Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

"Uncle Chetwynd, she's only fainting. Don't you see
she's only fainting? She will come to herself again directly.
Mother—mother!"

MADGE HARDWICKE;

OR,

THE MISTS OF THE VALLEY.

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF

"IDA'S SECRET," "FLOSS SILVERTHORN,"
"WILL FOSTER," ETC.

"O Lord, I cannot see;
Vouchsafe me light:
The mist bewilders me,
Impedes my sight:
Hold Thou my hand, and lead me by Thy side,
I dare not go alone; be Thou my Guide."
The Dove on the Cross.

New Edition.

LONDON:

JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.

48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

STORIES BY AGNES GIBERNE.

IDA'S SECRET; or, The Towers of Ickledale.
Large Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
"The characters are made to live, and there is a wholesome and
refreshing tone running through it all."—Record.         

WON AT LAST; or, Mrs. Briscoe's Nephews.
Large Crown 8vo, cloth, with Illustrations, 3s. 6d.
"The treatment is so admirable we can understand Miss Giberne's
book being a help to many."—Athenæum.         

TOO DEARLY BOUGHT.
Crown 8vo, price Eighteenpence.

THE OLD HOUSE IN THE CITY.
Crown 8vo, with Illustrations, 2s. 6d.

HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER; or, A Quiet Valley.
Large Crown 8vo, Illustrated, price 5s.
"It is really a good tale, in the author's best
style."—English Churchman.              

WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY.
New Edition. Crown 8vo, Illustrated, 2s. 6d.
"A story well written, fully illustrated, and with a golden thread
of Christian teaching."—Bookseller.         

THE EARLS OR THE VILLAGE.
Crown 8vo, cloth, with Illustrations, 2s. 6d.
"A pathetic tale of country life, in which the fortunes of a family
are followed out with skill that never fails to interest."Scotsman.

MADGE HARDWICKE; or, The Mists of the Valley.
Crown 8vo, cloth, Illustrated, 2s. 6d.
"An extremely interesting book, and one that can be read with
profit by all."—Schoolmaster.              

FLOSS SILVERTHORN; or, The Master's Little Handmaid.
Crown 8vo, cloth, Illustrated, 2s. 6d.
"A really beautiful story, telling how even a child can do and
suffer for Christ's service."—The Rock.              

——————————————————————————

LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW & CO., 48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

CONTENTS.

————

CHAP.

I. UP ON THE HILL-TOP

II. THE HOME-COMING

III. DOWN UNDERGROUND

IV. MADGE AND THE DOCTOR

V. GATHERING MISTS

VI. NANNIE

VII. NAT TYRRELL'S NOTIONS

VIII. QUESTIONINGS

IX. MADGE HARDWICKE'S FAITH

X. A LETTER

XI. AWAITING THE MASTER'S WILL

XII. THE "FLYING ALBATROSS"

XIII. THE DOCTOR'S PROHIBITION

XIV. GOD'S MYSTERIES

XV. THE DINGLE

XVI. NAT'S COTTAGE

XVII. A FOG

XVIII. THE DRIVE HOME

XIX. A BLOW

XX. SUNSET CLOUDS

XXI. "O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH"

XXII. WARNING

XXIII. THE WISDOM OF THE WISE

XXIV. HOME!

MADGE HARDWICKE;

OR,

THE MISTS OF THE VALLEY.

————

CHAPTER I.

UP ON THE HILL-TOP.

"FIVE o'clock!"

The strokes pealed slowly through the calm gray air of dawn, from the square tower of old Alyn Church. It was a morning of almost oppressive stillness, with mist-wreaths nestling in every hollow, and a hazy uncertainty about the horizon-line giving promise of a sultry day to come. And as the five deep-toned vibrations went rolling up the hill-side, Madge Hardwicke came out of her cottage on the summit of the cliff, and stood in the doorway to listen.

Two little cottages were built there side by side; each with its tiny vegetable-ground behind, bounded by a tangled growth of trees and brushwood; and each with its tiny flower-garden in front, bounded by a broad belt of level grass which extended to the narrow path running along the edge of the cliff.

But whereas Madge Hardwicke's home was a model of trim and dainty neatness, Amos Ackman's exhibited signs of falling to decay. And whereas Madge Hardwicke's garden had every square foot occupied by flower or vegetable, Amos Ackman's showed a large and flourishing assortment of weeds, amongst which a few cabbages here and there reared their unsightly heads, or a half-wild rose-tree struggled for a languid existence amidst the ruthless growth of meaner plants.

Not twenty yards distant from Madge Hardwicke's garden railing, the cliff went down in a sheer descent of three hundred feet to the beach below. Rough masses of rock and shingle lay there, with a coating in some parts of slimy green. The sea was wont to play strange antics among those rocks at times, in no harmless mood of frolic. But this morning, it was placid as a lake, unbroken by the faintest ripple,—in its glassy repose almost like a gigantic mirror reaching to the horizon. And the blue of the sky overhead was pale in hue, fading into white lower down, where some long clouds stretched lazily, each catching a reflection of rose-colour from the coming sun.

Madge Hardwicke herself, standing before her doorway, with her dark-blue under-skirt, and looped-up black print gown, and little red handkerchief, and general quaint simplicity of appearance, formed not the least picturesque item in the scene. She must have been between forty and fifty years of age, and her smooth brown hair showed a faint sprinkling of silver threads. A very quiet, self-possessed demeanour was hers, while she had a face, the deeply-traced lines and shadows of which told of a far from facile nature, and of certain tempests in bygone days. Not that there was anything about her just then suggestive of storm or emotion. The blue depths of the sea below were not more absolutely calm than the gray depths of Madge Hardwicke's eyes. And though both alike were capable of being stirred up, it needed a strong external force in either case to work the change.

Just so quietly reposeful lay also the town below. Standing there in her doorway, and looking down through the clear morning air, Madge could distinguish each separate door and window, alike in the broad streets, where closed shutters hid the plate-glass panes of usually busy shops, and in the rows of villas stretching away to the west and north. Here and there a faint blue wreath of smoke went curling upwards, but generally speaking, Alyn seemed to be asleep. Down on the shingle beach of the little bay, where a row of bathing-machines stood looking like the contents of a child's toy-box as seen from this height, the blue jackets of one or two early-rising sailors were visible.

This was the East Cliff, on which Madge made her home; and her cottage stood sideways to the edge, with Amos Ackman's on the other side. Down in front, the hill sloped steeply with a scattering of houses beginning about half-way to the bottom. It was a fan-shaped town that lay below, converging to the shingle bathing-beach, and widening out as it extended inland. Beyond the beach, the cliffs rose sharply again, and a wild headland of bare rock, reaching far out into the sea, stood up in massive grandeur against the sky—West Point, or The Point, as it was usually called, though more correctly Lion Point by name, from some real or fancied resemblance in its shape to a lion's head and mane. It was high tide now, and the narrow rugged ridge of rock which united the Point to the mainland, was deeply covered with water.

On just such another morning as this, and on the same day of the same month, exactly ten years earlier, the darkest cloud of Madge Hardwicke's life had gathered over her. And so like now were the gray stillness of the dawn and the deep repose of sea and land, the sleepy twitter of some waking birds and the cheery singing of their livelier companions already awake, the smoke-wreaths over the town and the mist-wreaths over the country, to what they then had been, that Madge stood living over that past scene once more, as if it were actually present.

Ten years! No more than ten! It seemed such a little while to Madge. Just at this same hour she had risen, and come out of her cottage-door, and stood within her garden-gate. She had not been a lonely widow then, but a light-spirited happy wife. She seemed almost to hear again the manly step which followed her out, and to feel again the hearty kiss, and to see again the fine blue-jacketed sailor, her pride and joy, striding carelessly away towards the path.

Just those few yards—those few steps. The sound of his clear whistle had come back to her, and she had seen him standing at the edge of the cliff, with his brown hand upraised to shelter his eyes, as he scanned the horizon-line. And Madge had turned back into her cottage, thinking pleasantly of the busy day's work before her, and of the welcome he should have on his return. Thinking,—but little dreaming that never again should she speak word of welcome to him.

It was only the giving way of a foot of brown earth, overhanging the cliff, bound together by entangled roots, all loosened with previous rains. One minute Ned Hardwicke stood there, a very model of manly strength. The next, he lay a shattered corpse, three hundred feet below.

And Madge, to this hour, knew nothing of what took place after. She had no recollection of his one death-cry; no recollection of her own wild rush to the edge; no recollection of Amos Ackman's struggles to withhold her, when, in her mad agony, she would fain have flung herself over likewise; no recollection of the help sought and too late obtained; no recollection of aught else which had happened on that day. It was as if a black curtain had been drawn over every bodily and mental sense, shutting out even the consciousness of pain,—drawn there in tender mercy, for otherwise Madge Hardwicke's reason would scarcely have held its balance.

This lasted till after the funeral. And then, while Madge Hardwicke's friends were talking in subdued tones over her state, and marvelling what would become of her and the child, Madge put aside the curtain, and bravely came forth to meet her sorrow. It was a lonely path which lay before her, but Madge would tread it with unfaltering steps. It was a heavy cross which her God had laid upon her, but Madge would bear it firmly. No broken-down and selfishly-hopeless mourner would she be; but one who had learnt to bear chastening in the spirit of a child, living her appointed life, and working her appointed work, until the end came.

"Madge!"

A soft little girlish voice spoke, and Madge looked down, with something of a smile, at the tiny barefooted damsel, about ten years of age, who had pattered softly out of the neighbouring cottage, and now stood with one hand grasping Madge's blue petticoat, and a wistful face upturned, as if in questioning.

"What is it, Nan, you're wanting?"

Nan looked hard without a word, and Madge went back to the quiet landscape.

"That's it," said the child unexpectedly. "You're thinking something, ain't you, Madge?"

"Ay," responded Madge. "I'm thinking, just this minute,—what if the Resurrection-morning was to look like it does to-day?"

Nan caught up another fold of the blue skirt, and enclosed it tightly in her fingers, with a sudden gesture, as if of fear. "O Madge! Don't you, please, now."

"Why? 'Twill come," said Madge calmly. "My talking 'll bring it no sooner, Nannie, though my praying may."

"Madge, do you think it'll be to-day? Do you think it'll be a day like this, Madge?" demanded the child eagerly, as if the fate of the world hung upon the answer of her friend.

"It'll be in 'such an hour as we think not,'" said Madge. "That's pretty nigh all we're told clear about the time. Maybe He'll come in storm, and not in calm; only there's a look to me to-day like the world asleep before its last awakening. I'm only fancying, Nan," she added, with a sudden smile at the child's awestruck look.

"And you won't go and pray it may come sooner 'n need be, Madge," said Nannie, with a catch in her breath.

"Why, Nannie, what of the prayer we're told to pray, 'Thy kingdom come'? You're surely not fearsome of seeing the Master Himself as loves little children so?"

Nan shook back her long dark hair with an expressive gesture. "Father ain't ready," she said. "He ain't, Madge."

Madge had nothing to say to that at first. After a moment, she spoke: "We'll pray he may be, and put the two prayers together, Nannie."

Nannie's face showed assent as well as understanding this time.

And the next minute, Madge's attention was drawn by the sight of a man's head appearing up the hill. It came rapidly, borne on by long vigorous strides, as of a messenger who felt himself on an errand of life and death.

Madge knew the tall broad-shouldered figure, even before she could recognise the face. It was a good face—good in feature, that is to say, and good also in a certain natural kindliness and benevolence of expression. You certainly would not have said, to look upon him, "What a good man Mr. Chetwynd must be!" speaking in the highest sense. But you would undoubtedly have said, "What a kind-hearted man," as well as, "What a clever man he seems."

That it was something unusual which had brought the doctor up the hill at this hour of the morning, Madge knew directly. She would have known it by his mere speed and manner, apart from the paleness of his face, and the drops standing thickly on his brow. She put aside little Nannie, and went out to the garden-gate, asking no questions, but quietly waiting till he came close, and chose to speak. His first words were in a sharp breathless tone, with a forced affectation of cheerfulness.

"Where's your hood, Madge? Quick, and come with me, for I want your help."

"I'll come, sir."

She turned back into the cottage, and was out again immediately—not too soon for Mr. Chetwynd.

"Come,—quick," he said. "My chaise will be waiting by the time we get down. There's not another woman in the town so helpful as you, or I wouldn't have risked losing two minutes by calling you."

"Sir, has it aught to do with my Neill?"

"Neill! No. There has been an accident in the tunnel; trucks slipped and left there by some extraordinary blunder, and a passenger-train allowed to run into them. I don't know how much damage is done. One may allow a good margin for exaggerated reports."

Madge gave one look up at his strangely pale face, as they sped together down the hill-side. His home was one of the first in sight—a many-gabled roof peeping out from a nest of surrounding trees,—and they could see the chaise waiting at the garden-gate. That he had some especial and personal cause for distress, Madge did not doubt. He was not a man of keen sympathies, though of real kindness. But she put no questions, and it was not till the chaise was starting, with Madge seated by the doctor's side, that he said briefly—

"My sister and her child were to arrive by this train."

Madge understood then, and her full heart went out in silent compassion for the fearful weight of anxiety which must, she well knew, be pressing upon him. He was a man of few ties and strong feelings. But she only said—

"They are in the Lord's hands, sir. He can have kept them safe."

And Madge looked for no response in her companion's face, being fully aware that she should there find none. The faintest shadow of a sneer curled his usually pleasant lips, like the mist-wreath floating over a distant landscape. And then they drove on quickly, wasting no breath in words.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOME-COMING.

SUCH a long tedious journey it had been, as the train sped ever wearily onwards, hour after hour, from the further north to the further south of England. But the gray dawn was brightening now, and sleepy passengers were rousing themselves to sit upright, and to mark how nearly they had approached the end. And Mona Clyde, waking suddenly from a quiet night's rest amid noisy surroundings, lifted her bright child-like face—singularly child-like, for her nineteen summers—from the blue-cushioned arm, and cried—

"O mother! Are we almost there?"

"Almost there, Mona," her mother said.

"And you are tired, while I have had such a long lazy sleep," said Mona, kissing her mother's hand, for they had a compartment to themselves. "Are you not mother, dear?"

"A little tired, but I shall soon rest now, Mona."

Was she thinking of the last time she had come this road, with her infant Mona in her arms, and her husband by her side, so many long years before? Mona fancied so, and waited quietly, holding down her own gay delight at the prospect of all that lay before her. Dear kind uncle Chetwynd, whom she knew so well, and uncle Chetwynd's pretty house which lay so far in the background of her memory that she had no recollection of it, and beautiful Alyn which had been her mother's home in childhood, and the glorious blue sea which she had never yet seen, and all the attendant pleasures of a six weeks' happy change.

"O mother, isn't it nice to be almost there?" she said at length. "How soon shall we see Alyn?"

"When we are through the tunnel, Mona. It is pretty here, but this is nothing to the view which bursts upon us there. A sunny mid-day is the time to have it in perfection. I remember so well how, as a child going home from school, I used to love the feeling of getting nearer and nearer, seeing one land-mark after another, passing into the dark tunnel, and then coming out into a blaze of sunshine and beauty, to find myself in one moment 'at home.' For Alyn itself was home, and once out of the tunnel, you are in Alyn."

"Mother, you often told me about that, when I was a little girl."

"As a picture," Mrs. Clyde said, smiling, while Mona's bright face had grown serious. "My favourite thought, darling; it is so like the last Home-going. So often there seems to be darkness at the close of life, with those who love the Master, but I think it is only that the glory coming after may shine the brighter. But for the dark tunnel first, Alyn could never burst upon us with half such a wonderful glow of beauty."

"O mother, I do so long to see it," cried Mona eagerly. "Is that the tunnel coming now?"

How little knew Mona that the shrill whistle which she welcomed so joyfully, was the death-knell of many around her!

One moment's rush of increased noise, and then darkness. And in that moment, it was strange how her mother's face was photographed for ever upon Mona's memory. She did not consciously mark it at the time. Afterwards, it came back to her, in all its calm sweetness. She was thinking of nothing but counting the seconds, and awaiting the view which lay beyond.

One moment more! And then—

Ah, "then!"

It was only a little mistake or accident. Something had been forgotten, or somebody was careless. Only just such a slight mistake as one may make a hundred times a day, letting it pass unmarked, and never dreaming the terrible consequences with which a little matter may be fraught. There had been a break-down of some heavy luggage-vans, and there was just a little too long delay in removing them, or word had been telegraphed just a little too late, or the express had arrived just a little too early. Nothing worse. But then—

Down there in the darkness underground, they could not see the loaded trucks in the way. On and on with undiminished speed rushed the train, so near at last to its journey's end. Only a moment more—and then a crash so fearful that the very earth above and below trembled with the fierce concussion, and the mighty engine was twisted and crushed like a bit of tin in a man's hand, and carriages were heaped up one upon another, or flung to right and left in masses of shattered fragments, as a child might scatter a pile of bricks. And the fierce hiss of the boiling water that rushed from the engine, and the crashing turmoil of the collision, mingling with the wild tumult of groans and shrieks which followed, echoed back and forth from the low vaulted roof, till it seemed as if the din of sound must go on for ever and ever ceaselessly.

But in that moment of direst anguish and fear, there were some who went quietly Home. Quietly, all in an instant, breaking out from the darkness underground to the glory far above. The anguish and fear were not for them, but for those who remained behind. The Master calls sometimes in sunshine and sometimes in storm, to those whom He will have to be with Him where He is; but so long as it "is" the voice of the Master and not of the Judge which calls, what matter how they go? Whether lingeringly in sunshine, or suddenly in storm, it signifies little, so that once they are safely landed.

And some were landed all in a moment that day, who had looked for a longer voyage. Just as the disciples on the lake had a toilsome way before them, till the Master stepped on board, and then,—"suddenly they were at the land whither they went."

Suddenly, all in a moment. Perhaps if the choice had been given them, they might have found it hard to decide whether they would go, or whether they would stay. But once there, they would doubt no more. None ever yet looked upon the unveiled Face of the King in glory, and turned back to wish for the shadows of earth again. So for those of the dead who died in Christ that day, it was a peaceful Home-going—all the brighter and sweeter maybe, from the contrast of the darkness and anguish behind, out of which the Master had gently withdrawn them.

This was the scene upon which Madge Hardwicke and her companion entered. The first mad terror and excitement of the accident had subsided, yet it was a strangely weird picture which lay before them, as they left the early daylight behind, and went deep into the tunnel's blackness. The tumult of shrieks had died gradually away into gentler moans, and in many cases into silence, broken here and there by a pitiful call for help. Some of the dead and dying had been already extricated, and busy hands were still hard at work among the heaped up masses of débris, which concealed yet many a crushed and mangled form. There was little leisure for attendance on those only wounded, and they waited for the most part in patient endurance, lying or sitting upon the damp ground.

Some of the shattered fragments of woodwork had been piled together, and two or three small fires burnt brightly, sending up wreaths of smoke into the darkness, and casting a red glow upon the scene of confusion around. Lanterns were borne backwards and forwards here and there, and long ill-proportioned shadows of men, sometimes hazy and large, sometimes clear and small, went passing along the dark moist walls. And mingling with the busy sound of pick-axe and of crowbar, came the sound of men's voices in sharp direction or subdued consultation, and the groans of the injured, and the frightened sobbing of little children, clinging to their no less terrified mothers and nurses.

Mr. Chetwynd's face turned towards Madge Hardwicke for an instant, but her quiet eyes met his steadfastly, and her lips were only trembling a little with unspoken words of prayer.

"You can stand it?" he said, in a half-questioning tone. "I don't want to have you on my hands, in a screaming and fainting condition, Madge."

For all the man's self-command and would-be carelessness, she knew the deadly fear which lay at his heart.

"Sir, I never did either in my life," she answered.

"Did you ever see a scene like 'this' in your life?" he asked, with a sudden change of manner. "Madge, it is awful."

"I think nothing can be darker to me than that which I have borne already, sir."

And borne on that very morning—only ten years before. But that was past, and this was present, and Mr. Chetwynd had no thought to give to aught save what lay before him.

They went on threading their way over the masses of ruin scattered far and wide. There were other helpers, and two more surgeons already on the scene. But there were not too many for the work, and Mr. Chetwynd was at everybody's beck and call. He refused no one, and gave attention to each in turn who claimed his aid, though all the time his set lips and anxious eyes told Madge Hardwicke the subject of his thoughts. She made many inquiries for him about his expected relatives, but could learn nothing. Those who were busy had no leisure to talk, and those who were not busy seemed, in the majority of cases, to have lost, for the time being, all memory and self-possession.

Throughout Mr. Chetwynd's doings, he kept Madge persistently near his side, when she would have wished to go about and help more actively. She had learnt obedience, whatever else her lessons might have been, and made no protest. And, in truth, there was work enough for her to do on any spot where she might take her stand.

"Sir, they're taking off some of the well folk, and them that's not so badly hurt, to Alyn," Madge remarked at length, speaking unaddressed for the first time. "They've told me to tell you. Will this lady go?"

Mr. Chetwynd looked up from the case in hand, finished what he was doing, and stood erect once more.

"Ay, the sooner the better. Madge—no news of 'them?'"

"I can hear none, sir."

He sighed heavily, and then, with a hasty movement, walked a few paces away.

"Look here, Madge."

A poor mother was sitting, pale and still, upon the ground, with one arm hanging helplessly, and the other clasping a wee white-faced baby. She gazed up in mute appeal at the doctor. But when Mr. Chetwynd would have lifted the little one from her grasp, she held it more tightly, and uttered a sharp cry of anguish.

