evangelist. She and her sister-in-law quarrelled at the outset. Lilian naturally resisted, when Olivia attempted to treat her like a school-girl; she coolly swept away all the grammars and compendiums of science which Olivia had zealously collected for her special behoof, and stood so determinedly on her dig nity as a married woman, that the discomfited professoress was fain to give up her cherished hope of educating poor dear Basil's ignorant, silly child-wife; but she never forgave Lilian.

No day passed but Lilian suffered some mortification. There was a diurnal combat, and defeat, as the result; Basil was appealed to by both parties. He had been so accustomed to the superiority of his sisters, that he could not but imagine Lilian in fault. Her temper was the chief source of complaint, and, as time passed on, many altercations occurred between husband and wife. Harassed and fretted, and far from well, Lilian scarcely looked like the same beautiful girl we saw sitting in the calm Sabbath eve by Alice Rayner's couch of suffering. Basil went fishing, and grouse and partridge shooting, and Lilian was left much to herself, and to the uncongenial society of her new relatives.

On this particular evening there had been a scene. Mrs. Hope had reproved her daughter-in-law for what she considered disrespect towards herself, and unsisterly behaviour to Theresa. Lilian had retorted; calm, but cutting words replied to her agitated sentences. Basil was passionately appealed to, and he, like many men, had an insuperable horror of being involved in women's quarrels, so he answered in an irritable tone, that it was disgraceful for relatives to disagree about trifles; and he did wish Lilian would learn to control her temper; her fretfulness and touchiness were a real infliction to them all, himself in particular; he

was weary of it, and he rose from the table and left the room, leaving Lilian sobbing like an injured child.

Mary treated her for hysterics; but the unhappy girl turned away with a gesture of scorn and disgust from the proffered remedies.

"You have been cruel to me ever since I came to this horrible place," sobbed Lilian; "you have all tried to make me miserable, and now you are turning my husband against me!" and she rushed from the room, for she felt that she could bear Olivia's smile and Mrs. Hope's composure no longer.

"I forgive you, Lilian," cried Theresa, as the young wife left the room; and Mrs. Hope clasped her hands and ejaculated, "What a temper! how greatly Basil is to be pitied!"

Lilian found the stillness of her own room so oppressive that she left for the flower-garden. There the formal walks seemed to fetter her rapid movements; the low hedge-rows of roses, still vivid with many autumn varieties, seemed to cage her impatience; the calm tranquillity of the lovely evening was oppressive to an unendurable degree. So she left the cultivated domain, passed by a wicket-gate into the shrubbery, and from thence through the park into a woody district that bore the name of "the Forest;" a grand chase of olden time.

On she sped, tearing her flowing dress, and wounding her feet against the knotted roots of trees, which impeded her way. For nearly an hour she hurried on, taking no note of time, nor regarding the darkness that was gradually stealing upon her.

Suddenly a wild gust swept through the wood, the tree-tops were swayed backwards and forwards, and she saw dark clouds drifting across the evening sky. A storm was at hand; it was past sunset and she had

lost her way. There was a cottage, or rather a hut, in the distance, and hither she bent her steps. She knocked; a feeble voice bade her enter. No one was visible at first, but, the same weak voice bidding her be seated, she discerned in a sort of recess, stretched upon a rude couch, the figure of a woman. She was not old, but her frame was worn to attenuation, her face was haggard and discoloured, as if from cruel blows, and her breathing was short and hard. There was scarcely any furniture in the wretched abode, and very little light, for the only window was half-concealed by ivy. Lilian inquired the way to Hopelands, and found to her infinite relief that she had been making a circuit, and had reached almost the point from whence she commenced her ramble. A few steps would lead her to the south lodge, so her anxiety was dispelled, and she lingered to ask the woman if she were very ill.

"Very ill, my lady," said the poor creature; "but it won't last much longer now. I shall soon be in a better place; the doctor says I shall be gone before the winter sets in."

Lilian looked compassionately on the white, painworn face. "What is your name?" she asked gently. Mary Mills."

Then Lilian remembered a tale of woe she had heard soon after her arrival. The husband of this woman was a bad man, a poacher, a drunkard-some hinted a murderer! He treated his hapless wife in the most brutal manner, and worn out with cruel usage, sorrow, starvation, and toil, she was sinking now into an early grave.

The tears

Lilian looked around her, first at the destitution so painfully visible, then at the dying woman. rose in her eyes. "I am very sorry for you," she said. "I ought to have come to see you, but I did not know you lived so near Hopelands."

The sweet voice, and the kind, pitying glance, brought a smile of content to the faded lips, and poor Mary replied "Thank you, my lady, it is very comforting to hear kind words again; but this isn't a fit place for you to come into."

Lilian answered by sitting down on the one crazy chair the apartment boasted. "How unhappy you must be!" she said, in a tone of the deepest compassion.

"Oh no, ma'am !" exclaimed the sufferer, with sudden animation, "I've no call to be unhappy; God has been so good to me. He has sent me many comforts, and now He is going to take me away from pain and sorrow, to dwell with Him for ever and ever."

Lilian gazed with awe on the lustrous eyes, and on the holy calm that overspread Mary's wasted features. "You are not afraid to die ?" said Lilian, after a little hesitation.

"Oh no! not now. Once I was thoughtless and did not love my Saviour. I cared only to be well off in this life, and to enjoy myself, as I thought; so He sent trouble to wean me from it, like, and after a time I took to read my Bible, thinking perhaps I might find some comfort in it, and there I found all I wanted. I saw how He loved me, and died for me; and somehow I couldn't help but love Him back again, though in a poor way. Many a weary day and night that love has held me up, and kept me patient, and now I am going to see Him face to face. I shall know there why all this trouble came upon me. I shall see it all then. I can only believe now!"

Lilian would fain have lingered, but the gloom was deepening, and the storm fast approaching; so she bade poor Mary "good night," and promised to come and see her again very soon.

She did not escape a wetting, for the rain came down in torrents, ere she could gain shelter; she reached

home drenched, and sinking with fatigue. She went to bed immediately, after sending a cheerful message to the family.

Olivia, however, interpreted her retirement as a fit of sulks, and Mrs. Hope lamented her babyish disposition, which led her to play pranks like a school-girl. "Really, Basil," she said, at last, "I beg you will lecture your wife severely; she may, perhaps, hear you without flying in a passion. There is no knowing what mischief might ensue from these wild, rash expeditions, so undignified, so improper, for a married woman, and that woman my son's wife! Pray talk to her very seriously."

CHAPTER VI.

EXPLANATIONS.

Stranger! however great,

With lowly reverence bow;
There's one in that poor shed-
One by that paltry bed-

Greater than thou!

"Oh, change-oh, wondrous change!

Burst are the prison bars

This moment THERE, so low,

So agonized-and now

Beyond the stars."-CAROLINE BOWLES.

SIX weeks longer, and the Hopelands woods were shorn of their autumnal beauty. The garden was bright no more with rainbow hues; verbenas and fuchsias were safely housed for the winter, the last china-aster and the last of the dahlias had lifted their pale, marred faces in a valedictory gaze on the sun; the clear azure sky was as though it had never been, and