my heartlessness, could not estrange Alice; she was too good, too noble-minded, and she is so still. She was unable to come to me, or I know well I should have seen her; but why did she not write-just a little note-a line to say where she was staying, and to ask me to go to her?"

Then a thought flashed across Lilian's mind, and she rose, with all her old impetuosity, to seek what she wanted, but it would not do; her head swam, and she tottered, and almost fell, before she crossed the room. She sat down before a china bowl, placed in an obscure corner-she drew it towards her, and began to examine its contents.

They seemed miscellaneous enough-invitation notes, visiting cards, small bills, paid and unpaid, memoranda, dried rose leaves, and lavender, and old letters, and circulars. Many of the latter, and even some of the former were unopened. Lilian had grown terribly careless of late, and if a note were brought to her at an inopportune moment, she had accustomed herself to toss it into the china bowl, there to await her leisure, or be forgotten, as the case might be; and she feared that Alice had written, and that, having failed to recognize the writing, the missive had been consigned to this receptacle of stray documents. It was so; at the very bottom, half buried in pot-pourri, lay a tiny note from Alice, begging Lilian to come to her at her lodgings at Pentonville, or, if otherwise engaged, to write to her at her new address in Windsor Park. It was not too late for the post, and Lilian at once began to write. Her letter was very short :

"DEAREST ALICE,-Till this evening I did not know you had left Kirby-Brough; I have but just read your note, I will explain when I see you. Alice, dear, all is changed with me; my child is in his little grave;

my husband is far away, and I—I have no hope. I would fain go to my boy, but I cannot; his bright home will never, never be mine. Let me come to you. -I will tell you all, and you will forgive.-Your miserable LILIAN."

From that hour Lilian nursed herself, and took nourishing food, that she might be strong enough for her twenty miles' journey. How could she have neglected Alice so long. For now-Alice seemed all the comfort that remained to her upon earth; the thought of Alice was hope in despair, light in darkness, a gleam of heaven's sunshine, riving the low dense thunder-clouds of grief and hopelessness. Poor Lilian! how pertinaciously she clung to reeds of earth; even now in her great and lonely sorrow, she never thought of lifting her eyes to the everlasting hills, whence cometh strength and peace.

By return of post Lilian's letter was answered. Two or three crooked lines, in characters that she never would have known as Alice's small, delicate handwriting, were all. They bade Lilian come immediately, "for the time was short."

It was still early morning; indeed, Lilian had not yet risen, and there was abundance of time to make all needful arrangements, and depart that very after

noon.

She rang for her maid; told her that she was suddenly called to visit a sick-perhaps a dying-friend, and that her trunk must be packed forthwith. She despatched the page for a "Bradshaw," and then she lay back in her bed, thinking of all the old time-of Alice in her bright, joyous youth, and in her first serious illness; of Alice, patient and calm on her couch of suffering, through many a sunshiny spring and glorious summer, through many a golden autumn, and

happy, festive winter; of the last Sabbath evening, when she had taken her farewell of Alice, and received from her the little, worn Bible, that had been her solace and companion day and night all that long, weary season of pain and isolation from the world. That little, precious Bible, with its dark morocco binding, its faded, tarnished gilt edges, and its soiled, pencilled pages-where was it?

It was long since Lilian had seen it; but she fancied it was in a drawer with other disused articles; so she rose and sought it in the dressing-room, and there it was, with many other things that reminded Lilian of the days that were no more.

She went back with the little volume in her hand, and opened it. The leaves naturally fell apart at one place, where they had often remained fixed for hours, when Alice needed strength and comfort. The first words that met Lilian's gaze were the opening verses of the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel-“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." The sacred words thrilled Lilian's heavy, aching heart; they awoke an echo in her soul, that had never before sounded in its darkened depths. "Let not your heart be troubled!-I go to prepare a place for you!"

Further on, Lilian read those blessed words that have been life, and light, and joy for more than eighteen centuries; ever since the Master spoke them to his beloved ones, on the eve of his awful agony and woe. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!"

Still further in the beautiful, precious chapter!

"If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it!" And towards the close- "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither et it be afraid!"

And a mighty cry went up from that troubled human soul-O God! O Father Almighty! give to me that peace-that peace which the world knoweth not. O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, grant me thy peace!"

The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, and God said, "Let there be light!" and, as in the old time, when brightness and beauty arose out of chaos, so was there light in that fallen, sinful, world-worn soul! Not the perfect day-not even the full beams of the morning-but a streak of heaven's own radiance, pure though faint; eternal and unfading, though far, far away on the mountain-tops.

But as the dawn grows brighter and brighter-as the glorious sun rises, and illuminates even the lowly valleys of this earth; so that light, which comes straight from the Great Fountain of Light himself, shines in the unrenewed heart of man, and brightens more and more unto the perfect day; ay, even unto that day, where the eternal noon is never dimmed by cloud→→→ where shadows of evening never fall-for they (the redeemed) shall see his face, and there shall be no night there."

CHAPTER XV.

ALICE.

'Thou'rt passing hence, my sister,
Oh! my earliest friend, farewell;
Thou'rt leaving me without thy voice,
In a lonely home to dwell;

And from the hills and from the hearth,
And from the household tree,

With thee departs the lingering mirth,

The brightness goes with thee."-MRS. HEMANS.

SUMMER sunset on the stately towers of Windsor, on the dark turrets of classic Eton, on the green Clewerfields, on the royal river winding his broad silvery way through many a tract of goodly meadow-land!

Sunset on hill and dale, on earth and sky! The whole landscape was bathed in that rich soft light that glorifies the fall of night, in the warm, ripe, glowing month of August.

Lilian gazed on the fair scene with something of awe; it was so calmly, grandly beautiful. True, there were no mighty peaks piercing the azure air; no snowclad altitudes, to be transmuted by sunset's wonderous alchemy into visions of celestial glory; no broad sea, heaving his smooth bosom beneath the burning radi ance of the evening skies; no foaming cataract waking the echoes of wild pine-shaded ravines; but there was a sweep of undulating fertile country bounded by wavy hills; and the regal Thames, like a scroll of pure silver, or in some curves like molten gold, sweeping over the free, fair land. There was the grandeur of kingly towers and cloistered shades; there were the noble forest-trees, and all resting so tranquilly, wearing such an aspect of settled calm and peace, in the rosy light of the August afternoon!