"No use yet," he said, in a low tone, to Madge. "She will not believe the child is dead. Better so, perhaps, for a while. See there too."

Another scene of the same description: a poor young wife kneeling in silent misery beside a prostrate figure, with an older lady weeping bitterly on the other side.

"Is he dead, too?" Madge asked, from her full heart.

"Not far from it. Ha, there is Mr. Prior."

She did not recognise the name. A man of middle age and slender build came up and paused beside the little group, bearing a lantern in his hand. There were a few low-toned words, and then he knelt quietly down, and sounds of prayer for the departing soul came softly across to where Madge stood. What a scene for an artist that group would have made, in the red flickering light, with the gloomy tunnel-walls lowering overhead, and the calm reverent face of the man of prayer contrasting with the subdued grief of the weeping women, and the ashen features of the dying man.

But Madge saw all with a deeper sense than that of an artist merely watching for "effects," and would fain have knelt down likewise to join in the petitions, but for the companion by her side.

"That's your style, Madge," he said briefly. "Much good may it do the poor fellow."

"Ay, may it, sir, indeed," responded Madge softly.

"Mr. Prior is setting to work early. Well,—'tis his vocation."

"Mr. Prior?" Madge repeated.

"The new Rector. He only arrived on Monday. Stay, there is a man calling me."

He came back with a hasty step.

"It may be nothing—I don't know,—but it sounds like—. Come and see, Madge."

Following, as he hurried away, she came with him to a sheltered corner. And there, behind a broken carriage, hidden away in the darkness,—lying quietly where they had first been flung by the rude shock of the collision,—there they were. Mother and daughter together, not only side by side, but clasped firmly in one another's arms, as if, in the single instant of conscious danger, the instinct of each had been to shelter the other.

Travelling in the same carriage, bound for the same home, flung out by the same rough shock, lying on the same damp spot of earth. But one was there, and one was "not" there. One was living, and one was dead. One was left to wander in earth's shade, and one had reached the everlasting light.

CHAPTER III.

DOWN UNDERGROUND.

MR. PRIOR came upon this group quietly, with his lantern in his hand, as he had come upon the other. He paused as he had done before, and made a sixth in the scene. But beyond the show of deep compassion in his face, what could he do for them?

They were all silent. From the moment of Mr. Chetwynd's first exclamation, not a word had passed his lips. He stood now with bent head and folded arms, the swelling veins in his forehead telling something of the thoughts below. The man who had called him to the spot remained slightly behind, holding in his hand a roughly improvised torch, which flickered drearily, sending black curls of smoke upward and stray sparks downward.

Madge Hardwicke's gray eyes shone full of unshed tears. And Mona Clyde, just awakened from her death-like faint, had sprung to her mother's side before they dreamt her purpose, and now hung caressingly over her.

She did not know the truth, and how could they tell it to her? She thought it was such a swoon as her own had been. It was almost more than they could bear, to see the slender girl kneeling there, all unconscious of her loss, tremblingly chafing the mother's cold hands, and trying in fond tones to coax her back to sense. Madge Hardwicke turned away and sobbed aloud. Mr. Chetwynd lifted his head, and meeting Mr. Prior's look, spoke suddenly in an impatient husky tone—

"Look here—see here! I know all the talk about mysterious dispensations. What have you to say to this?"

Whatever he had expected, he had not looked for the reply—

"'God is love,' Mr. Chetwynd."

"And this—an act of love!" he said bitterly.

"If you know Him, you will be able to trust His loving mercy through even this," was the gently-uttered answer.

"Mercy!" Mr. Chetwynd laughed hoarsely. "A mercy that she should be cut off! Ay, she has thought and talked like the rest of you, times without number. And now—this is the end of it all."

This the end! The end of all her loving trust in a merciful Redeemer? Ah but neither Mr. Prior in his faith, nor Mr. Chetwynd in his unbelief, could catch one note of the grand triumphant chorus, with which the gathering in of another saint to the City of God had even then been welcomed by those already at home. It was the end indeed of faith, but the beginning of unclouded joy, and of pleasures at the right hand of God for ever and for evermore.

Mr. Chetwynd checked himself when about to continue, for Mona had turned to listen, with a face of stony whiteness, and dilated terrified eyes.

"Mona, dear child," he faltered.

"Mother is fainting. Why don't you bring her round?" demanded Mona, in an unnatural voice.

Mr. Chetwynd groaned, and covered his face with his hands.

Madge Hardwicke laid a light grasp on the girl's arm, looking down on her tearfully.

"You'll help me," Mona went on in a pleading tone. "I don't know who you are, but I think from your face that you are kind. And they are leaving mother without doing anything—leaving her to die."

The word uttered by herself seemed to rouse her to a sudden agony of fear, and with a cry she turned again to the motionless figure,—

"Mother! Mother! Oh, won't you look up? Mother! Mother, darling!"

"Miss Mona, I'm going to take you away from this place," said Madge Hardwicke, feeling that something must be done, and the truth must be told. "Dear Miss Mona, you are not fit to stay here any longer."

"Mona, my dear, you 'must' come," said Mr. Chetwynd, as she resisted Madge Hardwicke resolutely. "We can do no more for—for her."

"No more!" Mona looked up in ghastly bewilderment. "Why you've done nothing at all yet. Keep off. I am not going to leave mother. What do you mean?"

Child as she looked for her age, shaken and trembling with all she had gone through, her gesture made them desist from any attempt to draw her away.

"What do you mean? I don't understand," she went on hurriedly. "Uncle Chetwynd, you are a doctor. Don't you know what to do for a person in a faint? Mother has often fainted before, and I have brought her round, but there's nothing here to do it with. Why don't you fetch me some water, and help me to fan her, and rub her hands? What has come over you all?"

Even as she spoke, the truth was fighting its way slowly into her mind, though she struggled to keep it out.

"Uncle Chetwynd, she's only fainting. Don't you see she's only fainting? She will come to herself again directly. Mother—mother!"

Mr. Chetwynd turned away with an uncontrollable sob.

"Mr. Prior, this is part of your rightful work. Tell her the truth if you can. I can't. Is there none among you that can comfort her?"

He looked up half-fiercely as he spoke, but the appeal had met with instant response, and Mr. Prior was already by the side of the white-cheeked shuddering girl.

"Mona, dear child, you must come away with me," he said gently, as if he had known her all her life.

Mona gave him a startled look.

"It is very dark," he went on. "I am going to take you away, Mona. It is very dreary here, but there is daylight beyond."

Her gaze had grown piercing in its intensity.

"How do you know? What do you mean?" she muttered. "Did you know mother had said it?"

"Had said what, my poor child?"

"About the sunshine beyond—the darkness and then the light—and about its being like—like—the last Home-going! O mother!"

"It is like that for her. God has taken her out of the darkness into His glorious light. Mona," he said pityingly, "poor child—it 'is' the last Home-going."

She knew the truth now, and the cry with which she sank over her mother, though not loud, was terrible in its broken-heartedness.

"And this—this, you say, is mercy," Mr. Chetwynd murmured huskily, as he helped Mr. Prior to lift the half-unconscious girl.

"Ay, to those who are God's own," Mr. Prior made answer. "What do you and I understand of His secret purposes? I know only this—how very precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints!"

"She was a saint, if there ever was one upon earth," said Mr. Chetwynd. "I don't know that the word means the same to me as to you, though. It doesn't much matter after all. Thank you, Mr. Prior,—you mean well, but such doctrines are beyond me. Madge, you will come home with us for a few hours. Hush—don't try to rouse the poor child. Better get her away as she is. She understands at last."

"God give her strength to bear it," murmured Madge.

CHAPTER IV.

MADGE AND THE DOCTOR.

"SO here you be at last," said Amos Ackman, in a discontented growl. "Get back, Nan." It was in the evening, less than a week later.

The sun had just sunk behind West Point, lending a framework of golden light to the dark massive centre, which stood out with its sharply-cut profile against the clear sky. And the sea was all one sparkle of dancing ripples, which broke softly with murmuring splashes among the rocks below.

Amos Ackman sat on a bench in his doorway, looking upon his goodly growth of garden weeds. He made no unfit foreground to the very untidy surroundings. A man, not tall, but formerly an athlete in strength, he had been bent and shrunk and twisted, by long years of acute rheumatism, into a half-helpless querulous invalid. The greater part of his time he spent on his little wooden bench, working laboriously with his swelled yet bony hands at trifling articles or childish knick-knacks for sale, helped by little Nan, as she crouched on the ground at his feet. A sour-spirited and unlovable man was Amos Ackman, yet Nannie loved him, and Madge Hardwicke pitied him and often did him a kindly turn.

For all Amos Ackman's crustiness, he was not without a friend in the world—a real fast personal friend, who held to him through thick and thin, and would not be repelled by any amount of cross-grained speeches. Nat Tyrrell was a carpenter in a small way, living close to the foot of the hill, up which, in common with a goodly number of Alyn folks, he was wont to take his airing on a summer evening. He stood now, leaning in his favourite position against Amos Ackman's crooked crab-tree, looking, in his contrast to Amos, as if the theory of convex and concave friendship were here to receive full proof.

For Amos Ackman was stooping and high-shouldered, with long uncouth arms, and neglected growth of straggling gray hair, and narrow forehead, and sharp deep-set eyes. And Nat Tyrrell was broad and stout in build, with frank straightforward bearing, and plenty of sense and intelligence in his honest face.

A good man too, was Nat Tyrrell, not indeed rising to any great height of Christian experience, and having had his eyes but lately opened to see the worth of things spiritual. He was only groping his way as yet through early dawn, and making many a mistake concerning matters of weighty import in that dim light. No fear that, if he groped on, honestly seeking for more light, it would not be granted. Only the curious thing was, that he hardly realised yet how much he needed clearer sight; and he was therefore not a little disposed to lay down the law upon many matters, which, all unknown to himself, others in brighter daylight could mark in their more just proportions. There are no popes more determined in their would-be infallibility than those good men who utterly mistake their own glimmering light for the blaze of noonday. And with such, the dawn often brightens but slowly, lasting it may be almost through a life-time. Still, Nat Tyrrell was a good man—a man of Christian principle, earnestly desirous to serve God, and needing chiefly to be raised in his knowledge of Christ, and lowered in his estimation of self.

"So here you be at last," was Amos Ackman's surly greeting, as Madge Hardwicke's quiet face, with the little red handkerchief below it, stopped at his gate. "Get back, Nan. Always in the way, yer are."

Nan went down quickly on the ground, but ventured to smile a welcome, as Madge came a step nearer.

"Yes, I'm come back," Madge said. "How have you been all day?"

"Same as always," said Amos shortly. "Where 've yer been?"

"More places than one," said Madge. "I'd a mind to be present at the funeral."

"What the poor lady as was killed in the tunnel?" asked Nat Tyrrell. "The doctor's sister?"

"Joe Whilly telled me there was to be six buried together," said Amos, hitting out at Nan, when she ventured to creep a little nearer to Madge. "Get out o' the way then! Six buried together, says he, all o' them killed on the spot. And a lot more to be buried to-morrow. Well, the gentlefolks has it this time an' no mistake."

"Has what?" demanded Madge.

"Their turn at trouble an' bother," said Amos sourly. "I've enough an' to spare, till I'm 'most sick o' my life. I ain't got no objection to see rich folks bearin' a bit o' the same."

"Come now, don't you go and be spiteful, Amos," interposed Nat Tyrrell good-humouredly. "Rich folks has their plenty of trouble, though it don't always come in the money line."

Amos struck out again savagely, as if little Nan were the impersonation of wealthy ease, and he wanted to demolish it on the spot. "What 're yer after there, a-wastin' all your time? Get into the cottage."

"Nannie's coming along with me into my garden, to help pull weeds," said Madge, as the child cowered silently beneath the blow. "You'd ought to be ashamed of yourself, Amos Ackman, to treat a little girl like that worse than if she was a dog."

Amos scowled, but allowed Nannie to spring past him without a protest.

"Well," Madge said, when they had reached her little garden, leaving the other two just out of ear-shot, "I've scarce had a word with you, Nan, these days past. What's angered your father, child?"

Nannie looked thoughtful. She was spare, and small, and pinched for her age, but there was no lack of intelligence in her little thin face, with the framing of gipsy-black hair. "Madge," she said, under her breath, "d'ye mind what you said the morning of the tunnel accident? 'Twasn't the Resurrection-day, after all."

"No, it's to come yet," said Madge, pulling up a bit of groundsel, and then looking across to the fading rim of golden light which lingered round Lion Point.

"I've prayed a deal that it mayn't be long, and that father 'll be ready," said Nan softly. "But he don't seem like it now. I wanted to say to him my Sunday text this morning, Madge, and it's that has made him be hittin' at me all day since."

"I'd pray on," said Madge, continuing her work. "Maybe 'tisn't the Master's time yet. Only take care your father don't anger ye, Nan."

"I've had to smother it down ever so," said Nannie, with a little sob. "O Madge, it's so hard, you don't know. Look here."

The black bruises on the little arm, covertly bared, told their own tale. "It 'is' hard," said Madge. "I wish I could shield you, child. Maybe if I was to speak to him, and get Nat Tyrrell to speak too—"

"No, no, he's worse after, if he keeps in a bit," said Nannie, speaking cheerfully, as she covered up the poor little discoloured arm. "I'll bear it, Madge, 'cause, if I made a fuss, father 'd maybe think I was angry, and then he'd be longer learning to love God; don't you think so, Madge?"

It seemed to Madge like something of the old martyr-spirit shining in the child's face; but she only said, "Ay, Nannie, you're right, 'on' doubt. Come, and I'll put you something on the bruises."

Amos Ackman's voice, calling imperatively in harsh tones, made Nannie run away the moment they again left the cottage. Madge moved forward a trifle faster herself, for Mr. Chetwynd was standing outside the garden, leaning on the palings.

He looked sad and weary enough, though he greeted her with a half-careless smile. "Good evening, Madge. I have come up here for a breath of fresh air. The town is oppressive to-day."

"How's Miss Mona, sir?" asked Madge.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Never sheds a tear. Never speaks of—of 'it.' I can't begin, or it might be better. I am not sure. But it is hard to see her look like that. It is not the way girls usually meet sorrow. There seems no way of bringing comfort to her, poor little Mona."

His eyes were moist, and his voice was unsteady.

"God can comfort her, sir," Madge said, in her quiet way.

He shook his head again, in dreary dissent this time.

"I tried to get her out, but she will see no one yet, and seems to wish for nothing but to be left alone. Madge, I like Mr. Prior, though he is of your way of thinking. You two would suit marvellously. He knows when not to talk, which most men don't know, particularly your good folks. His shake of the hand to-day said more than any words could have done. If all professors of religion were like him and you, now—"

"Sir, a man's slips oughtn't to make you condemn his religion."

"One naturally judges of a man's profession by his actions. What were you talking about so earnestly to that child, as I came up the hill, before you both disappeared into the cottage?"

Madge thought a moment, and then spoke out steadily, "Prayer to God, for one thing, sir."

"Ha! Quite your subject."

"No,—everybody's," said Madge.

"What are you praying for now, eh?"

He asked the question lightly, not quite contemptuously.

Perhaps there was something in Madge Hardwicke's calm confidence which kept him in check. Also, he had himself no objection to prayer, as a necessary and respectable form. Possibly, he looked upon the said form as something of a concession to the weakness of others; but, at all events, in his opinion, it could do no one harm, if not likely to do any one good. He was regularly to be seen in his pew on Sunday mornings, where his manner, if not reverent, was decorous; and he had never yet broken through the habit of family prayers, however brief and dry in kind. As for anything beyond—as for making a particular request to God, and looking for a particular answer from God—Mr. Chetwynd's feelings were simply those of utter incredulity. He had no objection to the form of prayer, as a habit, as an institution, as an act of worship to a Supreme Being, but he had no faith whatever in the power of prayer as a living working reality. There was the barrier at which he stopped, and there, he well knew, Madge did not stop; whence his question.

Madge hesitated again, not that she did not know what to say, but that it was always an effort to her to speak of her own feelings. But Madge never shrank from showing her colours when occasion called.

"For the Master's coming," she answered reverently.

He was watching the red sunset clouds at that moment, floating in the blue sky, but he turned to look her in the face, in no pretended astonishment.

"Madge, do you literally mean to say—you who believe in the Second Advent, as men understand it in the Bible—do you mean to say you dream of your prayers having any influence in an event of such moment as that, supposing it were really coming upon us?"

"I'd put aside the supposings, sir, and let's take for granted it really is,—as we know to be," Madge could not help adding, in her calm exultant faith, ranking herself with those who know the truth indeed, and were not blind as he was. "I do believe my praying 'll hasten it, sir."

"Then you don't believe it to be a day fixed from all eternity? Madge, Madge, what of your faith in Bible teachings now?" demanded the doctor.

"Maybe 'tis fixed. Any way, God knows the day. What then, sir?" asked Madge simply, in her turn.

"How can your prayers by any possibility affect a fixed event?"

"I don't know, sir. God knows, and that's enough."

"But I tell you, Madge, the two things are incompatible. They can't both be true."

"Maybe you can't explain 'em, sir," said Madge. "They're none the less true for that. You've a deal more of this world's wisdom than I have, and I'm but a poor ignorant woman. But 'the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.' Tisn't wisdom, but faith, that's needed to get a man into the kingdom of heaven."

"Then, if you were to read in the Bible that black was white, you would believe it, Madge?"

He laughed as he spoke.

But Madge answered solemnly,—so solemnly that he too grew grave:—

"Sir, the Bible says nowhere at all that black is white. The Bible don't ask us to believe anything of the kind, and I can't see that I've any call to be fancying how I'd feel if the Bible said things which it doesn't say. But what's put plainly in God's Word, I do believe. And where I can't understand, I know 'tis only because I am but a little child before God; and I just take the truths He gives me, and believe them still."

He looked away again towards the fading light in the west—looked sadly, standing there in his lonely sorrow, smitten by the hand of God in his tenderest affections, and haughtily putting aside the sweet comfort wherewith God would fain, in His pitying love, comfort all who are cast down. Mr. Chetwynd knew nothing of all this—knew not, because he would not know.

"Look here, Madge," he said huskily,—"did none of those passengers the other day pray for a safe journey before their setting out, do you suppose?"

"I've a notion that they did, sir. And wasn't God's hand over them, preserving many a one from death?"

"According to that, all praying travellers should be safe, and only the non-praying ones ever meet with injury or death."

Madge looked up with a sudden shining in her eyes.

"Ay, sir, 'twould be so, surely, 'if' God's wounding isn't often a deal better than to be left whole, and 'if' this life is better than heaven's glory. I'd find it hard to choose about that last, if you was to put it to me."

"You would! You, Madge?"

"I don't wish for death, till it's my Lord's will," said Madge very quietly. "But when He calls, I'd think you right cruel to keep me back—only you couldn't!" added Madge, with genuine thankfulness.

"That's not mere weariness of life," muttered the doctor.

"No, sir," Madge answered. "I'm not weary of life, so long as my Lord wants me to live here for Him. And I'd like to see Neill again, too."

"And you think Neill will come back some day?"

"I do, sir."

"And that his return will be in answer to your prayers?"

Madge's gray eyes were burning with a mother's tears. "I do, sir," she repeated.

"And how if he does not come back, after all your prayers?"

"Then it's because I'm blind, and can't see what's good for him nor me."

"Ha! So you would not call that unanswered prayer! You are a clever woman at twisting things about, Madge."

She turned straight to look him in the face, as he had done to her.

"Sir, true prayer is never unanswered, though sure enough God don't always give us the very things we pray for. My Bible tells me, 'If we ask anything "according to His will" He heareth us.' If 'tis not according to His will, He keeps it back, and well for us He does. Seems to me oftentimes that He don't give me just the thing I ask for, only because He has something else a deal better in store. But any way, I wouldn't dare wish aught, save what He wills to grant me.

"I'm right sure that no prayer of faith, put up with the 'If it be Thy Will' running all through it, was ever left unanswered, though maybe the answer sent was a different one altogether from what was looked for by him who prayed. And it's like enough to be so with me. I wouldn't wish to shut my eyes to the truth. Maybe Neill will not come home at all, but I'll meet him safe in heaven. I'd sooner have an Eternity with him there, than only a few years with him here, if both couldn't be."

"Isn't that 'couldn't' rather limiting God's power, Madge?"

"No, sir. There's many things which God sees in His wisdom mustn't be, and we don't know the reason now, and won't till we get to heaven. It'll be joy to see the meaning of things then, but it's joy to trust my Lord now."

Mr. Chetwynd was silent. He would have given something for the absolute repose of this woman's faith. He would have given almost anything,—short of laying aside his pride, and his earthly wisdom. But he could not part with these. He could not, and would not, stoop to become a little child. The portals of the Kingdom of Heaven are low, and Mr. Chetwynd, with his lofty crest of self-confidence, could not enter therein.

CHAPTER V.

GATHERING MISTS.

"WHAT are you going to do with yourself to-day, my dear?" inquired the doctor one morning, as he sipped his coffee, and glanced down the columns of the "Times," with an abstracted air.

"I don't know, uncle. Anything."

"Because I am called away to a distance, and—a—don't know exactly—when—"

Mr. Chetwynd's voice died into a murmur as he became more engrossed with his subject. Presently, however, he folded up the paper, threw it to a side-table, and looked across at the quiet pale face opposite, with purple rings round the sad dark eyes.

"I beg your pardon, my dear. It is very unsociable to treat you in this fashion. What will you do with yourself while I am away?"

