me lay the path of duty, and it led away from Newtown.

My three little nephews were healthy, good-tempered little fellows. The parish gave me plenty of work, and the life brought its full share of anxieties. Sunday followed Sunday, fast and festival came and went, Arthur toiled among his people, as he had done before I came, a graver and a sadder man for his great life's trial; for he and Agnes had waited for each other many years. Then had followed four of the happiest years of his life, while they had toiled together in the fullest sympathy. Her heart was in his work, and he relied more, I think, than he was at all aware of, on her for advice and help in bringing into order a long-neglected parish. He always reproached himself that he allowed her to take so much fatigue, but she would never have been happy otherwise; and when on the birth of little Edgar she was called away, I felt she had left a blank in Arthur's life which I could never hope to fill, though I determined to do my best. A great deal of the work was congenial enough; but the caring for the house, and the daily worries it entailed; teaching, and watching over the children, trying to make the two ends of a narrow income meet, and at the same time to respond to all the varied calls on time and purse which a poor parish entails; these were for a long while the cross of my life, and taught me the full truth of Keble's often quoted words,

"The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we need to ask;

Room to deny ourselves, a road

To lead us daily nearer GOD."

But I am not writing a story about myself; it is quite time I said something of the sojourners at Cliff Cottage. Many little matters had to be attended to before I could set out on my errand, but at length I was on my way. When in sight of the gate I suddenly recollected that I knew not even so much as the name of the ladies I was going to visit. Mrs. Grant's lodgers had most frequently been of a class who regarded a call from the vicar's sister rather in the light of an honour, and were, moreover, well known to us, by name at any rate, long before they came; as Mrs. Grant took my brother into her confidence, and expected him to advise her as to the expediency of closing with their offers or not, but now her rooms were taken a month or six weeks earlier than usual, and beyond the fact that they were "quality folks," whatever that might mean, she had been most discreetly silent. I pictured to myself some stately, stiff, maiden lady, with a widowed sister perhaps, as an invalid; not very rich, but very proud, who would regard my visit rather in the light of an intrusion to be resented with merited coldness and hauteur. I began to wish I had persisted in not coming until their appearance at church had made the call a necessary civility, but then I generally did what Arthur told me, and in most cases I found he was right. I could only hope it would prove so now, if I could but learn their names; in this I was fortunate, for Mrs. Grant, in her very best cap and gown, was soon advancing towards the gate to open it for me, having seen me descending the hill.

"Oh! Miss Ruth, I am glad to see you," she exclaimed, in an unusually patronising tone. "You are come to call on the ladies, of course," walking all the while she was speaking, down the narrow path which would not admit of my getting by her side, or slipping in front to stop her progress before she ushered me into the little drawingroom, which was directly opposite the door. Her hand was on the handle, when in despair I plucked her dress, and whispered, "Do tell me what your ladies are called. We have heard nothing about them, you know."

Whether the old lady was mischievous or stupid that morning I could not understand then, but I saw through it all afterwards. She only turned an indignant face over her shoulder, and replied, “La! Miss Ruth, I told your brother with my own mouth that they was Miss Purcell and Miss Unwin, quality folks." So saying, she opened the door, and finding the room empty, left me at once to call "her ladies."