"I don't care, uncle."

"I shall hardly be home before evening—to dinner at six, if possible. But you will be lonely."

Lonely, yes, with the great blank which she had borne about with her for weeks. But his presence made no great difference either way in that respect, and she only said passively, "I shall do very well, thank you."

"Don't you think, now, you would be happier, if I could get some young lady to spend the day with you, Mona?" he asked kindly.

"No—no, please, uncle Chetwynd."

"It would be better for you, my dear child."

"No, I can't have it indeed," said Mona decidedly.

"Or if you would go somewhere—say to the Rectory. Mrs. Prior is an invalid, to be sure, but she is a bright one, and she has often pressed me to bring you to see her."

"Not yet," said Mona.

"You would not see Mr. Prior when he came to call yesterday."

"I—couldn't. I don't know him."

"But suppose he wants to know you?"

Mona put up her hand to still the throbbing in her throat. "I can't see any one; I can't, indeed, uncle. I only want to be quiet."

"Well, you must take your own way, my dear," said the doctor, with a half-sigh. He wanted much to understand the young girl, thus thrown upon him for care and comfort, yet he found it impossible to penetrate the veil of sorrowful reserve in which she had wrapped herself. "I don't want to tease you, Mona, only I think a little change would be good for your spirits."

"I'll go for a walk," said Mona with an effort, feeling secure, if she went alone, of meeting no one with whom she was acquainted, or, at least, of being able to escape in time.

"Ah, yes, that will do you good. And you won't have a companion?" Mona shook her head. "Suppose you find your way up the hill to my old friend, Madge Hardwicke."

Mona made up her mind to avoid that direction studiously, but only said, "I'll see."

"I should like you to know her better. She is a good woman—practically most excellent. Theoretically—well, she has your dear mother's ideas upon religion. None the worse for that, maybe, eh, Mona?" added Mr. Chetwynd, with a certain lofty condescension towards the weak, yet enviable and even beautiful credulity of those who thought thus, which Mona, girl though she was, appreciated to the full. He thought her sudden shiver was caused by the allusion to her loss, and continued hastily, "But I really should like you to see more of Madge. I don't know a more worthy creature, or one who lives more entirely for others."

"And you don't think that speaks for her religion?" asked Mona, in a low voice.

"My dear child, I don't think you and I had better enter on that question," said Mr. Chetwynd pleasantly, handing up his cup for a fresh supply of coffee. "I do not suppose that, whatever Madge Hardwicke's religious views might have chanced to be, she could ever have been otherwise than kind-hearted, and unselfish, and capable." For Mr. Chetwynd, in common with many others of his way of thinking, seemed to make it his rule to ascribe all the blemishes of a Christian's character to his or her religion, and all the beauties of it to unassisted nature. "But I should be sorry to have any discussion with you about it, Mona. I would not for worlds unsettle your mind with regard to those things, in which your poor mother taught you to put faith. We did not agree in all matters of theory, but you are quite right to think like her—as long as you can—and I assure you, dear, you cannot admire more heartily than I do, the loveliness of such a life as hers. I only wish there were more like her."

Such a Christian life as hers! And such a Christian life as Madge Hardwicke's! And such a Christian life as Mr. Prior's! And such a Christian life as that of his own mother in the past! But Mr. Chetwynd preferred to ignore that fashion of looking upon the question. The beauty of their lives he could not deny, but the cause, he would have allowed to be anything rather than heart-religion.

Did he in very truth dread to unsettle the once happy trust of the young creature before him? Did he really desire in his heart to act faithfully by the known wishes of his lost sister, and to train up her child as she would have had her trained? Theoretically no doubt he did, or imagined he did. Practically, he exercised small self-control in the matter.

Not that he ever made any direct attacks upon Mona's faith. He would have said he believed a great many things that she believed. And for the rest—he set himself, in love to his sister's memory, and almost, as a point of honour, to avoid discussion on mooted points. But had he no idea of the awful power over the mind of a young and simple yet intellectual girl, of those slight innuendos and brief passing sneers on the subject of heart-religion, in which he was so prone to indulge himself? They escaped him often, it is true, undesignedly and by mere force of habit. Not the less dangerous were they for that. And not the less terrible was the weight of responsibility incurred by Mr. Chetwynd, in daring thus to tamper with the faith of one of the Master's "little ones."

For the barbed arrow had taken root—flung by his reckless hand.

Poor gentle Mona Clyde! Hers had been such a happy life up to that fatal journey. She had literally never known trouble. The loss of her father lay back in the far distance, too dim and hazy to cause her grief, unless for her mother's sake. All her love and hope and abounding joy in life had been centred in that one sweet being—her mother—a mother, so pure and tender, so saintly and sweet, that Mona had no wish for aught of earthly pleasure beyond her companionship. They were all in all to each other, those two!

And Mona had for years believed herself to be a child of God. She could hardly have told the time when first her mother's gentle teaching had drawn her to the love of heavenly things. She had known, indeed, no great depths of lowly repentance, or grand heights of holy joy, and had experienced few intense spiritual longings. Some in the flock are near to the Shepherd, and some are farther away; and Mona had not been one of those who cling ever to His side, looking out each step of the way for His guiding hand and loving touch. Still, she had felt her sinfulness, and had sought her Saviour's forgiveness. She had lived a simple child-like life of simple child-like faith and service, gliding placidly down the stream of life, playing with each joy as it came to her hand, and seeming to pass unscathed through all the world's pain and sorrow.

And now this fearful blow had come, taking away at one stroke all that she loved on earth, and leaving her mute, crushed, and desolate. And it was the Hand of God which had done this!

The Hand of God! The Hand of her Heavenly Father! Ay, and Mona might have trusted that Father's love through all, but for the words of the man who heartlessly lent himself to the work of unsettling her peace.

Did he ever dream how it was not the mere loss of her mother, precious though that mother had been to her, but his own ill-advised utterances, which had shattered Mona's happiness? Did he ever realise that it was his own hand which had drawn so black a pall over her once clear sky? Did he ever imagine the stormy grief, and the wild questionings about God and His dealings, which raged beneath that girlish face?

He did not dream, or realise, or imagine the truth. But none the less, heavily weighed upon him the unfelt load of responsibility before God. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

CHAPTER VI.

NANNIE.

MONA went that afternoon for her walk, as she had promised, caring little as she went whither her steps might tend. West Point was her first idea, but she had a certain dread of being caught and imprisoned by the returning tide. So she turned aimlessly in the opposite direction, not climbing, but skirting the East Cliff Hill, by the winding path which ran round it at the bottom.

To reach the little shingle cove beyond, took nearly an hour of steady walking, but once set going, Mona kept it up mechanically. She had never suffered from weakness before, and felt some surprise at her own failing strength and aching limbs when the hour was ended, not knowing the exhausting effects of such grief and seclusion as hers during the past month.

The path leading straight up the hill, and along the edge of the cliff, was evidently a much shorter cut homewards than the road by which she had come, and Mona decided to follow it, though doubtful whether the steepness of the ascent might not more than counter-balance its greater directness. She pressed steadily for a while up the stony way, with trailing brambles on her left and right, till she found herself panting to a degree which made a respite necessary. A little grassy niche close to the cliff-edge attracted her, and she sat down to rest.

It was a clear October day, fair and mild, and free alike from boisterous breeze or glaring sunshine. Everything seemed clothed in a neutral tint, and the very blue of the sea had a gray hue about it. There were no waves beyond a lazy heaving to and fro of the water, but Mona could catch the sound of the distant splash, as the tide crept sleepily in, washing round one rock after another.

How long she sat there, with her cheek on her hand, and her eyes fixed dreamily on the line of the horizon, she could not have told. She was scarcely thinking so much as sinking into a tangled maze of doubt and speculation, after her habit of late. Why this? What of that? How possible the other? And this could not be reconciled with that; and that was a belief incompatible with this; and life altogether was one sad confused mystery; and sin and sorrow seemed so to flourish under the permission of the God of holiness and love; and revealed truths were so utterly bewildering in their varied aspects.

And Mona, poor weak child, striving feebly to penetrate mighty mysteries which the very angels may not fathom, setting herself up to question the eternal purposes of the King of kings, before whom the sinless cherubs veil their faces—what wonder if she found herself baffled on every side, and closed in by a darkening threatening cloud of unbelief? As well might she have sought to gauge the depth of the Atlantic Ocean with the little six-inch ruler in her desk at home, as have dreamt of measuring God's mysteries by means of her own puny intellect. Ay, and of the most brilliant powers on earth, ever seen in living man, the same must still be said. The finite can never compass the infinite.

How long Mona would have gone on sitting there but for an interruption, it is hard to say. Down in her heart of hearts she knew she was wrong to give way to these questionings—knew herself to be playing with edged tools of deadly sharpness. But it seemed to herself that she had no power to draw back from the contest, no power even to seek help from above. What was the good of praying, she asked bitterly, when doubts as to the power of prayer thronged round every word she uttered? If once she could settle these terrible questions which so disturbed her peace, she would feel again the peace and joy she had known so short a time before.

If once! Little did she know that she was bearing fast towards a reef of cruel hidden rocks, upon which too many of the brightest human intellects have been wrecked for eternity. Well was it for Mona that not all her reasonings could prevent the child-like instinct of her heart from leading her once and again, through all her doubtings, to cry aloud to her Saviour for help. Well was it for her that her speculations, though feebly resisted, were no pleasure, but keenest pain, and that she was a stranger as yet to the foolish pride so often felt in such questionings, as if, instead of being simply a sign of imperfect faith, they were a proof of superior mental power. But if allowed to hold sway too long, there was no hope that in time the pain would not die, and pride creep stealthily in to supply its place.

An unexpected sound struck on Mona's ear, and roused her suddenly from her musings. She was not sorry to be so roused. Something of a stilled sob in a child's voice, it seemed to her, and she listened intently, but for awhile in vain. Then she heard it again, rather more distinctly, and rising from her sheltered spot among the brambles, she stood in the pathway, waiting.

There it was—an unmistakable sob this time. Mona went straight among the bushes away from the cliff, in the direction whence the sobbing proceeded, and in her haste, almost fell over the figure of a child crouched in the long grass, shivering and moaning under its breath, with an occasional sharper sound, as if of pain too keen to be repressed.

"Why, you poor little creature, what is the matter?" asked Mona compassionately, kneeling down beside her. "What is the matter? Has any one hurt you, or are you ill?"

The child only cowered down more closely, and Mona bent over her.

"Poor little thing! You are quite trembling. Has anything happened to frighten you? Tell me your name, little girl?" said Mona, with gentle authority, finding her questions unanswered.

"Nannie Ackman."

"And where do you live?"

"Up on the hill."

Nannie started and moaned sharply again, and then lifted her tear-stained face. "O please,—I can't help it, it does hurt so," she whispered, with catches in her breath.

Mona noticed how the child crouched forward, all drawn together with pain. She noted too, in a more passing way, the careful mending of the little one's short scarlet petticoat, and the neatness of the long black hair, and the cleanliness of the small face and hands, unaware how much Madge Hardwicke had had to do with the same.

"Nannie, what is it that hurts you so much?" she asked gently. "Tell me what it is, dear."

She sat down on the long grass, and lifted Nannie into her lap, but the movement, though most tenderly performed, caused almost a scream of anguish. "What can be the matter? Nannie, poor child, can't you tell me?" Mona asked, in real distress. "Have you had a fall, or has any one hurt you? Where is the pain?"

She hardly needed to ask the latter question, after the way in which the child's hands were clenched over her chest. "It's here, an' all through an' my back," Nannie gasped incoherently. "O please tell Madge—I did try—and I couldn't be patient."

"Madge Hardwicke, do you mean?" asked Mona, trying to support Nannie in the easiest possible position.

"Yes, and I did try," sobbed Nannie, breaking down, "but it does hurt so dreadful, I couldn't keep in no longer."

"Have you had this pain before to-day, Nannie?"

"O no, 'cause father never hit me there before, nor so hard."

"Your father! You don't mean to say he has done this!"

"O I didn't mean to tell, I didn't," cried Nannie, roused to the sense of what she had said, by the indignation in Mona's tone. "O please—nobody mustn't know—'cause—"

She had tried to raise herself in her excitement, and another scream cut short the words. "Hush, Nannie, hush; you must lie down and keep still," said Mona gravely. "What made your father treat you in such a way? Tell me his name, and where you live."

"He's Amos Ackman, and we live right up on the hill, next door to Madge Hardwicke," said Nannie, gasping painfully between her sobs. "And nobody mustn't ever know, please,—please,—"

"Nannie, does your father often strike you?"

"He's never done it so bad before, and he didn't think to make me fall over this time, he didn't. Poor father! Madge says it's all along 'cause he's so cross with the rheumatiz, and so it is. He don't know no better."

The words, in their eager forgiveness, brought a rush of tears to Mona's eyes. "Knows no better?" she repeated mechanically.

"No, 'cause he don't love God," whispered Nannie, under her breath. "And Madge and I've settled I'd better bear, and not grumble at nothing; 'cause, if I do, father 'll mayhap be longer learning to love Him. And if he's too long, maybe he won't be in time for the Resurrection-day."

The tears overflowed, and came dropping down on Nannie's brow so fast, that Nannie looked up in wonder to see what made the strange young lady cry. "Nannie, where is your father?" asked Mona, unheeding her surprise.

"Down yonder, picking of blackberries. He don't know I'm here," whispered Nannie, shrinking. "He's a deal angered, 'cause you know I couldn't go to sell blackberries on Sunday. And he said he'd make me to-morrow; and I said it 'ud be wrong, and then—he didn't mean to more than push me neither. He don't know it's so bad."

"If he does not know, he 'ought' to know," Mona thought. And in one of those bursts of burning indignation, to which the gentlest natures are sometimes prone, she did that which she would have been incapable of even attempting in her cooler moments. Without saying a word to Nannie, and without even being clearly aware of her own intentions, she took the child in her arms, and walked straight down the hill, in the direction pointed out by Nannie.

Whether or no Nannie guessed her intentions, she offered no objection. Perhaps she saw a resolution in Mona's flushed cheeks and firmly-set lips, which would not be easily overcome. Perhaps the motion caused by Mona's walk caused suffering too acute to admit of any thought beyond that of self-control. At all events, neither of the two spoke, till they came suddenly upon the ragged uncouth figure, whose identity was made plain to Mona, alike by his half-filled blackberry basket and by Nannie's shiver of fear.

"Is your name Amos Ackman?" Mona inquired, presenting herself abruptly before him, and dashing in fearless fashion straight to the point.

"Be!" said Amos surlily, the former part of the sentence being merely an inarticulate growl.

"And is this your little girl?"
"That's Nan," said Amos. "Idle little hussy she be,
wastin' of her time, an' doin' nought but play."

"And is this your little girl?"

"That's Nan," said Amos. "Idle little hussy she be, wastin' of her time, an' doin' nought but play."

"Play!" repeated Mona indignantly. "She is in no state for play, or work either. Do you know that you might be severely punished for your cruelty?"

"Eh?" said Amos.

The tone was sullenly non-comprehensive. "Look here," said Mona. "See what you have done to her."

Amos stared stolidly, and repeated, "Eh?"

"Do you know you have hurt her so terribly that she cannot stand or walk? If you go on in this way, you will end by becoming a murderer!" said Mona, in her warmth. "You, a father, to behave so to your poor little child!"

"Can't walk, eh? She's all a humbuggin'," growled Amos. "Get down, will yer, Nan?"

Mona held the little helpless figure more closely. "You are heartless,—wicked," she said, hardly able to find words for her passionate indignation and pity, while Nannie burst into tears, and sobbed out,—

"O father, I didn't mean to tell! I'm sorry."

"Dare say yer didn't, too," said Amos, with an unmistakable scowl this time. "Sorry, are yer? I'll make yer sorry, an' no mistake, afore yer a day older."

"You shall not dare. You would kill her," cried Mona. "You shall not lay a finger on her again. I will take her home with me."

"Take her away, will yer? Yer 'd just better!"

Mona quailed before the ferocity of those shaggy eyebrows.

"I don't want to go, father," said Nannie, more calmly than she had yet spoken. "I'd a deal rather stay with you."

"I shall tell my uncle, Mr. Chetwynd, about it all, and see what he will say," Mona answered. "I can't think how you could dare to treat a poor little helpless girl in such a cowardly brutal way. I wonder you could dare."

"Nan's not a-going to go away from home," was the only response.

"I shall take her up to Madge Hardwicke. My uncle will settle the matter by-and-by."

Mona could not trust herself to say more. She turned hastily away, and walked again up the hill.

Glancing back once, she saw Amos Ackman shuffling down the path in the opposite direction. Not till he was out of sight, did she find how unfitted was her own strength for the task she had undertaken. At any time, unless under the strongest excitement, her slender arms were unequal to the bearing of such a burden, and now the reaction from her interview was a fit of nervous trembling from head to foot. She struggled on a few more paces, and then sank down on the grass, so completely spent that there was nothing for it but to await a renewal of strength, or the help of a passer-by. Not many people, however, went up and down the path on this side of the hill.

CHAPTER VII.

NAT TYRRELL'S NOTIONS.

"YOU'RE a good woman, Madge. I don't know a better. And my little girl is main grateful to you, for taking so much trouble with her. Seems to me, though, that you've got a wrong crank or two into your brain."

"Maybe," said Madge placidly. She was standing outside her cottage-door, that same Saturday afternoon, having just seen the last of nearly a dozen little barefooted damsels, who were wont to run up the hill once a week, for half-an-hour's Bible reading with Madge, as a preparation for the Sunday following. "I've taken many a crank into my head, and been set right in it, before now, and I dare say I'll take many another. We're none of us gifted with over-clear sight."

"A man holding the Word of God for his rule, needs never to go wrong," said Nat Tyrrell decisively.

"No, he don't need, and a man walking in full daylight needs never to stumble, but there's no doubt he often do and often will, in both cases," responded Madge. "What's the crank I've hold of now, Nat?"

Nat's answer was another question: "What's your reading been about to-day?"

"Asking God for what we want."

"Thought so," said Nat.

"Yes, you had your head against the lattice, last part of the time," said Madge in her quiet way.

Nat laughed, half inclined to blush also. "Well, you see, I knowed you'd have no objection."

"Not a bit. Have out with your say, Nat. I'm waiting to be set right."

"Well, look you here," said Nat, noways unwilling to assume the pleasant office of mentor, "I didn't just like all you was telling of the children, to go and pray for everything they wanted, and they'd get it."

"No, I didn't promise that neither," said Madge. "I told them they'd get it, if 'twas God's will."

"Yes, and nothing was ever too small to pray about, you said—not even if 'twas a bit of food, or a wish for something you couldn't get."

"Well," said Madge. "Don't the Bible say, 'In everything . . . let your requests be made known unto God . . .'¹?"

¹ Phil. iv. 6.

"Yes, but it don't mean everything of that kind," said Nat.

"What does it mean?" Madge wanted to know.

"It don't mean that," repeated Nat Tyrrell. "It means seeking pardon and forgiveness, and God's glory, and man's salvation."

"And they're great things to pray for, sure enough, but you can't say they're just quite 'everything' to us in this life," responded Madge. "I'd like to know the texts you have found in other parts, to make the meaning of this clear to you in that light, Nat."

"'Tain't one text in partic'lar," said Nat, sheering off from an awkward request. "Seems to me, Madge, you forget that God is the mighty Creator of the whole universe, when you talk of troubling Him with your little fidgets. Asking Him about such foolish matters as a hard lesson, or a broken toy, or a sharp word from another, as I heard you telling the children—why, 'tis downright profanation."

Madge looked across to the wide blue waste of water, heaving and tossing ceaselessly in its boundless power, then glanced at the bushes by her side, where a bright-breasted robin, on an early autumn visit, hopped daintily from twig to twig.

"I don't know," she said at length. "I'm thinking, Nat, that if you'd been at a bedside once, where a little child was called from the dead, and the next thing the Lord did, was to tell them to give her a bit of food—I'm thinking you'd have stepped forward, and said, 'Master, isn't it profanation to think of anything so poor as meat and drink, after you've been working so mighty a miracle?'"

Nat looked rather at a loss.

"And then He cares for the sparrows," Madge went on, after a little break. "And we're of more value yet. And the very hairs of our heads are all numbered. It don't seem to me that the Lord's measure of great and little is the same at all that ours is. I'm quite sure of one thing, and that is, that whatever has aught to do with our happiness, isn't too small for Him to attend to. Besides, don't He tell us plainly to ask for all we want?"

"Yes, but you don't seem to remember, Madge, that all them promises are to be taken in the spirit, and not in the letter."

"And that's what I try to do, too. There's that verse—'Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.' ¹

"Don't I know well enough it means only if the desire of my heart isn't for anything against His will. And it's the same with another promise—'Ye shall ask "what ye will," and it shall be done unto you.' ² But taking them in the spirit don't mean putting them aside altogether, Nat."

¹ Ps. xxxvii. 4.    ² John xv. 7.

"'Ask what ye will' of spiritual good, it means, Madge. The 'desire of your heart' hadn't ought to be for anything but spiritual benefits, and if you delight in God, He'll give you those, sure enough."

"I don't find it so in my Bible," maintained Madge stoutly. "I've a love for taking Bible words as they are, and not adding my own explainings. Didn't Mr. Prior tell us to take care of that very danger, only last Sunday?"

"I didn't take him to mean exactly that," said Nat.

"I'd ask him if I was you," said Madge securely. "But about those words now—if you was to come to me, Nat, and say, 'Ask what you will, Madge, and I'll give it you,' I'd take you at your word, and ask many a thing, supposing of course it was in your power to give. And when my Lord says, 'Ask what you will, Madge,' mayn't I take Him at His word too, or am I to make out that He don't speak my language, or that His words has a scantier meaning than if you or I was to use them? Why, I tell you, Nat, I've tried Him right often, and tested His promises times and again. And He's given me the things I wanted too—given 'em so quick and full that I'm like to be half-frightened I can get my wishes so easy. And then you'd have me draw back, and never ask again. Seems to me, Nat, that while God says, 'Ask,' you go and say, 'Don't ask.'"

"'Tis a terrible responsibility, Madge, to insist on having our own will in prayer," said Nat, slipping from one ground of argument to another.

"You're right enough there," rejoined Madge, with quickness. "Didn't the Israelites do it, and got their wish, when God 'gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul'? I've a dread of that, I can tell you."

"And yet go on a-doing the same!" said Nat.

"Not if I know it," said Madge temperately. "If 'tis according to God's will, He hears me. I'd never dare, Nat, to say more than this—'Lord, I've a wish for that thing or the other, and I make a particular request to have it, if 'tis Thy will; and if not, Thy will be done.' And times are when He don't give me my wish at all, though it's oftener He do. If He keeps back the thing I want, He's pretty sure to give me a smile to make up for it, though,—and I don't know as I wouldn't rather have that of the two," Madge added softly, a gleam breaking over her own face the while.

She was getting out of Nat Tyrrell's depth, and because he could not understand her, he thought she was running astray. "I'm afeared you've a good many more cranks than one in your brain, Madge," he said, shaking his head.

"Like enough," said Madge quietly. "Only 'tis no crank I'm telling you of now, Nat. I'll not say, though, that you haven't a bit of truth either in your thought. Maybe there are some in the world who've so given up their will to God, as to have scarce a wish apart from Him. That is what David meant, it seems to me, when he said, 'One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after;' and that one thing, you know, was to dwell in the House of the Lord, and know ever more of Him. I do think, Nat, that to have no will at all of my own for earthly things, but only to care to know the will of God, would be a sort of heaven on earth. But I haven't reached to that yet,—though I'll strive more for it after to-day, so you see you've taught me a lesson, for all we don't think just alike. Only so long as I 'have' a strong will, and ever so many wishes always rising up, I'll make them all known to my Lord, every single one, and leave the answering of them in His hands."

And then, after a thoughtful silence, Madge suddenly turned, and exclaimed at the sight of Mona Clyde, seated in an exhausted position on the little bench, holding the apparently senseless form of Nannie Ackman.

"I could not help sitting still to hear what you were saying, and you were talking so busily that you did not see me," explained Mona, with a faint smile. "Did you mind, Mrs. Hardwicke? I thought you would not. Please take Nannie. I am so tired!"

"Why, poor little lass, some harm has come to her surely!" exclaimed Nat, as he lifted the child in his strong arms.

Madge, with her usual habit of never wasting words on emergencies, stepped inside the cottage and brought a glass of water to Mona, waiting silently to be made acquainted with facts.

"Thank you, I am better now," and Mona sat up, with a sigh. "I thought I should never get to the top of the hill, and I stumbled so that I think she has fainted with pain. O Madge—Mrs. Hardwicke, I mean—it is that wicked father of hers. He has hurt the poor little creature dreadfully, and if you let her go back to him, I think he will end by killing her. I wanted to take her home with me, but he would not consent. What can be done, Mrs. Hardwicke?"

"I'm Madge to everybody, please, Miss Mona," was the quiet answer. "There's room for Nannie in my cottage, and her father 'll never dare to touch her here."

Voice and manner were alike unruffled, yet Mona felt sure that it was no shallow stream of sorrow and indignation which flowed below. Madge Hardwicke's first care was to bring forward the one easy-chair the cottage contained, and settle in it her weary young visitor, with cushion and stool. Mona submitted, from lack of power to do anything else, and then lay back silently, watching Madge's further movements, through the open bedroom door, with a curious feeling of pleasant trust in the calm self-possession and tender motherliness of all that she did.

It did not take Madge long to undress Nannie and lay her in her own bed. She came back to Mona when that was done—her face a trifle graver. "I'm thinking, Miss Mona, I'll get Nat Tyrrell to call and ask the doctor to step up here. Maybe by then you'll be rested enough to walk back with him."

"He expected to be home by six," said Mona. "Why, it is nearly that now. O yes, I shall soon be rested nicely. But do you think little Nannie is much hurt?"

"It is hard to know, Miss Mona. She's come to herself, and she's in a deal of pain, poor little one! She tries to make out her father didn't mean to hurt her when he struck at her, only she fell over a root, and her back came against a sharp stump in the ground. But her poor chest is all black and blue with the weight of his hand, and she can scarce breathe for the pain."

Madge Hardwicke's own hand stole furtively over her eyes.

"It is cruel—horrible," Mona repeated, sitting up. "It is worse than a man would treat his dog. I don't know what uncle Chetwynd will say."

Madge went away to despatch Nat Tyrrell on his errand to the doctor, and then returned to watch by the side of the suffering child, while Mona sat still in her chair, until the doctor came.

"You ain't going to get father punished now," were the first words that saluted Mr. Chetwynd's ears, as he walked to the bedside.

It was a very wan little face that looked up at him from the white pillow, over which Nannie's long black hair strayed carelessly. She spoke with feverish haste, catching her breath sharply between the words, and her small hands were wrung together in a tight clasp. The doctor noted all, but merely remarked:—

"Well, I don't quite know, little one. How are you now?"

"He ain't going to be punished," repeated Nannie. "Father ain't. He didn't mean no harm."

"Where are you hurt, Nannie?" asked Mr. Chetwynd.

"I'm hurt all over. It wasn't his fault," repeated the child, with passionate earnestness, a bright flush coming into her cheeks, and a rush of tears to her eyes. "He was only cross, and didn't know it 'ud be so bad. And if you go and have him took up, and put into prison, it'll be all over. O Madge, it'll be all over."

Nannie sobbed so bitterly, that the doctor's curiosity was roused. "What will be over, Nannie?"

"'Cause Madge and I have asked so that father 'd learn to love God, and if he goes to prison, he'll have nobody to teach him," said Nannie tearfully. "And maybe he wouldn't ever live to come out, or I wouldn't live to see him."

It was a little child's fashion of looking on the question, and Mr. Chetwynd, detecting the weak point in a moment with his critical eye, had a veiled sneer on the tip of his tongue. But Madge was beforehand with him, and quietly extracted its sting.

"That don't make no real difference, Nannie. Maybe it's neither you nor I that can teach him the great lesson. God can have him taught just as easy down in the prison as up here."

Nannie, however, did not seem to find much comfort in that thought, and evidently considered, to her great distress, that Madge was siding against her father. She sobbed long struggling sobs, which shook her all over, and brought on terrible pain. It became hard to decide whether the fears for her father were not almost forgotten in those sharp cries of bodily anguish, but Mr. Chetwynd could stand out no longer, and tried the effect of a consoling, "Well, well, Nannie, it shall be as you wish. I will take no steps in the matter at present, beyond giving your father a few words on the subject. Only try not to cry so, my dear, or you will make yourself worse."

Madge's touch had more effect than the doctor's voice, and Nannie's excitement gradually stilled. It was well for her peace of mind that Mr. Chetwynd had given his promise before he became acquainted with the extent of the child's injuries. He brought his brows together sternly, and drew in his breath almost as sharply as Nannie herself in her pain, when he saw the deep bruise upon her chest. A careful examination followed, during which few words passed the doctor's lips. He beckoned Madge into the outer room at the close, leaving Mona to watch over the worn-out child.

"What are we to do, Madge?" were his first words.

"About what, sir?"

"Nannie, of course. She can't go back to her father's. It is unsafe, and besides, he could not nurse her as she will need to be nursed."

"Do you think her much hurt, sir?" asked Madge.

He made an expressive movement of his head. "Can't say yet to a certainty. The blow on the chest is bad enough, but the injury to the spine may prove worse in the end. It will be a matter of lying up for weeks at all events—months in all probability. I would not speak so openly to any one else, mind you."

"No, sir," said Madge, accepting the compliment with her usual calmness, which always gave the doctor a certain baffled feeling.

"The only plan is to get her off to the hospital, though how she will bear the moving I don't know."

"I doubt but she's as well off where she is now," said Madge.

"Couldn't be better off anywhere than under your wing, Madge. I'm willing enough to aid in expenses, and so will Mr. Prior be, I don't doubt. But how about trouble?"

"If it's the work put in my way for me to do, I don't see as the trouble makes any difference," Madge answered.

So the matter was settled there and then, with few more words about it, and little Nannie became for an indefinite time an inmate of Madge Hardwicke's cottage.

CHAPTER VIII.

QUESTIONINGS.

"UNCLE, have you known Madge Hardwicke a great many years?"

"Just as long as I have lived in Alyn, my dear."

"All that time! And how did you first come across her?"

It was something so unusual for Mona to start anything in the way of conversation, that the doctor was delighted. He sat upright, stirring carefully the cup of tea which Mona had handed to him, on his awaking from a brief after-dinner nap.

"Curiously, rather. She was the first person in the place with whom I exchanged a word, if we except porters and cabmen. When I drove up to my garden-gate from the station, Madge happened to be standing close outside, resting for a moment on her way up the hill. I suppose her pleasant face fascinated me, for I was not wont to be particularly sociable in those days with strangers. However, she dropped that quaint curtsey of hers, and we struck up an acquaintance then and there in the road. She has been a regular stand-by of mine ever since. If I happen to have a desperate case which nobody else can manage, I send for Madge Hardwicke. I don't know how many lives she has saved among my patients."

"Was she a widow then, uncle?"

"Dear me, no. Have I never told you the poor thing's history? Her husband was a sailor,—one of those manly open-hearted fellows whom everybody likes. I suppose that little cottage up on the cliff was one of the happiest homes in Alyn, not to say England. There never were husband and wife better suited to each other than Ned and Madge. And to make matters perfect, they had one child, about the most splendid specimen of small boyhood I ever knew. To see Ned Hardwicke on a summer evening in his garden, playing with that child, and Madge standing by with her smiling pride in both of them,—I declare it was worth a five miles' walk. There wasn't a house in Alyn that I used so to enjoy visiting."

"Was Ned Hardwicke a good man?" asked Mona.

"A first-rate husband and father, as brave as a lion, and by natural sequence as gentle as a lamb. As religious as Madge herself, which I suppose is what you mean. They were quite agreed on all points, which of course is desirable in husband and wife."

"How did he die?" asked Mona.

"It was a sudden death," said the doctor, doubting all at once whether the tale were a very good one for Mona to hear. He found, however, that he had no choice about proceeding. "Just going off to his boat one morning, and had said good-bye to his wife. He went to the edge of the cliff to look over, stood there whistling a moment, and then the earth gave way beneath his feet, and he fell down the sheer three hundred feet. He was dead when he reached the bottom."

Mona shuddered, and grew white.

"Madge was like a frantic woman the first few minutes, they said; and when she found that all was over, she appeared stunned. I used to wonder whether she would ever rally. But when the funeral was passed, she seemed to step out into fresh life, grave and quiet as she is now, but ready and busy and capable. I suppose Neill was her great comfort all that time."

"The baby?" asked Mona.

"He was not a baby then. I ought to have made you understand. Neill was eight or nine years old when his father died—the most beautiful child I ever saw, and desperately wilful, in spite of all their judicious training. The fact is, people spoilt him by too much notice. There was no preventing it. Hardly a visitor walked over the hill who didn't make friends with Neill for the sake of his handsome face. Artists would come, and beg to have him for a subject, and folks talked about him to that degree in his hearing, that the boy's head was completely turned. It was a great trouble to Madge, poor thing. I think she would almost have given all she possessed to have had her boy no better-looking than other boys, though she could not help being proud of him."

"Well?" said Mona.

"Well, then came poor Ned's terrible death, and the boy seemed sobered down for a time. But, naturally enough, the impression passed off, and he grew more wild than ever, and got among a number of bad companions. He was always very fond of his mother, and had plenty of penitent fits; but he generally went off and did something worse than usual after them. The last few months he seemed to grow harder, and his face quite lost the pleasant look it used to have."

"And then, what happened to him?"

"He ran away, and has never been heard of since."

"Poor Madge! Poor Madge!" said Mona compassionately.

"Ay, poor thing, it has been a sad trouble to her. Four years ago that was, and no one can say now whether Neill is alive or dead. My own impression is that he must be dead. Otherwise, I think he would have written. But of course I don't try to destroy her faith in his return."

"O no; it would be cruel."

"Though, on the other hand, I don't count it wise to nurse a feeling of too great certainty on her part," added the doctor, recollecting divers remarks of his own, which had not savoured of over-encouragement.

"How she can look so cheerful, with such a lonely life to live!" Mona murmured, half to herself.

"'Tis a marvel, I don't deny. And it is not with Madge, as with some people, that she get easily over her sorrow, and takes up other interests. Honestly I don't believe a single day ever passes that that woman does not pray for Neill's return and set herself to look out for his coming in answer to her prayer. I don't understand—I can't understand it," repeated the doctor, in genuine perplexity. Nor was it possible that he should understand, the said habit of prayer and trust being simply an absolute delusion in his eyes. "I can understand forgetfulness or long-continued sorrow—either the one or the other—but how she keeps on her grief, and yet contrives to live such a happy life, is past my comprehension. The woman is a mystery, but a very agreeable one."

"I like her—oh, more than I can tell," said Mona. "Only I do wonder a little that you and she get on so well together."

"Get on splendidly, I assure you," said the doctor, smiling. "She is the most useful woman, and the most unobtrusive creature, in the world. O I see,—you mean on account of our religious views."

Mona winced at the air of mild superiority.

"Well, we each leave the other room for our respective opinions to enjoy full swing. Madge and I have cracked many a hard nut in the way of discussion, and I fancy she has pretty nearly abandoned hopes of converting me by this time. Finds me rather a tough subject," added the doctor complacently.

Mona's two hands, lying in a careless clasp upon her knee, tightened and quivered suddenly.

"That little Nannie, now, is a singular example of the forgiving nature of children," observed Mr. Chetwynd, after a pause. "It does not seem to occur to her for a moment that she has any real reason for resentment against her father."

"Poor little child!" said Mona. "It is very sweet of her."

"There is something particularly charming in a child's innocent ways," remarked the doctor.

For, having had no children or brothers, and but one yielding sister of his own, he was quite able to believe that a readiness to forgive injuries is the universal characteristic of childhood. Mona knew better, through practical experience, but would not risk a discussion by saying so.

Conversation flagged thenceforward, from lack of response on Mona's part, and the doctor presently, finding himself disposed to yawn, advised her to retire to rest after the day's fatigues. Mona accepted the hint, and went to her own room.

She was tired enough to be glad to remove her dress, and put on her dressing-gown, and let her hair fall loosely about her shoulders. But after that stage, advance was slow. According to the habit of years, she took out her Bible, sat down in the white easy-chair, with a candle by her side, and began to read.

Or rather, she tried to begin. Wearily and listlessly her eyes travelled down the lines through the greater part of a chapter. And then it struck her that she had taken in the sense of not one single verse, so she went over it a second time, with just the same success. A third time, but she broke off in the middle hopelessly, and leant back in her chair, clasping her hands over her eyes with a bitter sigh. Only a few weeks back, she had read those same words to her mother, and had seen them full of heavenly peace and joy. And they were nothing to her now. Senselessly and drearily, as the dead autumn leaf falls from the half-bare tree, fell those cold Bible words on Mona's heart—those utterances which had once been instinct with such fervent loving life.

She broke off in the middle hopelessly,
and leant back in her chair.

Why were they so different? In old days, she could scarcely open upon a chapter in the Bible, which had not its living lesson for her soul. No divinely-sent message of sweet and holy power came ever to her spirit now.

How could it come? For even as she read, dark questionings came rising in her heart, like a cloud between her and the light. Or, as with the Pilgrim Good-Intent, when he fled through bewildering underground passages, from the false Philosopher's house, which he had rashly entered—as with him, so with Mona, did clouds of winged creatures, called Doubts, flap thickly around, hiding with their rustling wings the shining of the holy page before her. And Mona had allowed these questionings to hold sway, till at last, she had lost all power to set them aside.

What to believe, and what not to believe! How to reconcile the seemingly conflicting elements of revealed truth! Whether there were reality in Madge Hardwicke's faith on the one hand, or in Mr. Chetwynd's unbelief on the other! What of prayer and foreknowledge? And what of faith and works? And what of election and free choice? And what of this, that, and the other? Poor girl, she was tossed sorely to and fro, in a very whirlpool of misery. And she ended by pushing the book aside, and flinging herself on her knees, with her face pressed down on her folded arms, and short sobs breaking through the words which strove for utterance:—

   "O if I only knew what to do, and what to believe! If I only had some one to tell me clearly what is truth! Mother—mother—surely you cannot have been utterly mistaken. Such loving trust as yours was—and I used to think I had a little of the same, but it is all gone now. Is uncle Chetwynd really wiser than you were? He is clever and kind, and he has studied his Bible too. It is not as if he had never learnt what I have. I don't know what to do, or who to believe. O mother, it is such a dark dark sky over me, and it seems as if heaven and everything were gone. O God, save me. O God, please teach me. 'Thou wilt show me the path of life.' It is in Thy Word, and Thou hast promised—promised—and Thou must not break Thy word. 'Lead me forth to the light, and let me behold Thy righteousness. O send out Thy light and Thy truth—let them lead me, let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles.'"

She found herself instinctively falling into Bible expressions, and the very sound of the familiar words from her own lips seemed to bring a shade of comfort.

   "O God, for the sake of Thy dear Son, leave me not to perish. 'In Thy faithfulness answer me, and in Thy righteousness . . . For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate . . . I stretch forth my hands unto Thee; my soul thirsteth after Thee, as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit faileth; hide not Thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit . . . Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee . . . Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy Name's sake; for Thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble.'

   "O Lord, I have gone astray—utterly astray—'like a lost sheep.' I can't get back. I am helpless—hopeless—all in the dark. 'Seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.' O hear me, for my Saviour's sake, and have mercy, have mercy upon me."

And then, after those low broken cries for help, she knelt on silently—neither struggling nor praying, surrounded still with darkness, and unable yet to trust. But down below, one little gleam of comfort had reached her. For, in spite of all her questionings, the power to pray had not forsaken her; and not all her doubtings could entirely do away with the consciousness that One above, of infinite power and boundless love, had listened to her cry.

CHAPTER IX.

MADGE HARDWICKE'S FAITH.

"GOOD morning, Amos," said Madge Hardwicke affably, coming out of her cottage about half-past twelve on the following day, and finding him for the first time seated on his bench.

"Mornin'," responded Amos, with a scowl which did not improve his countenance.

"Don't you want to know how Nannie is, poor little lass?"

"Idle little hussy—all a humbuggin' she be," growled Amos.

"There's never a taste of humbug in aught that Nan does," said Madge. "She's true to the backbone. Amos Ackman, you'd ought to be kneeling down yonder in your cottage, giving thanks to God that He's kept you from being a downright murderer, 'stead of doing nothing but sit there and abuse folks."

Madge did not often speak so strongly, but her feelings were much stirred for Nannie's sake. She checked herself, however, and only added—"I've been up with the child 'most all night."

"More fool you!" said Amos.

"'Tis a good thing, seems to me, that I'm not doing it for thanks," said Madge, half-smiling, as she turned away. "Nan's been in a deal of pain, but she's just dropped off to sleep the last half-hour."

Asleep, and so soundly asleep, after hours of suffering, that nothing served to waken her until nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. And when she opened her eyes, it was to see Mona Clyde standing with Madge Hardwicke by her side.

Nannie gave one exclamation of pleasure, and then found herself forbidden by the careful Madge to enter into conversation, till she had had some refreshment. A small basket in their visitor's hand was found to contain a supply of calf's-foot jelly, and Mona herself sat down on the bed, spoon in hand, to minister to the wants of the little sick child.

"It's ever so nice," said Nannie softly. "Was it the doctor sent it?"

"Yes," Mona said, without adding that it was by her own request. "Have you had enough now, Nannie? How is the pain to-day?"

"It don't hurt me so to breathe," said Nannie. "But I don't seem as if I could hardly move. My back hurts dreadful, if I try."

"I dare say that will be better soon," said Mona. "You must try to be patient, Nannie, and not mind lying quiet."

Madge said nothing, and Nannie looked up at her somewhat anxiously.

"I'll try to be patient, and I'm so tired I don't mind keeping quiet. But—oh, Madge, you don't think I'm going to die?"

Madge arranged the bedclothes, and stroked Nannie's face with a soothing touch. "What's put that into your head now, Nan?"

"I'd a deal rather get well," murmured Nannie, in a sorrowful voice. "It ain't wrong, is it, Madge? 'Cause you told us the people in the Bible wanted to live to be old, didn't you?"

"Many of 'em," said Madge.

"And I do so want to see father learn to love God," said Nannie. "I don't want to go to heaven till I know he's going too. And I'd rather wait to see the Resurrection-mornin', than die first. Wouldn't you, Madge?"

Not Nannie alone, but Mona also, looked wistfully for the answer.

"I'd like it to be as my Lord wills, Nannie," Madge said. "But if you've a wish either way, you've only to tell Him, you know, and He'll do the best that can be for you."

Nannie's hands went together in a quick clasp, and her eyes closed, as if in prompt following of the advice given. "I've done it," she said, looking up presently. "Will I not die now, Madge?"

"I don't think you're like to die just now, no more particularly than the rest of us," said Madge quietly. "But if 'twas the Master's will, you wouldn't sure grieve to go home with Him, 'stead of waiting on for Him here! What sort of a love would that be, Nannie?"

"Maybe I wouldn't," said Nannie thoughtfully. "Only I'd a deal sooner not die, Madge, 'cause I want to see the Resurrection-day."

"You'll see it, sure enough, Nannie. Only those that have died 'll rise first, and those that's living 'll be caught up second."

"Then maybe that 'ud be best of the two," said Nannie.

"I think either way 'll be best that God chooses for you," said Madge.

"Maybe," repeated Nannie. And she shut her eyes again, and seemingly went to sleep.

Madge, after waiting for a minute, made a movement as if to go into the other room. It was not observed, however.

Mona was looking at the child's face, and suddenly raising her eyes, she said—"I think you and Nannie are very happy, Madge."

"We'd ought to be," said Madge.

"Yes—no. O I don't know," said Mona, with a deep sigh, resting her cheek on her hand. "I suppose nothing in the world makes one so happy as faith. And yet—if—"

"If what, Miss Mona?" asked Madge, marvelling at the girl's quivering lips.

"If there should 'not' be truth in it all?" said Mona passionately. "How do we know? How can anything be proved? Madge, don't tell anybody what I am saying to you. But do you ever have doubts?—Or is your faith always the same?"

"Doubts of my Lord's love?" asked Madge, with some wonder in her tone.

"Not that in particular. Of everything—of God—heaven—religion—everything, Madge?"

"I know what they are," said Madge serenely.

"And what do you do when they come?"

"Take 'em straight to my Lord, and ask Him to settle 'em for me."

Mona looked up earnestly without speaking.

"You see it's Satan's work—all that," said Madge. "And when he's too strong for me, I just call on my Captain to deal with him, Miss Mona, and to keep me safe behind His shield."

"And He does?" said Mona mechanically.

"Try Him, Miss Mona,—that's all."

"But, Madge—you don't understand," said Mona, sitting up with a little start, as if waking from a momentary feeling of repose. "You don't understand me. That would do for some doubts, but not for all. That is prayer, and what if—if—oh, Madge, I'll tell you the truth—what if I can't understand or believe in the power of prayer?"

"Understanding's one thing, and believing's another," said Madge. "If you don't know the power of prayer, you'd best just try it, Miss Mona, if you'll let me tell you so."

"I've tried it—often—and I used to believe in it. But, Madge, now look here," Mona went on, clasping her hands feverishly,—"I want to know how prayer can be answered. For don't you suppose that God knows beforehand all my future life, and everything that will happen to me?"

Madge nodded in undoubting assent.

"And if my life is all lying mapped out before me, how can my prayers make any difference? How can they, Madge?"

"Does the Bible say it's all mapped out, Miss Mona?"

"I don't know—no, not, exactly. But then it must be."

"I'd never set up a 'must be' apart from the Bible, if I was you, Miss Mona," said Madge. "It says one thing, and that is, that the Lord 'directeth man's steps.' Well for us that He do, too. But I can't remember reading ever a word about our life being all mapped out by God, and nothing ever to change it. I do read, how over and over again the Lord was going to send awful judgments on them poor sinning Israelites, till Moses His chosen stood between, and turned away his anger. Where 'd have been the good of Moses praying as he did, if it wasn't to gain anything?"

"That is just it," said Mona. "That is it, Madge. I do pray, and I do try to believe I shall have an answer. But all the while, I can't help feeling that God has arranged everything from all eternity, and that my prayers can make no difference."

"They're Satan's whisperings, Miss Mona," said Madge Hardwicke, with deeper earnestness than she had yet displayed. "Arranged everything! I don't say it isn't so. The Bible don't say whether He has or hasn't, and I durstn't be so bold as to set up myself to say it neither. But the Bible does say, 'Ask and it shall be given you,' and 'The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' How could it avail much, if it could do nothing? There's where it is! There isn't a mightier power in the world than prayer. We don't see much of the working of it now, but if we could, we'd be not a little surprised to find how the greatest matters on earth come about sometimes, in answer to one good man's prayer. I'd look in the Bible and see all the answers to prayer if I was you, Miss Mona—Abraham, and Gideon, and Elijah, and Moses, and Hezekiah, and all the rest of them."

"But God does know everything beforehand," murmured Mona, half to herself.

"Sure enough He does, and it's little chance our prayers would have of being answered if He didn't. Haven't I often asked a thing, and it's come quick after?—But matters must have been working up for it weeks afore, and I didn't know that, only the Master knew, and was keeping His promise, 'Before you call, I will answer.'"

Madge was silent a minute, looking pityingly at the troubled face before her.

"Knows all beforehand! Of course He do, Miss Mona. He knew beforehand you were going to pray, and He arranged beforehand to answer you; or He knew beforehand you wasn't going to pray, and He 'didn't' arrange beforehand to answer you. Knew it from all Eternity,—and maybe arranged it from all Eternity too, only the Bible don't say that, so we can't be sure. It wouldn't make no difference as to the truth of the power of prayer,—not one bit. But 'tis a grand and awful light to look at it in, and I've a fear lest my weak eyes should be dazzled, and the Tempter should maybe seize on the moment to snare me somehow. I love a deal better to look up straight to God as my Father, giving me day by day just what I want, and tending my steps, and looking out for my prayers. I'd leave thinking altogether of how the answer comes about, Miss Mona, and just pray instead, and wait the answer. No fear but it'll come."

And then there was a tapping at the outer door, and Madge moved away. Mona hardly noticed that she was gone, till roused by the courteously-uttered words—

"Miss Clyde, I believe."

Mona turned hastily, startled out of her abstraction, to meet the thoughtful face and earnest eyes with which she had grown distantly familiarised in Church the last few Sundays.

"Mr. Prior is so kind as to come and see Nannie and read to her," Madge said quietly, yet with a ring of pleasure in her voice.

And then Mona saw what Madge had been aware of for two or three minutes past, that Nannie was wide awake, and ready to bestow attention on anybody.

But Mona had never exchanged a word with Mr. Prior since that terrible moment in the dark tunnel underground, when his voice had helped to awaken her to a sense of her loss; and the association of ideas was almost more than she could bear. She strangled back the threatening rush of tears, but Mr. Prior seemed to understand all at a glance. He had taken her hand in greeting, and pressing it kindly, he said—

"Never mind, don't stay in here just now. I am going to have a chat with this poor little maiden. Will you wait in the next room, Miss Clyde? I have been wishing to make your acquaintance, and perhaps you will let me escort you down the hill."

And Mona did not dream of resistance. She was glad to escape at the moment, but waited patiently in the front room so long as he chose to stay with Nannie.

CHAPTER X.

A LETTER.

"I SAY, missus!"

Nat Tyrrell's hearty voice rang through the cottage from the suddenly-opened door. Mona rose to her feet, and Nat pulled off his cap.

"Beg pardon, Miss. I didn't know a lady was here. I've summat to give Madge that 'll please her mightily."

The inner door opened as he spoke, and Madge came out, following Mr. Prior, who nodded pleasantly to the new comer.

"Good afternoon, Tyrrell. I think I have spoken to you before now. How are you all at home?"

As there was scarcely an individual in the parish, of any age or standing, with whom he had not exchanged at least a few kind words during this first month of his residence in Alyn, he was pretty safe in making the assertion. It had grown, however, to be a saying in the place, that Mr. Prior never forgot a face he had once seen, and Nat was highly flattered at the present recognition of himself.

"Thank you, sir; we're all pretty well. Leastways, except that my wife's laid up with the rheumatics. I say, Madge, I've a letter here for you, right away from Australy. It's come in one from young Ned Blayney to his mother, and she's give it to me to bring up to you. I've come off as quick as ever I could, for I knew you'd be main glad to get it, eh, Madge?"

She had received the letter from him mechanically, and now stood like one in a dream, clasping it firmly between two hands, with her eyes gazing into vacancy.

"Why, she don't understand," said Nat, coming a step nearer. "I say, Madge, I'd open and see, if I was you. It's from Neill himself, and 'taint bad news, I can tell you too, for Mrs. Blayney said he was all right."

"Neill?" repeated Madge.

"To be sure, yes. Why, one 'ud think you didn't care about it, instead of being properly thankful for your mercies," said Nat, rather scandalised at such an unedifying fashion of receiving the news.

"Hush, Tyrrell, don't tease her," interposed Mr. Prior, in a low tone, seeing deeper than Nat could do. "Have a little patience."

"Well, I didn't think she'd have took it so cool, I do confess," muttered the disappointed Nat, while Madge lifted a pair of dim eyes to Mona, and said softly,—

"Neill! It's his own hand too. But 'he' wanted me to think I'd never hear from my boy again."

"Then he was very wrong," said Mona impetuously, aware who was meant. "Madge, don't you want to know if Neill is coming home?"

Madge looked down on her own trembling fingers, as they clasped the folded sheet, and then again she glanced up, this time at Mr. Prior.

"Seems to me I'm like Peter's friends, when they wouldn't believe their prayer for him was heard,—oft as I've blamed them! I've been thinking I'd faith in the power of prayer, and thinking I was looking out,—and now it's come, I can't believe 'tis true."

"'Like as a father pitieth his children,'" was the quick and suggestive answer. "Like as you pity and love your boy—"

Madge drew one deep breath, half of oppression, half of relief. "Ay, and God knows all along," she murmured. "Knew my weakness, didn't He, before I found it out myself?—And yet the letter's come. Miss Mona, I don't seem as if I could read. Maybe—"

She held out the sheet beseechingly.

Mona opened it, and read aloud the contents in their large scrawled handwriting:—

   "DEAREST MOTHER,

   "I've been a bad boy to you, haven't I? But somehow I don't think you'll have forgot your Neill by this, though I don't deserve you should think of me again. It's a shame I've never wrote to you all these years, but when a fellow's going on bad as I have been, he don't feel much like writing home, and I've had nothing good to tell you.

   "It is just a few days since I met Ned Blayney. Did not know he was out here at all, and had not seen him since we was both at school together, and I used to plague him for his red hair. 'Tisn't red now, though. He's growed up a fine fellow. And I wish I'd gone to sea, like him, 'stead of trying the bush out here.

   "'Twas a mere chance our finding each other out, and my happening to be in Melbourne at all when he was. Ned says 'twas no chance at all; but all I know is we comed flop across each other in the middle of the street, and I'd have passed him by, if he hadn't known me. And if I hadn't have met him just then, I'd have gone off next day to the diggins with Will Davis,—not the sort of fellow you'd like, mother,—and goodness knows where I'd have turned up next.

   "I ain't going to the diggins now, though. Ned's been at me about you, till he's brought me round. His ship's a-starting for home again next week, and I've promised to come aboard and work my passage. And the jolly part of the matter is that it's one of the Messrs. Dundrearys', and it'll come straight to Alyn. So mind you keep a look-out, mother, for the 'Flying Albatross'—'tis a wonderful slow and dirty-looking sort of albatross, too—for your boy 'll be aboard. And if you don't want to have me, you've only to say so in a word, and I'll be off to Australia again a deal quicker than I come home. So no more now, mother,—

"From your affectionate son,

"NEILL HARDWICKE."

"Thank you, Miss Mona," were Madge's first words, and then she added softly,—"He's coming."

"Ay, he's coming home to you again, Madge," said Nat Tyrrell. "You'd ought to feel a deal of thankfulness."

"He's coming," repeated Madge. "And I'll see him again. He's coming home to me."

She put down the letter, and began arranging the few things which lay scattered on the table, as if making tidy for her boy's arrival. The quick restless movements were unlike Madge's usual composure, and the shaking hands and trembling lips showed that the very intensity of joy had thrown her off her balance.

Nat Tyrrell looked at her in perplexity, and opened his lips to speak again, but he thought better of it, in consideration of Mr. Prior's presence, and wisely went into the garden.

"Neill coming! Don't it seem strange now?" said Madge, approaching the table.

Mr. Prior sat there waiting in silence for the right moment. He leant a little forward now, and simply said:—

"Mrs. Hardwicke, shall we thank God together?"

Madge knelt down instantly. The words following were few in number, but Madge was weeping unrestrainedly before three sentences had passed his lips, sobbing an inarticulate response to the fervent thanks he offered in her name. And when, after a brief pause, they rose, she had her own calm face again.

"Thank you, sir, it's just what I wanted," she whispered.

He said good-bye, and shook hands with her kindly. Then offering his arm to Mona, he went out of the cottage.

"She will be better alone now," was his remark in the garden. "Ah, Tyrrell has gone, I see."

"I am so glad you were there," said Mona. "That man did not understand her in the least. Poor Madge! How happy she is!"

"She is a woman of faith," said Mr. Prior, holding open the little gate for Mona to pass. "I am glad to have made her acquaintance more thoroughly."

"Then you have been to see her before," said Mona.

"Yes,—and heard her history at least half-a-dozen times. The good folks of Alyn are extremely communicative. What a pretty view this is, Miss Clyde! The outline of that headland is particularly striking."

"You think, then, that Neill is coming home in answer to her prayer," said Mona, as he paused at the edge of the cliff, with evident enjoyment of the scene.

"'If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed—'" he answered. "But Neill has not come home yet. Don't hang your faith on one particular answer to one particular prayer, or it may perchance come to shipwreck. God does 'not' always see it right to grant His children's desires. You must look upon the matter as a whole."

Mona's sigh was so low that he must have had a quick ear to hear it. "People sometimes do that," he said, after a pause. "They stake all their hope and trust on one single prayer, setting their whole heart upon the answer. And if God wills to deny that especial wish, away goes all their faith, and nothing remains but a tangle of gloomy doubt—doubts of His love, and doubts of His power, and doubts as to the use of prayer. What if a child tested his earthly father's affection and resources in that fashion?"

What in the world had made him stumble on the very subject, of all others, most suited to her present frame of mind? Mona wondered not a little how it had come about, forgetting that he must have been well acquainted with the views and character of the man with whom the course of her life was now thrown. And she did not know how compassionately he had often thought of the poor young girl, whose acquaintance he had first made in such a singular manner, nor how he dreaded for her the meshes into which he too well knew she might be drawn, nor how he desired to rescue her. Neither was she aware of the keen intuition, by means of which he had already, perhaps almost unconsciously divined certain facts concerning the bias of her mind.

If he had not known it before, her startled look up, as he spoke of doubts, would have shown him that he was on the right tack.

"I heard of a good piece of advice once given on that subject, by the bye," he said, disentangling one spray of bramble from another with busy fingers. "A man complained to his friend of troublesome questionings on the subject of religion, and asked what he should do with them. The answer was, 'Put them aside for awhile. If they are worth anything, they will keep, and you can give them fuller consideration at some future time. If not, they will die a natural death. Put them aside for the present, and take your Bible, and go and read to dying men in the hospital about their Saviour.'"

"Was that the best plan?" asked Mona.

"That was one plan," he said, smiling. "Another is to meet and conquer them boldly—only, don't attempt it in your own strength. You will not get through the battle without some such temptations. Don't be afraid of them when they come, but meet the tempter bravely, and cling fast to your Lord through all."

"But clinging is faith," said Mona wonderingly. "How can there be faith and doubting together?"

"Did you never read a certain prayer, 'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.' You may doubt with the head, and yet believe with the heart. Look here, Miss Clyde." He went a step nearer to the cliff as he spoke, putting aside the bramble-bushes. "Suppose you were to slip over this cliff, and fall down to that ledge below. Do you see it?" He held her hand firmly, while she leant forward to peep over, half shuddering as she did so. "How should I save you?"

"I should think you would let down a rope."

"True—or I might prefer to come down with it myself, if there were any one else to hold it above. But the simple rope let down by myself for you to grasp, is enough for my illustration. Now how much of faith would be needful on your part to ensure your safety?"

"Of faith?" said Mona.

"Yes, faith in the strength of the rope, and in my power and good-will to draw you up."

"Why, I don't see that faith would have much to do with it, so long as I held tight to the rope, Mr. Prior."

"Would you hold tight, if you were convinced that you could not be saved in that manner?"

She understood, and shook her head.

"There are three lines of conduct between which you might choose. In the first place, you might feel absolute faith in the strength of the rope and in me, and hold to it with cheerful unquestioning firmness. Then you would be safe. In the second place, you might be troubled with a great many doubts and speculations, as to my possible carelessness or indifference, and as to any possible weakness in the rope itself; and while tying it round you, and letting yourself be drawn up, you might suffer from much giddiness and fear and trembling. But then again, you would be safe—not one iota less safe than in the first instance, though far less happy. In the third place, you might place no confidence whatever in the offered means of escape, and insist obstinately on trying to climb up the cliff without its aid. And in that case, you would soon be dashed to pieces on the rocks below."

"I think I see what you mean," she said.

"You must 'lay hold on eternal life,' and that 'laying hold,' as you truly said, is or implies faith. But there may be faith with assurance, or faith without assurance. And there may be doubts with faith, or doubts without faith. Your head-doubts will make no difference as to your safety, so long as your heart clings by faith to the Saviour, though they may and will make much difference as to your peace."

Mona wondered a little whether the pronoun were used in a general or personal sense. It was impossible to tell from his manner.

"That is to say, they don't affect your safety, just so long as they do not cause you to loosen your hold on the rope," Mr. Prior added. And his next move was to hold out a spray of fine blackberries, with a pleasant,—"You don't despise country wild-fruit, do you?"

"O no, I like it very much, thank you."

"When are you coming to make Mrs. Prior's acquaintance? She is a prisoner to her sofa, or you would have seen her before now."

"I should like to call some day," said Mona shyly.

"Come, and make friends with my little boy too—that is, if you are fond of children."

And they chatted so cheerfully while going down the hill, that Mona, when she looked back to their conversation afterwards, almost reproached herself for unseemly brightness so soon after her mother's death. But she was glad she had seen Mr. Prior, and glad he had talked to her thus. Her troubles were not indeed cleared away, yet on one point she had gained a ray of daylight through the mist. She was no longer tormented by the dread that because doubts assailed her, all faith on her part must needs have perished; or that because questionings rose thickly, she must not dare to pray.

CHAPTER XI.

AWAITING THE MASTER'S WILL.

"IT'S going to be a tremendous gale to-night, or I'm no weather-prophet," said the doctor.

He had just stepped inside the house one dark wintry afternoon, and the wind, rushing in after him, flung Mona's dress fantastically to and fro, as she stood there,—besides threatening to put a speedy end to all light from the gas-burner. Mr. Chetwynd succeeded in shutting the door, after a short but severe struggle, and began divesting himself of his wraps.

"I have been listening to the wind for the last hour," said Mona, helping him to disentangle one arm from a rather tight coat-sleeve. "Isn't it dreadfully boisterous, uncle?"

"It carried away all my breath, my dear, and I have pretty powerful lungs too. It would sweep you off bodily, I suspect. Whew!—It's cold. My hands have nearly disappeared, so far as sensation is concerned. I hope nobody is going to be taken ill to-night. It's the sort of weather to make a man prefer his own fireside."

"I have built up a fine large fire," said Mona, retreating before him into the drawing-room. "Don't you call that a splendid glow? What a gust! It seems as if it would shake the house down."

"The house was built to withstand a considerable amount of shaking, fortunately for us at the present moment," said the doctor, expanding himself before the blaze with an air of enjoyment. "Thank you, my dear,—you know how to make a man's home comfortable, I see. Better in here than out on the sea to-night."

"Ah, I was thinking about the poor sailors."

"I went to see Mrs. Blayney, an hour ago," said Mr. Chetwynd. "Found her in a great state of anxiety, poor thing, and no wonder. It seems a fast steamer has just come in, which sighted the 'Flying Albatross' a few hours back, and it is expected to arrive to-morrow morning."

"The 'Flying Albatross!' What—the ship which is bringing Neill Hardwicke home?"

The doctor nodded. "Couldn't be a worse night for a ship to be near this coast. I only hope they will have the sense to put out to sea again before it is too late."

"O poor Madge! What will she do?" exclaimed Mona pityingly. "O uncle, I wish I were with her."

"My dear, you might as well try to fly as to walk up the hill in this wind. In fact you would be much more likely to fly than to walk,—after a certain fashion!"

"I can't think what she will do all night."

"Stay quietly in her cottage, and go to bed, like a sensible woman. She won't be half so excited as Mrs. Blayney."

"You have not seen Madge, have you?"

"Not I. I had had enough of fighting with the elements by the time I reached my own door. Just hear that howl round the house now! It sounds as if all the furies were set loose together."

"And Madge has nobody to speak to—nobody to cheer her," said Mona, half to herself, as she knelt before the fire.

"I declare, I always thought Madge was a pretty good friend of mine," said the doctor with a half-injured air, settling himself comfortably in his arm-chair, "but you seem to have run ahead of me. What makes you take to her?"

"What made you, uncle?"

"Very discreet on your part. Why, simply and solely because I could not help it."

"I suppose it is the same with me. But do you know, I have often wondered where she got that pleasant manner of hers, so quiet and self-possessed. And I have found out now. She used to be head-nurse in Sir Arthur Bolton's family—in that great house, you know, standing in a park, which you showed me one day when you took me such a long drive."

"Ay, I know," said Mr. Chetwynd.

"Madge told me she was nursery-maid there from the time she was fifteen, and had risen to be under-nurse, and lastly head-nurse for two years, when she married Ned Hardwicke. And she says she had only been married three months when she first saw you. She was twenty-five then, so she had been ten years in the house, and that explains how she gained her soft nice sort of manner—just the manner of a very superior upper servant in a good family. Did you know that Sir Arthur Bolton settled a pension on her, when her husband was killed?"

"I have heard the fact, though I believe I had forgotten it. I knew she had a little income of some sort, and that her cottage was her own."

"I had a talk with her only yesterday," said Mona. "And she was so happy about Neill's coming home—looking forward so brightly. Poor Madge! I wonder what she is doing to-night?"

If Mona could have taken a glance into the little
cottage, she would have seen Madge Hardwicke steadily engaged in
washing up her blue cups and saucers.

Not sitting down to cry, or fluttering about in restless anxiety, as many might have done under like circumstances. If Mona could have taken a glance up the stormy hill-side, and into the little cottage at that moment, she would have seen Madge Hardwicke steadily engaged in washing up the blue cups and saucers, used for her early tea. Scarcely two hours had elapsed since the news first reached her of the expected arrival of the "Flying Albatross" next morning. But beyond a red spot on either cheek, and the least possible shaking of her hands, causing an occasional and unwonted rattling of the plates, as she rinsed and dried them, Madge looked very calm. Much more calm than little Nannie, who was lying wrapped up on two chairs and on numerous pillows before the fire, watching her friend's face, and listening to the gale with a very anxious and excited countenance. Many weeks had gone by since Nannie first fell beneath the weight of her father's hand, but it was not many days since she had quitted her bed, and she had not yet set foot to the ground.

If the wind sounded boisterous down at the doctor's house, it claimed fuller attention here. The little cottage fairly shook like a ship from "stem to stern," and the fierce rattling of every pane of glass made Nannie ask fearfully,—

"Madge, don't you think the windows 'll come to smash?"

"Maybe not," said Madge quietly, putting away the last blue saucer. And then she dried her hands, and hung up the cloth, and went to take a look through that same little frail transparent shield,—all that was interposed between her and the wild blast outside.

"It's an awful night, ain't it?" said Nannie, shivering beside even those bright flames. "Madge, I don't seem as if I'd like to go to bed. I think I'll be afraid."

"You're just as safe in bed as by the fireside, Nannie," said Madge, coming away again. For beyond the low clouds, scurrying wildly past, there was nothing to be seen. Even they were but dimly visible in the blackness of darkness outside.

And where was the "Flying Albatross?" And where was Neill? How joyfully would Madge at that moment have yielded her own life, if she might thereby have secured the life of her boy! But she could do nothing—nothing except wait. She might not even go out in the fierce wind, and watch the waters with her own eyes, as she longed to do. Little Nannie could not be left alone in her helplessness.

"Madge, are you dreadful frightened about Neill?" asked the child, with bated breath. "Are you thinking a deal about him this evening?"

Was she thinking of anything else? It seemed to Madge that her whole being was bound up in that of her boy, and that if her body were sheltered in the little cottage, her spirit was away with him, wherever he might be, over the mad wild waters. But she only said, "Yes, I'm looking to see him safe in the morning, if 'tis God's will, Nannie."

"Do you think God will take care of him, and bring him home all right?" asked Nannie.

"I'm hoping it," said Madge.

And then she took out her work-basket, and sat down to sew. But to keep that up long was beyond the strength of even her resolute will. She put the unfinished seam aside, at the close of half-an-hour, and going to the window, stood gazing out again into the darkness.

Nannie lay looking, not at the window, but at Madge. She had a sort of notion that it was best to keep silence, and for a while, though her lips sometimes moved with a barely-checked exclamation, she did not break her childish determination to be still. But the sight of that absolutely motionless figure became at length more than she could endure, and the little voice said softly,—

"Madge!"

No answer came. Perhaps the word was lost in the angry gust which swept at that moment over the hill.

"Madge, I'm ever so frightened. I wish you'd speak."

Madge turned from the window, and came to the table, with a pale face, and an unwonted look of dreaminess in her eyes.

"I'm ready, Nannie," was all she said.

"I'm only frightened," pleaded Nannie. "'Cause the wind does make such a noise; and if it was to blow away the cottage, we'd maybe get hurt, wouldn't we, Madge?"

"I think we'll be taken care of," said Madge, who had no heart to spare for any danger to self, though she spoke soothingly for the child's sake.

"And don't you think Neill will be took care of too, and brought back safe?"

"Maybe," said Madge, resting one hand on the table. "I've been trying, and I can't ask it, though."

"Ain't you a-going to pray he may be safe?" asked Nannie wonderingly.

Madge shook her head slightly.

"Not ask?" repeated Nannie. "Why, Madge, if you don't make haste, it'll maybe get too late, and the ship 'll be gone down under the waves. I wouldn't wait a minute, if I was you," pleaded the child.

"It's never too late for the Lord," said Madge calmly. "He answers oftentimes afore we pray. I've put into His hands to do just as seemeth best to Him, and I've prayed for my Neill to be safe for ever and ever. I can't do more."

"Not do more? Why, Madge, what are ye thinking of?" demanded Nannie passionately. "So often as you've asked for little things, and got 'em too, and now you won't ask to have Neill brought home!"

"Ay, for my Master's oft spoken to my heart afore now, Nannie, and said, 'Ask what ye will, Madge,'" was the answer, in monotonous half-absent tones, as if addressed rather to herself than to the child. "But He don't say it to-night; leastways, I don't hear His voice. I can't pray till He give me strength; and He don't give me strength to do more than just lie in His arms, and wait to see His will."

"Madge, do you think it's 'cause the ship won't get safe to shore?" asked Nannie, with heaving breath.

"I don't think nothing about that," said Madge, speaking softly and slowly still. "I only know He holds 'the waters in the hollow of His Hand,' and Neill's there too—Neill's in His Hand—safe in His keeping—for I've put him there, and I wouldn't dare to take him out into my own again. I've tried and wanted to pray to have Neill back, but I can't—seems like as if 'He' was holding me back from it. Maybe I'm mistaking; only one thing I'm sure of, and that is, I durstn't fight for my own way. 'They' did, and they had it, and the Lord 'sent leanness into their souls.' Maybe He'd take the shining of His countenance from me."

"Wouldn't you bear that awhile, if only Neill might come to ye?" asked Nannie.

"I'd sooner have my Lord's smile than aught on earth beside."

But Madge's own sweet smile was tremulous. And when she had spoken, she knelt down suddenly, with her hands against the oaken table and her face bowed upon them. Was she praying for Neill's return at last?—Or only resting on the Mighty Arm which sustained her, and calmly "waiting to see her Master's will?"

CHAPTER XII.

THE "FLYING ALBATROSS."

THE tardy dawn of a winter's morning had begun to break, when there came a hurried knocking at Madge Hardwicke's door. She had not removed her dress, or extinguished her candle, through all the long hours of that stormy night, and now she came and stood outside, with the gusty breeze blowing about her gown, and her pale face wearing the look of one who had passed through no common vigil.

Her early visitors were four in number. Madge glanced from one to the other, then singled out the doctor, as he stood with the slight cloaked figure of Mona Clyde holding fast to his arm.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"They have sighted the 'Flying Albatross,' Madge."

She knew from his tone that it was not good tidings which he had come to bring.

"They've seen it," she said. "Yes, sir."

"Ask Tyrrell. He brought me the news."

She turned to Nat mutely. "She's bearin' down right upon the rocks below the Point, Madge," he said huskily.

"Is she in the current yet?" asked Madge.

"'Tis hard to say of a certain in this light, but she's dismasted, and seems pretty nigh disabled. If you've a wish to come down in the town, Madge, my wife 'll stay with little Nan."

"Thank you. It's good of you both to think of me," said Madge. "I'll get my hood."

Quickly, but not hurriedly, she tied it on, and came outside again.

Mona took hold of her for a moment as they were starting. "Madge, don't be too anxious; don't give up hope," she said softly.

"Neill's in better hands than mine, Miss Mona," was the response.

Steadily and swiftly she led the way down the steep hill-side, faltering not for one instant. At another time, she would have gone modestly behind the doctor, but now all minor considerations were lost in her overwhelming desire to reach the shore. The force of the wind, as it swept past in furious gusts, made the doctor stagger, and caused even Nat Tyrrell to pant for breath, but Madge seemed proof against the strongest blast, and pressed ever onwards, with scarcely quickened breathing, and never a hesitating footstep.

They were down on the shore at last, in the little shingle cove, with sailors standing about in groups, and spectators scattered amongst them. Away to the left rose the smooth white cliff, on the summit of which Madge Hardwicke's little cottage might be seen, standing dimly out against the sky. Away to the right stretched the dark outline of Lion Point, rearing its massive head in rock-like repose amidst the tumult of the elements. And to left and right and front lay the wide reach of stormy sea, lashed into a seething mass of dark heaving water and snowy foam.

Water, water everywhere. It seemed to Madge that the whole world was made of water that morning. The gale had spent the worst of its fury, and the wind, in all its strength, was but a breeze compared with what had been. But it looked as if nothing ever would or ever could calm down that great waste of watery hills, perpetually rising and falling, curling their crested summits in giant-play, chasing each other to the shore in fierce frolic, and breaking there with a never-ceasing roar, made up of crash after crash in unbroken succession. There was a clear sky overhead, above all this tumult, and one bright star, growing dim in the dawning light, shone placidly through the last bit of transparent cloud remaining.

"She's there," Madge was the first to exclaim, as her quick eye caught the faint outline of the dismasted ship, floating, to all appearance helplessly, amid those gigantic waves. One moment uplifted against the horizon, the next lost absolutely to view, yet again emerging from the trough to mount another hill, only to sink deep into another valley. No wonder all eyes were riveted.

"They've hoisted signals of distress," said Nat Tyrrell. "And they don't know that nothing can be done."

"Nothing!" repeated Madge, looking up to scan with a flashing glance the faces around. "What are all of you men going to stand safe here, and see your follow-creatures perishing right afore your eyes?"

"You're quick to blame us, Mrs. Hardwicke," rejoined a sailor. "But what if we've tried an' failed? No boat but a life-boat could live in such a sea."

"And you'll give up with one try?" asked Madge. "You'll leave them to certain death, when another try might save them?"

"'Tain't certain, Madge," said Nat Tyrrell, coming up. "Old Robin knows more than most men, and he says now the tide's turnin', they'll have a chance—though 'tis the barest chance—a chance of just weathering the Point. They're just so far out as for that, he says."

"And if they don't?" demanded Madge.

"Not a man 'll reach the shore alive," spoke a voice from among the throng.

"And ye'll give up helping them with 'one' try," reiterated Madge, a touch of scorn in her tone. "Three, did you say it was? Well, I'm glad for your sakes 'tis more than one. But will you make a fourth? The tide's going down and launching 'll be easier now. I'll come in the boat myself, men, and take an oar. Will you all hold back where a woman would go?"

"If the ship don't weather the point, Mrs. Hardwicke, we'll try a fourth, an' a fifth, an' a tenth, an' a twelfth time," the same voice said. "But 'tis useless danger trying, till we're sure our help's needed. They're puttin' up a jury-mast and sail now. We'll soon see what's to come."

Madge saw the sense of the words, for not even in sorrow and suspense was she unreasonable. She said no more, but sat down to wait, with Mona leaning on her uncle's arm close by. Other women were on the shore, fellow-sufferers with Madge, and some were sobbing and wringing their hands, and some were calling aloud hysterically in their fear and agony, for many Alyn sailors were aboard. It was terrible to look on in safety and helplessness,—to see loved ones borne slowly slowly onwards to almost certain death.

But Madge neither wept nor cried out. She only sat upon a low rock, with her hands folded together on her knee, and her eyes fixed over upon that dark hull as it rose and sank by turns. And minutes passed by, one after another, and no one dared address words of cheering to Madge. No one dared speak to her at all. Even Mona felt that such suspense as hers must be borne alone in the depths of her strong woman-nature. It was too soon yet to offer the comfort which might by-and-by be needed, and too soon yet to speak of hope.

But the ship drew slowly nearer and nearer, and the dawning light grew clearer and clearer, and a gleam of fluttering brightness began to illumine the anxious faces around. Whispers here and there passed from one to another, as to a growing probability of escape. And all at once Madge herself stood upright, and held up both hands, clasping them tightly over her head, and cried in clear tones, which reached the ears of all present,—

"They're safe! Men, they're safe! They have passed the rocks."

"They're safe! Men, they're safe! They have passed the
rocks," she cried.

Almost before the words had crossed her lips, a cry was heard: "They're saved! They're saved!" And such a cheer burst from the assembled crowd that the roar of wind and waters grew faint for an instant by comparison.

Safe at last! Or the danger was so far lessened, that, unless the ship were more disabled than appeared to be the case, there was small further cause for anxiety. She rolled indeed heavily, and made but tardy advance, seeming, as one man with a telescope observed, to be "pretty nigh water-logged." But though she advanced slowly, she did advance. And gradually hope brightened into confidence, and confidence into certainty.

Madge Hardwicke's momentary excitement had again disappeared, and calmly as before, she waited; only the red glow in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes told that less of composure lay beneath. Neill was coming at last! Her own Neill! After all these years of separation. No wonder that the mother's heart should beat, and her eyes should glisten, with a joy so intense as to be almost pain.

The sun had risen, and was shedding his beams over the unquiet sea, and the scarcely less unquiet assemblage of Alyn folks upon the shore, when the half-disabled ship at length reached the pier. For Alyn harbour lay to the west of Lion Point; and having failed through stress of weather to enter the harbour, nothing remained to the "Flying Albatross" but to "make" the pier running out from the shingle cove, which had, in fact, been built for nothing else but such emergencies.

Madge remained near the entrance of the pier, hearing and seeing nothing that went on around her. She had no eyes or ears for aught but the coming figure of Neill, which yet did not come! Nat Tyrrell had gone to find and bring him to her, and Nat Tyrrell's approach was perhaps the only one, beside that of Neill, which would have made any impression on her senses. But she heard his step in a moment, though not looking in that direction, and she turned her eyes quickly to his, shining with happy expectation.

"Well?" she said. "And have you seen my boy? And is he coming to me soon?"

"I've seen the captain and Ned Blayney, Madge."

"And Neill?" said Madge. "Will they let me go to him, Nat?"

"I'm very sorry, Madge," faltered Nat.

And there he stopped. But an exclamation of sorrow escaped Mona's lips, and Madge Hardwicke turned instantly pale and cold and gray. She said nothing, but looked steadily at him.

"I'm ever so sorry for you," repeated Nat; "but—fact is, Madge, Neill hasn't come at all."

"Neill not come!"

"No. He didn't ever show himself again afore the ship sailed, and Ned Blayney don't know nothing of why, nor what has become of him."

One cry of deep heart-agony broke from Madge, and no more.

Mona would have taken her hand in pitying sympathy, but it was drawn away, as if any outside touch were pain too keen to be endured. She could hardly bear the doctor's face of compassion. For the moment she felt wild, and dark thoughts of fierce rebellion crept into Madge Hardwicke's soul, against the Hand which had directed this heavy blow.

What was it that kept her from uttering her thoughts? What was it that made her hide her feelings? Why did she not look up at Mr. Chetwynd—as she "could" have done, if her own strength had been all that remained to her at that moment—and speak bitter faithless words concerning prayer and its working? Why not? Why, but because Madge was one of those who are "kept by the power of God,"—one whose constant desire was for His glory, and who in this instant of dire temptation was therefore not permitted to fail.

"I am very sorry for you, Madge," were the first words that reached her ears, in the doctor's voice.

She stood upright, and looked at him. "Thank you, sir, I know you are. It's hard to bear, but God can bring him back yet, if 'tis His will. I'll have to wait awhile longer. Good-bye, Miss Mona. I think I'd sooner go home alone, please."

They held back, one and all, with respectful pity. Every one knew Madge, and no one knew without loving her. But she saw nothing of any of them now. The earth and sky and sea had all changed into one silent shield of utter blackness. Neil had not come!

It seemed to Madge that all hope and joy in life had died out for evermore. She did not look to see him now again on earth.

Steadily and rapidly she pressed on, away from the beach, through the town, and up the steep hill-side. And she never slackened a moment for weariness or want of breath, until the cottage-door was reached.

Mrs. Tyrrell came out to meet her with a smile of congratulation, but her cheerful look turned to one of dismay at the sight of Madge's face.

"Why, Mrs. Hardwicke—you don't mean now!" she ejaculated. "They telled me the ship was safe."

"Neill's not come," said Madge quietly. "Thank you for staying with the child, Mrs. Tyrrell. I think I'd best be alone now, please."

"Sure, an' it 'is' a disappointment. And ye won't let me stay awhile, and help to cheer ye up?" added the good woman coaxingly.

As if any puny words of hers could touch the passionate aching of the poor mother's heart. She saw in a moment that it would not do, and with a brief good-bye, she went off, not even stepping inside the door again.

Madge entered instead, closed it after her, took off her hood, and sat down.

"Is Neill come?" asked little Nannie's voice.

Madge looked vacantly across, drawing deep breaths, as if of oppression.

"I didn't dishonour Him," she muttered. "Thank Him I didn't—for I'd a mind. And the doctor would never have forgot. I didn't say what I felt, but I did feel it."

"Madge, where's Neill?" asked Nannie.

"God knows," said Madge calmly. "He's not brought Neill home to me, Nannie."

Nannie stared with wide-open eyes. "Ain't Neill come, Madge?"

"No," said Madge. "The ship's all right, Nannie, but Neill ain't aboard. Don't talk to me awhile,—please."

She did not move, but sat with her head bent down wearily, and no particular feeling of any kind in her mind, beyond a sense of deep desolation. She did not think she should ever care to look up again,—ever care to pass cheerily through life as hitherto; and it was with a sensation of restless impatience, that she heard the door-latch lifted, and raised her head to look round.

"I wish you'd please leave me. I don't want—" Madge stopped, for it was Mr. Prior.

"May I come in?" he asked.

And she rose and gave him a chair, resuming her own immediately, as if hardly conscious of what she did.

He sat down, after a kind word to little Nannie, whose face gave him a hearty welcome, and said simply,—

"Madge, I was with you when your good news came, and rejoiced with you. Will you let me sorrow with you now?"

She put up her hand, to still the quivering of her lips. "It's hard, sir,—you don't know how hard."

"Madge is dreadful disappointed, 'cause Neill ain't come home after all," said Nannie, thinking Mr. Prior needed information on the subject. "She wants a deal of comfort."

Nannie evidently considered Mr. Prior well able to give the same. He looked back at the child with a grave smile.

"Little Nannie, Madge has a better Comforter than you or I, only perhaps she has hardly had time yet to listen to His gentle Voice."

"No," said Nannie. "He'll whisper to her down in her heart, won't He?"

"If Madge will listen," said Mr. Prior.

Madge lifted her gray face to his. "'Tis all true, sir, and my Lord has sent His Comforter many a time afore to me, but I don't seem to hear nor feel nothing now."

"'I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever,'" said Mr. Prior. "He doesn't come and go, Madge."

"No, sir; only I can't see nor hear," said Madge patiently. And then, in a mechanical sort of way, she added, "I'll hear reading if you like, sir, but I don't seem to feel it'll do me good."

"Not reading to-day, I think, Madge. Perhaps to-morrow instead. I will only give you one little verse now,—'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.'"

"Thank you, sir. I'd ought to feel right; I know I ought," said poor Madge despairingly. "But 'tis hard to bear. I've prayed and waited so long, and it did seem as if Neill was coming at last. And now—"

"And now God has denied you, or perhaps has put off for awhile granting your request. Madge—" Mr. Prior went on—"I think there is something here not quite as it should be. Have you been demanding as a right from God that which you had no right to demand?"

"No, sir. I've never put up a prayer for Neil to come back, without saying, 'If it be Thy will.'"

"Nor ever cherished, down in some secret corner of your heart, the feeling that in return for all your loving faith in God, He surely must and 'ought' to grant your request? Madge, what do you think?" he asked softly.

He had touched the right chord now,—had struck to the root of the matter. Madge sat for a moment like one awakened from a dream, and then bursting into tears, sobbed out, "It's true, and I didn't think it. I didn't think I'd so much of wilfulness unconquered in me yet. I don't deserve one bit better than my Lord's sent me—not one bit."

And after that burst of weeping and contrite sorrow, Madge's heart was no longer closed, in its aching pain, to the sweet voice of the Heavenly Comforter.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DOCTOR'S PROHIBITION.

THE storm of that night ceased, as other storms have done; but the turmoil of the waters was not so easily quelled, and massive breakers swelled and rolled and broke with thundering crashes on the shore, through many an hour after. There is always for a while a ground-swell remaining.

The brief storm in Madge Hardwicke's life was over, and its usual calm had set in. But the sense of disappointment, and the renewal of the old blank, and the fluttering of spirits, and the wakened restlessness of desire, were not to be easily stilled. A heavy ground-swell remained behind, and Madge had many a battle to fight in the weeks succeeding, which showed not at all to the outer world.

And little Nannie had passed through her small storm,—only it was not small to her feeble strength,—and had come through it. She was up and about again, much sooner than the doctor had expected to see her. A fragile creature she looked, with her pale face, and her long black hair, and her pleading eyes and gentle manner. There had grown to be something about Nannie of late very winning to all the world, except her own father, for whose love Nannie would have gladly given away all the rest. But when she went back to his cottage, as she persistently begged to do from the moment she set foot to the ground, he gave her nothing of a welcome. And Nannie, in her dread of being taken away, or of drawing punishment upon him, evaded all inquiries respecting his treatment of her. Amos Ackman had grown more cautious before spectators, and Nannie kept steady silence as to kicks and blows behind the scenes. But Nannie too had her ground-swell, and that no light one.

And Mona had passed through the worst of "her" storm. Through a very tempest of doubts and questionings, beneath which she had for a while almost succumbed, while her sky above had been wild and black, and the angry gale had whistled past with a sound which struck chilly to her very heart. The autumn and early winter months of that year were dark days to poor Mona Clyde, bereft at one blow of all joy in this world, and almost all hope in the next. For a while, it had seemed to her that all her faith was gone. And though gleams of light had been sent now and then, through the dense mists which had gathered around, yet the mists were long in dispersing. So Mona also had her ground-swell remaining.

January, February, March, and April were made up of a succession of dismal days. Dull warmth and cloudy cold—damp chilliness and dry east winds,—rain and snow,—fog and sleet,—hail and mist,—alternated persistently; and the only thing which seemed not to take a share in these recurring changes was sunshine. People tried to get up jokes upon the danger of forgetting the colour of the sun, or even of doubting the fact of his existence altogether, beyond the low gray mantle which perpetually enveloped this lower earth. Even Madge Hardwicke's equable spirits felt the depressing influence of the weather; and no doubt the sum-total of ill tempers in Alyn much exceeded the average.

Then came the sweet month of May, and upon the very first day a change took place; and spring, in all its luxuriant beauty, burst upon the Alyn world. To Mona it was like a repetition of the tunnel's darkness, and the light beyond, with the same sweet meaning. Never had she known so sudden and joyous a burst of spring, just because never had she known so dreary a winter preceding—dreary in more senses than one.

It was upon one of the fairest of warm May evenings that the doctor's chaise stood before his door, and the doctor himself stood upon his doorstep, pulling on a pair of gloves, for he had just received an unexpected summons to a distance, at the close of his daily round. He accomplished the business deliberately—the call in question not being especially urgent, though too important to leave till next morning,—buttoned each glove with unnecessary care, and finally took his seat. Just as he had gathered up the reins, Mona came along the path.

"Hallo! My dear, where are you going now?"

"Up the hill to see Madge Hardwicke, uncle."

"Where have you been?"

"Only to look up one of my Sunday scholars who was absent last Sunday; but he is ill, poor little fellow, so it was not his fault."

"Which?"

"Uncle, you won't know his name—Tommy Talbot."

"Not one of the Talbots in Wall's Alley?"

"Yes, he lives there."

The doctor's hand gave an involuntary jerk to the reins, which made the horse start forward. He pulled in again.

"If your Sunday-school work takes you to such places as that, you had better give it up altogether."

"Uncle, I never meet with rudeness. The people are as respectful as possible."

"I dare say! I dare say!" repeated the doctor impatiently. "You don't go there again without my leave."

"But, uncle—," and Mona looked rather rebellious.

"You don't," said Mr. Chetwynd decisively.

"Tommy will expect me to-morrow."

"Let him! How often have you been, pray?"

"This is the first time since Sunday. Once last week I went, not because Tommy was ill, but only he was a new pupil the Sunday before, and I always go to see them in their homes. He is the first I ever had from that alley."

"Last week—what day?"

"Friday. Tommy was so pleased when I came in. And he took me into the next room to see a poor little playfellow of his who was not well."

Another sharp jerk at the reins. Mona looked in perplexity at his knitted brows.

"You haven't seen 'him' again, then?"

"No, I was with Tommy all the time this morning. It was very stupid of me, but I was thinking so much of him that I quite forgot even to ask after the other child."

"It is to be the first and last of your visiting there, if you please," said the doctor. "That alley is a perfect nest of—"

"Of what?" asked Mona.

"Wickedness," said Mr. Chetwynd, omitting, for a particular reason, the word he had intended to use.

"I don't think, really, that you need fear for me, uncle."

"Dare say not," muttered Mr. Chetwynd gruffly. "Mind,—no more going there, Mona. Ha! Here comes Mr. Prior. I'll give him a hint on the subject some day—can't have you encouraged in that sort of thing."

"Uncle, indeed it was all my own doing," said Mona eagerly, and then Mr. Prior came up with a cheerful—

"Just the person I wanted to see. No, not you, doctor; only please give leave, before you go, for Mona to take a drive to-morrow afternoon."

"Anywhere, except to Wall's Alley," said the doctor.

But he went off with something of a frown, and Mona said in explanation: "He is rather vexed at my going to see some of my children—one of them I mean."

"Not in Wall's Alley?"

"Yes, little Tommy Talbot."

"How came you to go there?" he asked, as if involuntarily.

"Why, Mr. Prior, is it such a dreadful place?" inquired Mona, in surprise. "It looked very much like any other alley."

His smile was in the least degree forced. "About the worst in Alyn I suppose. Don't visit in it again at present,—I will see after Tommy for you. Are you going indoors now, and shall you be very busy to-morrow?"

"O no; can I do anything for you, Mr. Prior?" She had felt strangely weary all day, with a heavy spring-tired sort of feeling, but she brightened up as she spoke. "I was just going up the hill to see Madge Hardwicke."

"The very thing. I am on my way to that poor creature dying in the cottage beyond the cliff, so our road is the same."

"One moment, please," and she ran into the hall, coming out again with a basket full of small bunches of garden flowers. "I am ready now, Mr. Prior."

"Those little nosegays look tempting," he said, as they passed into the road. "Are you disposed for a drive to-morrow, Mona?"

"Who with?" she asked.

"All of us. The truth is—" and he laughed slightly—"my sister Rachel has taken a warm fancy to Madge Hardwicke."

"I felt sure Miss Prior must like her," said Mona.

"And having discovered a certain plan of the said Madge's, she can't rest without adding her quota to the general enjoyment."

"What the excursion to Bentley Dingle? Madge told me, but I thought it was to be quite a secret."

"Rachel found out the secret somehow,—though I confess it is rather a mystery to me still. I only gather that Madge has a certain treat in store for certain children, that my sister does not think there will be buns enough to the fore, that she therefore intends to act carrier gratis for the occasion, and that I am expected to take my share as driver. Who are Madge's children, if you can tell me?"

"A dozen or more poor little things, who run up to her cottage on Saturday afternoons to read the Bible with her. They are as fond of her as if she were their mother."

"I understand. And she plans an excursion for them to the Dingle?"

"Yes, in a break, and they will make tea there, and eat buns and bread and butter. The truth is, Madge had a present lately from her old master, Sir Arthur Bolton, and that I suppose put it into her head." Mona did not add that she had herself given a liberal contribution towards expenses, but only said, "I wished so much I could have been present."

"Just what Rachel feels. Her plan is to drive over to the Dingle, without a word to Madge—so don't drop a hint of her intentions this evening—and to appear suddenly on the spot with a supply of provisions, after the fashion of a fairy godmother, taking them all by surprise."

"That will be very nice," said Mona, warmly. "How delighted Madge will be! Is Mrs. Prior going?"

"I hope so, and she sends a particular message to say that you are to have a turn at sitting on the front seat, and taking the reins. My opinion is not asked about the matter, so I submit, and only hope that may tempt you, if nothing else does."

"I don't need any tempting," said Mona, with a smile. "I shall enjoy it of all things. Why, Madge seems holding quite a levée up on the hill."

"Giving a lecture," suggested Mr. Prior. "You ladies usurp everything in these days."

"Madge would not thank you for calling her a lady. O I remember—Nat Tyrrell is to drive the break, and Ned Blayney and his mother are going to help take care of the children. I dare say they are talking over arrangements—but I don't know who the third man is. Not Amos Ackman at all events, for I can see him at his own cottage-door."

CHAPTER XIV.

GOD'S MYSTERIES.

"BELIEVE in it? No, I don't," said Nat Tyrrell, with decision. "Nor I don't see, for my part, how any reasonable being who trust in God's goodness, can put faith in the notion for one single instant."

"'Tisn't so very long, Nat, since you were all for setting me to rights for a crank you said I'd got," Madge remarked quietly, as she sat knitting on the bench in front of her cottage-door.

Mrs. Tyrrell, a silent sensible woman, sat beside her, occupied in like manner. Nannie was down on the ground close to her feet, after the fashion of a faithful little dog. Nat stood exactly in front, with his back to the garden-gate; while on one side of him lounged the stalwart figure of Ned Blayney, who was listening with a good-humoured smile to the discussion; and on the other stood a small sickly-looking man, Joe Whilly by name, and cobbler by profession, with a face of such rigid melancholy, that it was hard to imagine he could ever conjure up a smile.

"Seems to me," Madge added, "that the crank's on your side now, Nat."

"Begging your pardon, but it's nothing of the kind," responded Nat, with a degree of tartness, for he was by no means so ready as Madge to admit the possibility of being mistaken. "You and I think alike in a many things, no doubt, but we don't think alike here, and I dare say we never shall. I'll never believe salvation ain't freely offered to every man, woman, and child upon earth, to accept it if they will."

"Did I say it wasn't, Nat?" Madge began, but she checked herself, for another voice was saying,—

"Good evening, Tyrrell. How are you to-day, Mrs. Hardwicke?" And then after a few words of greeting to each, not omitting little Nannie, Mr. Prior added, "You seem very much interested about something, all of you."

"Just a talk we've got into," responded Madge. "I'm glad you've come, sir. Will you please to sit down, and Miss Mona too?"

"What has the talk been about?" asked Mr. Prior, accepting the offered chair. "It is so pleasant up here that I really think I must spare a few minutes before going on. But don't let me interrupt your discussion."

"We'd scarce got into a discussion yet," said Madge, half-smiling. "Joe Whilly had given us his mind, and Nat Tyrrell was giving a bit of his."

"Nat Tyrrell had better give the rest," suggested Mr. Prior.

"Have out with it, lad," said Ned Blayney encouragingly, as Nat shuffled about a little. "Parson never lets a fellow off, and he likes us to tell out our thoughts."

"Right, Blayney. I wish you to consider me one of yourselves for half-an-hour. What is it all about, Tyrrell? Let me see if I can help you in your perplexity."

"Well, sir, I don't know as I'm much perplexed neither," said Nat honestly. "I don't pretend to be anything of a born genius,—" Nat did his best to look modest,—"but I hope I'm equal to the understanding of this, sir."

"If you be, you're a deal cleverer than I," muttered Ned Blayney, rubbing his forehead disconsolately. "Whilly and you atween you has set all my wits and notions buzzing, like the bees in mother's hive."

"Let me hear," was all Mr. Prior said.

Nat had no objection at all to state his views. "Well, sir, 'tis just this. Whilly he don't hold with me. He goes in downright for the doctrine of election, sir. Now I don't."

"Don't go in for it?"

"No, sir. That's to say, I don't hold it. I've my Bible, sir, and I reads it night and morning, and I hope I understands what I reads. And my conclusion as I've come to is this. The doctrine of election is no Scriptural doctrine at all, sir. For why?" Nat was growing more at his ease now, and he began laying down the law, with the forefinger of one hand upon the palm of the other, as he was wont to do when expounding his own views among his fellow-workmen,—a very different matter, be it remarked, from expounding Bible-truths, though the two are often confounded together.

"For why, sir? Ain't it in the Bible, clear as daylight, that Jesus Christ died for all men, and that His salvation is freely offered to all? That's what 'I' hold to, sir. I'll preach and teach the Gospel with my latest breath, but I'll never be one of those who goes about, talking of election, and how God has chosen some men from all eternity to everlasting happiness, and created some only for everlasting misery, and man to have no choice at all in the matter, and however much he may wish to be saved, yet, if he isn't elect, he's lost to all eternity. No, no, I'll never go in for that. I believe salvation is offered to all, and all may be saved,—only men are so perverse and wrong-headed that they won't accept salvation, and so the blame is on their own heads. Why, sir, looking at it in any other light, I'd have to say the blame is with God, not man."

"Hush, beware, Tyrrell! You are saying words now, which no living man may utter and be blameless," said Mr. Prior with much seriousness.

"Joe Whilly's got hold of quite another side of the question altogether," remarked Blayney. "As you'll hear, sir. He don't agree with Tyrrell. He's all t'other way."

"No, he don't agree with me," said Nat, recovering from the momentary effect of the rebuke he had received. "He'd never dare offer the free gift of salvation to any man, but only go tell him he hopes he's one of the elect, for if he's elect, he'll be saved, and if he isn't, why he's mighty sorry for him."

"I didn't put it that way neither," said Joe Whilly. "But I don't deny there's some truth in Tyrrell's words, sir. I'd tell men, sure enough, of the Saviour,—but I couldn't in conscience tell 'em to come and be saved, without reminding them that they hadn't no power to come, unless they were called."

"Ay, those are his views," said Tyrrell loftily. "I'm right glad they're not mine."

"I'd be sorry to have to settle atween you both," remarked Blayney. "One thing's certain—one of you's right, and one's wrong. Leastways, both can't be right, though maybe you be both wrong. And that's all I knows about the matter."

"I have a word from the Bible for each of you—for Tyrrell on his side and Whilly on his," said Mr. Prior. "But first, we must find a stand-point from which to look upon this matter. It won't do, if you wish to take a wide view of the country round, to get among some bushes, where your range of sight is shut in to about six yards."

Ned Blayney laughed. "No, sir; the mast-head's the place."

"True; we must climb to the mast-head. And the first step towards that, is to take good heed that we come to this question in a frank and simple spirit of inquiry, anxious to find the truth, and ready to believe whatever the Word of God may state, but not caring to defend our own views merely for the sake of triumph in argument."

"I hope I'm not over proud to acknowledge myself mistaken, sir," said Nat Tyrrell.

"I hope so too. But now for the mast-head. There are two simple truths about which you must be perfectly clear, before you can safely venture to look into any of these questions. You seem to me, Tyrrell, to have lost sight of one, if not of both."

"I'm ready to hear, sir," said Tyrrell, more submissively than was his wont.

"Then remember this. Whatever you find of doubt and perplexity—whatever seems to you hard to understand, or impossible to explain,—take care that you never for a moment lose sight of one grand truth,—'The Lord is righteous in ALL His ways, and holy in ALL His works.' 'There is no unrighteousness in Him.' He is 'of purer eyes than to behold evil.' 'There is none holy as the Lord.' 'A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.' His very 'Name is Holy.' Take hold of that truth, and never let it go."

"Yes, sir," Tyrrell assented.

"Secondly, remember that as God is absolutely holy, so man is absolutely sinful. Man, as man, can put forth no shadow of a claim upon the mercy of God. The whole of mankind lies deep down in the very dust beneath His feet, justly condemned to eternal death. Salvation, from first to last, is a free and utterly undeserved gift."

"I see what you mean, sir," said Tyrrell slowly.

"Then, putting those two great truths together, let me warn you to take your stand upon them, and never again to use the dangerous line of argument you seemed inclined to use just now. Never dare to say, 'If such and such a thing were true, I could not believe in the holiness or mercy of God.' There is fearful presumption in it, Tyrrell—though many a good man unthinkingly makes use of such words. Such and such a thing may be true, though you cannot see it so; and where do you find yourself then? You must have your position at the mast-head. 'The Lord is holy and true, just and righteous, merciful and loving. Man is sinful and worthless. What the Lord hath said, that will I accept, and unquestioningly believe.'"

Nat looked thoughtful, but did not speak.

"And now to come to the point," Mr. Prior went on. "As regards the doctrine of election, I do not ask you to take my views, or the views of any man. But what do you think of this?" And from his little pocket Bible Mr. Prior read aloud—"'He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.' And again, 'Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.' ¹ Nothing can stand against that, you see—that almighty changeless Will of God."

¹ Eph. i. 4, 11.

"Clear enough about election, ain't it," said Joe Whilly.

"What of this also? In the ninth of Exodus God says about Pharaoh, 'In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power.' And in the following chapters, we are more than once plainly told that 'The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart,' though at the same time we must not forget that we are told how Pharaoh hardened his own heart also. And again, with the wicked sons of Eli, we find that 'they hearkened not unto the voice of their father,'—why?—'"because" the Lord would slay them.'"

"That's awfully strong," said Nat, in a subdued tone.

"It is truth, Tyrrell. You cannot set it aside. True also—by their sins they had made Him so to will. But as clay in the hands of a potter, ² so are we in the hands of God. He chooses whom He will, and He rejects whom He will. 'Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.' No power in heaven, or earth, or hell, can for one instant stand against that eternal Will of God. And no man living has power to turn to God, or even to wish so to turn, without the working of the Holy Spirit in his heart. As the Saviour said, 'No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.'"

² Rom. ix. 21.

"Well, sir, it just comes to this," said Tyrrell gloomily. "If you're right—and I won't deny you've Scripture on your side—I don't see, for my part, how man is to blame."

"Just the answer made in St. Paul's own days. 'Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? for who hath resisted His will? Nay, but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?' ¹ What are you and I, Tyrrell—mere worms of the dust, rebels against Him from our birth—to dare to question the dealings of the Lord Almighty?"

¹ Rom. ix.

He spoke in a deeply solemn tone, and the men looked impressed, while Mona sat, with bent head, taking to heart a lesson which she had sorely needed. There was a little pause before Tyrrell remarked—

"Still, there's no denying, sir, that if men are mere puppets in the Hands of God, to be saved or lost as He wills, I don't see for my part how they're to be justly blamed."

"Does the Bible say men are mere puppets in the Hands of God?" asked Mr. Prior.

"Well, sir, it comes to about the same thing."

"No; there we touch upon one of the wonderful mysteries of God, which are beyond man's grasp. 'There is no searching of His understanding.' 'Great things doeth He which we cannot comprehend.' The sooner you accept that fact in all its fulness, the better for your peace. True it is that man is absolutely in the Hands of God, as clay in the hands of a potter; nevertheless, and at the self same time, he is a free and accountable being. What do you say to that?"

"You wouldn't try to make out, would you, sir, that there was anything of free choice to be found in the Bible, alongside of the other doctrine?" asked Nat incredulously.

"You could not possibly have used a better word. 'Alongside'—that is exactly the way in which these great 'opposition-truths,' as they have been called, are given to us. Lying side by side, placed there by God Himself, to be believed by us unquestioningly, whether or no with our present powers we may be able to reconcile them. It has been said with much force, that in looking at these deep mysteries of God, a man must not attempt to step with both his feet at once. First one foot, and then the other. We have taken a step with the right foot; now let us take a step with the left. We have proved from the Word of God the doctrine of election; now let us see what the same Word has to say on the other side of the question."

"I'll hear what you have to say sure enough, sir," said Nat slowly. "I'll not deny you've shown me I've been wrong, putting aside a doctrine so clear in the Bible as that. I'm not too proud neither to 'say' I've been in the wrong, and to change my old view for a new one. But if you're going to ask me to stick by the old, and take up the new as well—why, sir, I've only to say it's just a moral impossibility. The thing can't be."

"No; and I'm on the same side as Tyrrell now, sir," added Joe Whilly. "If a man can't be saved unless he's elected, and can't come unless God makes him able, where's the good of telling him he 'may' come?"

"We will come back to that directly," said Mr. Prior. "But just now we are taking a glance at the other side of the question. You can't look to the north and the south of a landscape at the same moment, you know. What do you both think of these words, spoken by God to the whole nation of the Israelites, and through them to the world at large?

   "'See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments . . . But if thine heart turn away so that thou wilt not hear'—not canst not, but 'wilt' not—'I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish . . . I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE, that both thou and thy seed may live—'

"Is no freedom of choice offered there, Whilly?"

"Seems so, sure enough," said Whilly, rubbing his head with a perplexed air.

Tyrrell did not speak.

"This is in the thirtieth of Deuteronomy, and you will find much the same in the twenty-fourth of Joshua, where again the Israelites are plainly bidden—'"Choose" you this day whom ye will serve.' Note also the words of our Saviour—'Ye "will not" come to Me that ye might have life.' Not 'ye cannot come.' And again, 'Strive to enter in at the strait gate;' 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;' 'Seek, and ye shall find.' Power of choice and action are implied in all these."

"Yes, sir," answered Whilly, who seemed to have stepped into the office of spokesman.

"Then listen to a few words from the eighteenth of Ezekiel on the same subject. 'Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live? . . . Repent, and turn yourself from all your transgressions . . . and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.' And also in the thirty-third chapter—'Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?'"

Tyrrell was silent still, gazing steadily on the ground.

"Well, sir, I won't deny there's a deal to be said on both sides from the Bible," said Whilly, in a thoughtful tone. "But how you're going to reconcile them two doctrines passes my comprehension."

"And mine also," said Mr. Prior quietly. "What of that, Whilly? Are we to disbelieve everything we cannot understand? Can you suppose for a moment that the mind of a mere created being shall have power to grasp the mysteries of his Creator? Tyrrell thinks himself well able to take in and weigh these mighty truths, though, as he says, he is no genius. If he were the most brilliant genius the world ever saw, it would make no difference. Possibly he might reach a little farther than you or I could reach—just as a tall man may wade a little deeper into the sea than a short one can do. But in either case, the end is the same. Whether he be tall or short, whether his mind be great or small, he soon comes to a point where his powers serve to carry him on no more. After that, he must take refuge in one of two things—speculation or faith."

"Seems to me, Tyrrell and Whilly had ought to be mighty pleased, both of 'em, seeing they're both proved to be half-ways right, and not all wrong," Blayney remarked quaintly.

"Maybe I am," said Whilly. "Then, sir, you'd have one offer salvation to all men without a bit of reservation, would you?"

"No more reservation than the Bible itself makes, Whilly. Look at the breadth of the Gospel invitations, and don't dare to narrow them by a single word. 'Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,' must never be cut down into, 'Ho! all ye "elect" that thirst.' 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' must not be changed into 'Come unto Me, all ye "elect" that labour.' There is a very clear command given—'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' You may find me, if you can, a single injunction to preach the Gospel only to the elect of God."

"Thank you, sir. You've given me something to think about, anyways," said Whilly.

"The truth is, Whilly, this doctrine of election, though a thought full of comfort and joy to the assured Christian, is a doctrine with which the unsaved man has nothing whatever to do. 'Repent, believe, and be saved,' are the words spoken to him. Take care that you carry him the right message—not the wrong one."

And then, turning from Whilly, Mr. Prior said,—"Well, Tyrrell?"

"Sir, you'll maybe think me a bit obstinate, but I can't in reason see how them two things can exist together," said Tyrrell rather doggedly.

"Let me give you an illustration I have heard used, to make it clearer. Did you ever see the flying bridge over the river, two or three miles from Bentley Dingle?"

"I've seen it, sir."

Mr. Prior took out his pocket-book, and slightly sketched the scone for the benefit of those who had not.

"There is the river. There are the chains upon which the bridge depends. Now, look at those chains. You see them plainly at that end, and at this. What becomes of them in the space between?"

"They're under water," Nat answered, at the same moment with Blayney.

"How do you know? You cannot see them there."

"Well, sir, I knows sure enough, if I sees each end of a chain going down under water, that it's joined below," said Blayney.

"That is to say, you 'believe' it to be so, and your belief amounts to certainty. Just so with these great 'counter-truths' of the Bible. You see each end of the chain, but the point where they join—the point of reconciliation—is in the depths, beyond your grasp. Faith must come in there to supply the place of sight. You say they can't be reconciled. That merely means that 'you' cannot reconcile them. They are reconciled, though God alone knows how, and that is enough for us. There ought to be no 'if' in speaking of God's revealed truths. 'The Lord hath spoken,' is answer enough for every perplexity, and every seeming contradiction."

"Maybe," Tyrrell muttered.

"The truth is, we are mere children before God, and know nothing whatever of these matters beyond what He has graciously made known to us. He speaks to us as to children, and tells us just so much as it is needful for us to know—but no more. If you receive His Word as a child, you will know peace. The road to heaven is a very simple one, and 'the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.' But once go off from the plain path of safety, and get yourselves entangled in these mazy questions, which have puzzled tens of thousands before you, and you will find yourselves in a very quicksand of doubt and misery."

"Maybe so, sir," said Tyrrell. "I don't deny you've a deal to say from the Bible for your way of looking on the question. But, nevertheless, 'tisn't in my power to set aside altogether the common-sense view of the matter. And that is, that 'if' men have it in their power to choose between good and evil, then salvation can't depend on election; and 'if' the doctrine of election is true, then free choice can't be, and men may just as well sit with their hands before them, waiting to see whether they're elect or no. For in that case, if a man's elect, he'll be saved, and if he isn't elect, he won't be saved, and small blame to him either if he isn't. I don't see, for my part, how you're ever to get over that difficulty, sir."

"Nay, Tyrrell, it is you, not I, who have to get over it," said Mr. Prior, smiling. "I am content to accept the truths of God as He has given them to us. You cannot rest without trying to bring them all down to the level of your own understanding—which is about as reasonable an attempt, as if you were to set yourself to squeeze the ocean into a tumbler. But I will have a word again with you on this subject, only just now I must say good-bye, as it is getting late. Think over the matter carefully, and pray for right direction as you do so."

He lingered a minute still, exchanging pleasant remarks with the different members of the party. Then bidding them all farewell, he continued his walk—not without a nod and smile at parting to little Nannie, for Mr. Prior was one of those who have caught a reflection of the Saviour's peculiar tenderness towards the lambs of the flock. And Mona, having presented to Madge her basket of nosegays, for the children on the morrow, went soberly down the hill-side.

CHAPTER XV.

THE DINGLE.

IT was a sweet wild place, this Dingle, coming after a long reach of flat and lonely moor. There was a deep dip, and a grassy space below, with one tiny cottage built beside a running stream, while all around the rocky sides rose steeply, clothed with brushwood and small trees, amongst which the brilliant spring green of the larches was the most conspicuous. And from this little hollow or basin, the pathway—about as wide and rough as a mountain sleigh-path, and much overgrown with grass—leading up alongside of the sparkling stream, rose winding in a narrow gorge, with rocks and trees still closing in on either side. Several threatened endings proved only to be fresh turnings of the path, until at length the summit was attained of a certain round green hill, with a good view of the surrounding country, and a number of larches and silver beeches growing down its sides.

A month or two later, the pretty spot would be almost overrun by excursionists, but it was quiet now, with the exception of Madge Hardwicke's party, who made noise enough for fifty ordinary pleasure-seekers. Madge loved nothing better than to see "her children," as she called them, enjoying themselves. They had all arrived at the Dingle by three o'clock, and many games in the "green basin" followed.

Mrs. Blayney and her son, and Nat Tyrrell and his wife, were by no means useless additions to the party. Madge alone would have been hardly equal to the task of keeping all those busy little feet out of perilous spots, but for their aid. As it was, they had enough to do, all five of them, during the first hour and a half. It was somewhere about the close of that time that a little basket-carriage was seen approaching, drawn by a pretty grey pony, and a shout was immediately raised:—

"I say,—if it ain't the Parson a-driving up here!"

No unwelcome arrival was that little chaise, though nobody yet knew what lay hidden under the seats. The children came crowding around, to receive kind words and smiles, alike from Mr. Prior, and from the pale lady beside him, who never left her Rectory home save in a carriage, but was no stranger to them all nevertheless. As for the small boy, Georgie, with his knickerbockers, and straw hat, and floating blue ribbons, he was out on the ground in a moment, at the imminent risk of his legs, ready for any amount of play.

"So you are all enjoying yourselves here, Madge," said Mr. Prior, as she stood, smiling, near at hand.

"Well, sir, the children seem to find a deal of pleasure in it," said Madge.

"Don't think we are going to intrude, Madge," said Miss Prior, the clergyman's sister. "We can drive up the Dingle, and leave you all to play, you know. Only we wanted to bring just a little contribution to your feast, as you—naughty woman that you are—didn't take the trouble to invite us."

"You're welcome enough, ma'am, if I'd thought you cared to come," said Madge placidly. "Miss Mona has nigh as much to do with the matter as I."

But her face lighted up a good deal at the sight of the hamper, and the children's consequent delight. And when it was opened, and the contents began to appear, the little ones did not seem to know how to smile broadly enough for such a grand occasion. Miss Prior was satisfied so far, and began now to talk of driving on, but Madge interposed. Wouldn't they stay, and help to eat up the feast?

"Spoil the fun?"

Madge laughed her low quiet laugh at the idea. And Nannie, creeping up, looked with a pair of pleading eyes, which added weight to the words of Madge.

"You two together are irresistible," Miss Prior said. "I am vanquished at all events. What will the rest of you do?"

"I never intended to do anything but stay, all along," said Mr. Prior composedly, and Madge's gray eyes flashed a look of merry appreciation. No arm-chair being at hand, Mrs. Prior had to keep her seat in the low basket-chaise, but the pony was taken out and tied to a tree, and half the children gathered round to feed him with handfuls of grass, while the other half watched the unlading of the hamper with eager eyes.

It was no meagre fare that Mr. and Miss Prior had brought for the occasion. Madge's buns found themselves in a very small minority, compared with the varieties of provisions now produced. A white cloth had not been forgotten, and amid much fun and laughter, the table—otherwise the ground—was laid; hot water was procured from the cottage; and tea was at length ready.

Then they all sat round in a circle,—Mr. Prior being honoured with a seat upon a stump, and having a bodyguard of small children at his end of the cloth. Nannie crept to his side, and sat there, almost too happy to eat. Poor little child! This day was one of radiant experience in her cloudy life. She had not known many such.

It was a mixed sort of company gathered there to dinner, or tea, or whatever they chose to term that five o'clock out-of-door feast on the grass. The hamper-full would almost have served to supply a meal of either description. Mixed as the company might be, however—including the Priors and Mona, the children and Madge, a sailor and his mother, a carpenter and his wife,—it was a very merry and a very happy party. Had Mr. Chetwynd been one of the number, he would probably have felt a good deal out of his element, from the fact that he would have been troubled with a certain amount of anxiety as to his own dignity.

Mr. Prior, whose pleasant ease of manner, and entire self-forgetfulness, were equally to be seen on all occasions, whether his companions might chance to be earls and baronets, or masons and plumbers, suffered from no such uneasiness. He kept up a cheery flow of conversation, just suited to those present—bright, cheerful, kindly, with many an illustration for the men, and many a story for the little ones, not lacking a vein of quaint humour, and yet having an under-current of serious purpose, which now and then rose to the surface, like a golden thread in a many-coloured pattern.

The feast over—and very thoroughly it was over, little but crumbs remaining—there was some talk of the chaise and its inmates driving on. Miss Prior protested. She at least must have one game with the children first. Wouldn't Mona join? Mona did not object, but for all Miss Prior's twenty years' seniority, Mona seemed of the two to have the less appreciation of the fun. She very soon found her help was not really needed, and slipped away.

"Mona, you are not well to-day," said Mrs. Prior, as she came up.

Mona flushed suddenly. "I have rather a headache, Mrs. Prior; I dare say it will go off soon."

"Don't tire yourself, dear. My sister likes nothing better than a game with the little ones. Would you not rather go home at once?"

"O no, thank you! We are to walk up the Dingle," said Mona, unwilling to check the general enjoyment, though she really did feel far from well. "They say the view from the top is lovely."

"Yes; and I am told that the path is quite fit for our little chaise, so we will all go up together," said Mr. Prior, making his appearance at this juncture. "Here come Tyrrell and Blayney to harness in the pony."

"I am glad Mrs. Prior will be able to come too," Mona remarked.

CHAPTER XVI.

NAT'S COTTAGE.

"IT ought to be well done certainly, with three of us to accomplish the business," said Mr. Prior, patting the pony's head as he began to loosen the rein. "Unless indeed it were a case of 'too many cooks,' Tyrrell."

"Dapple ain't the sort of 'broth' to be so easy spoilt, sir," said Nat, with a laugh.

"I hope not. By the bye, Tyrrell—yes, you can tighten that strap a little—did I not hear that you were thinking of changing your cottage soon?"

"At quarter-day—yes, sir," said Nat, looking flattered at the interest shown in his affairs. "You see, sir, the one we're in now, though it's a neat place enough, is over small, and it's draughty and smoky besides. So now I'm getting on a bit in the world, we thought we'd look out for a better."

"You have not found one yet, I suppose?"

"Why, no, sir, and I'm not sure after all that I haven't been imprudent in giving notice about this, before we'd some idea of a new one like to suit us."

"Poor fellow—but of course you could not help that, though it was unwise," said Mr. Prior compassionately.

Nat Tyrrell was not the only one present who stared with open eyes.

Mr. Prior looked back so calmly, however, that even Mrs. Prior began to fancy she must have been mistaken, in thinking that her husband had said anything extraordinary.

"I had an idea, now,—but of course it is not worth my while mentioning it to you," said Mr. Prior thoughtfully.

"An idea about what, sir, if I might make bold to ask?" inquired Nat Tyrrell, with curiosity.

"O merely an idea, not at all worth mentioning. Of course it could make no possible difference in the end," said Mr. Prior, leading the pony towards the carriage.

Nat followed, wondering what in the world had come over Mr. Prior, and half disposed to fear it must be a case of sun-stroke.

"I'd be very glad of any advice, sir," he said, by way of testing the soundness of Mr. Prior's mind.

"You are not looking out for a new cottage, of course," said Mr. Prior.

"Indeed, sir, but I am. You don't happen to know of one, do you, sir?" asked Nat, with some eagerness.

"You do not really mean to say you are giving yourself any trouble about the matter!" said Mr. Prior in a tone of astonishment.

"To be sure, I should just think I was too," said Nat rather indignantly. "A pretty thing it would be, if we waited with our hands before us till we found ourselves homeless."

Nat suddenly stopped and looked rather foolish, remembering the last time he had used that expression. A faint idea of Mr. Prior's meaning began to dawn upon his mind.

"So if you don't look out for another cottage, you think that may probably be the result," said Mr. Prior.

"I don't see what else would be like to happen," Nat answered in a subdued tone.

"True, but then, if it were so, it would have been fore-ordained by God," said Mr. Prior. "And what is fore-ordained must come to pass."

Nat seemed at a loss what to reply.

"You see, Tyrrell, I am a firm believer in the doctrine of God's foreknowledge and pre-ordering of events," continued Mr. Prior. "It is told very plainly in the Bible—'He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?' And again He says, 'I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.'"

"They're wonderful texts, sir. I don't know as I ever saw 'em before," said Nat thoughtfully.

"There are truths in them which cannot for a moment be set aside. Now, looking upon the matter in that light, knowing that your future life is, as it were, all marked out in the secret mind of God; how can I for a moment suppose that 'you' have any freedom or choice as to your own actions? How can I in common fairness blame you for doing that which it has been fore-ordained from all eternity that you should do? I must rather look upon you as the unhappy victim of circumstances, as a mere puppet in the hands of a superior Power, with nothing more of praise or blame attaching to anything you may do or think, than to the movements of a hammer or saw in the hands of a workman. As for believing in God's absolute power and fore-ordering of all things, and at the self same time treating you as a reasonable creature, worthy of blame or praise—why, looking upon the matter in a common-sense light, the thing seems simply impossible."

Nat fidgeted uneasily, but did not speak.

"You were saying just now that you had given notice to your landlord rather early," Mr. Prior went on. "It sounds imprudent, to be sure. But then, poor fellow, no one can dream of laying blame upon you. For it was all fore-ordained that you should give notice upon just that particular day; and if it was to be, how could you help it? How could you possibly have acted otherwise?"

Nat's bronzed cheek took a deeper hue than its wont. "Well, sir, you have me there for certain!" he said frankly.

"You say you are looking out for a cottage," continued Mr. Prior, in the same deliberate manner. "And it did occur to me that I knew of one which might just suit you."

"No! Do you, sir?"

"But I have decided that it would be quite useless trouble on my part to mention particulars. For if that identical cottage is pre-ordained to be your home, it will be your home, whether I tell you about it or no. And if it is not pre-ordained to be your home, then no words of mine or efforts of yours can make it so. Whatever the result may be, one thing is clear, and that is that nobody can be blamed."

"But, sir,—" Nat began, and paused.

"So you see it is a very simple matter, Tyrrell, looking upon it in this light. If a chosen home awaits you, that home will in time become yours. If you don't look out for one, and find yourself brought down to sleeping in the open air, why, it will no doubt be something of a trial to you and your family, but you must comfort yourself with the thought that all things are pre-ordained by God, and that you,—not being a responsible creature,—can be justly blamed by no one."

"Don't seem to me as that 'ud be much of a consolation neither," said Nat, rather humbly. "Please, sir, if you wouldn't mind after all telling me about that there cottage—"

"It is a very nice cottage," said Mr. Prior. "A particularly nice one, Tyrrell. I do most sincerely hope, for your sake, that it may prove to be your pre-ordained future home. I should advise you on your return this evening to sit quietly down, with your hands before you, and patiently await the opening out of events, through which in the course of time you will learn exactly what is to happen to you."

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think I'd be better satisfied, and not such a fool neither, if I was to see the landlord, and set the matter going,—if you'd be so very good, sir, as to tell me where that cottage is," added Nat, growing beseeching.

"Come, now, we will make an agreement. If you will do one thing for me, I will tell you what you wish."

"Anything, sir," said Nat eagerly.

"I would not promise rashly, if I were you. Of course you fully believe, Tyrrell, that all things are fore-ordained by God?"

"Seems clear enough in the Bible about that, sir, any way," said Tyrrell.

"And that every event of your future life is in His hands,—that He arranges matters, and moves the hearts of men, according to His divine will,—that you cannot take one step or lift one finger, unless He gives you power,—that nothing in heaven or earth can come about without His permission!"

"'Tis all true," Tyrrell answered.

"And yet you seem to think that you have some sort of voice in the matter,—that you have a certain freedom of will and a certain liberty of action,—that events may be brought about by yourself,—that you might be fairly blamed and might justly suffer, from refusing to take certain steps which appear to you wise and right."

Tyrrell nodded silently.

"Then, Tyrrell, there lie two great and wonderful truths side by side. Will you kindly reconcile them for me? Please to explain to me in clear terms, by the light of reason and common-sense, exactly how they both exist, and how they work. If you can reach to the bottom of this deep mystery of God, which no living man has ever yet fathomed, you shall command me to do what you will about the cottage, or any other earthly matter."

"I'll have to wait long enough for the cottage, if that has to come between," said Nat, in a low voice. "Sir, I never did see the matter in that light before, I must confess."

"Nor I neither," said Blayney.

"No, because in every-day practical matters, you put aside theory and attend to fact. You 'know' God's power to be boundless, and you pray Him to guide you in your way, and He guides you. You 'feel' you are free to act, and you act. You don't trouble your head with trying to settle exactly how far your own freedom in action may reach, or how far God chooses directly to control your mind and the minds of those about you. But when you touch upon the question of salvation, you must needs perplex your brains by trying to understand what can't be understood, and struggling to reconcile truths which God has not given us power to reconcile, till you end by putting reason in the place of faith, and working yourselves into a perfect maze. It is dangerous work, men."

"Well, sir, I believe you're about right," said Tyrrell soberly. "Maybe I've been rash in things I've said."

"As most men are who attempt to get to the bottom of these questions. It is like a bather who cannot swim, getting out of his depth in the sea. We are mere children, looking upon the outside crust of God's great universe. But mystery lies beyond wherever we turn, and deep as men fancy themselves able to dig, they still only end in mystery. As for saying we won't believe God's truths, just because we cannot understand them, that is simply and childishly absurd."

"But a great many deep thinkers do doubt," said Mona involuntarily.

"And a much greater number of shallow ones. The truth is, all these questionings are just going off from the simplicity of the Word. God's linked commands and promises are very easy to understand. 'Believe, and thou shalt be saved.' 'Ask, and ye shall receive.' It is perfectly true that you cannot act, or will to act, without grace from above. Nevertheless 'act'—don't lie helplessly on the ground—only act, ask, believe, and safety is yours."

"'Tis hard to have to make up one's mind one can't understand things," said Nat.

"May be so—to the 'pride of human intellect,' of which we hear so much in the present day. But the greatest minds are those which bow most meekly before the Word of God, and feel most deeply their own utter littleness. There is nothing for these matters but simple trust."

"Then you'd just have us shut our eyes to such difficulties in the Bible, sir," said Nat.

"No, certainly not. I would have you neither shut your eyes to them, nor shuffle over them in alarm, nor believe one side to the exclusion of the other, nor stake your faith upon the power of man to reconcile them. Don't be afraid to look the matter in the face, and to confess frankly that there are many things which you can't understand, and never will understand in this life. Only make a firm stand upon the justice, and holiness, and love of God, take each revealed truth as God has given it to you, let it lie alone where God has placed it; and be content to believe where you cannot see, waiting till fuller sight is given to you. For a time will come—and to all of us I trust—when our training as children will be over, and these perplexities shall pass away, like mist on the mountain-side, in the glorious light of our Saviour's unveiled presence."

Then after a short grave silence, Mr. Prior said cheerfully—

"And now, Tyrrell, I am ready to give you all the information in my power, about the cottage I have seen."

CHAPTER XVII.

A FOG.

UP on the top of the Dingle.

One after another arrived there, panting more or less with the scramble. It was a disappointment that the sun had vanished, and thick mists were gathering over the landscape. The children did not so much care about the lost scenery, but Madge regretted that Mona could not see her favourite view in all its beauty.

"Never mind, Madge. I'll come again some day, and mean time, I must take your word for granted," Mona said, as she sat breathlessly on a green bank. She had declined to drive up, partly from pity for the pony, partly from catching a momentary infection of the general enthusiasm, and she was one of the first to reach the top. Her white lips now made Madge uneasy.

"You're overdone, Miss Mona, I'm afraid."

"A little tired. No matter. Do you often come here, Madge?"

"I used in old days, Miss Mona—when Neill was with me. He and I'd walk it, and think nothing of the distance,—for a day's pleasuring, you know."

Mona looked into the calm face wistfully. "Madge, do you never feel impatient now to hear from him again?"

"The feeling comes,—once in a while," said Madge, plucking a small twig of budding May. "I'll hear in right good time, Miss Mona—whether I meet him in this life, or not till in the next."

Perhaps she found it a little hard to talk about him, for she moved away slowly, and the next instant, a rush of children claimed her attention. Hardly ten minutes later, Mr. Prior came up.

"Madge, it won't do to stay here. The fog is coming on fast."

She had been so busy, as not to notice how rapidly the change in the weather was taking place, and a passing look of consternation showed in her face, when she took a glance round.

"There's nothing for it but to be off as sharp as possible, sir," she said. "I never know a fog come on so quick after so bright a day."

"It will be on us completely soon. Call the children, Madge, and keep them together. We must get out of the Dingle at once."

A scramble down that rough pathway in a dense fog would be no trifle, with so many little ones in the party, and more especially for the pony and chaise. Tyrrell and Blayney, remarking on the latter point, advised that Mr. Prior should descend to the "Basin" immediately, taking down as many of the party as were already at hand. Mr. Prior would trust no one but himself at the pony's head.

The fog thickened rapidly during even that brief discussion, and wreaths of white smoke-like mist came rolling and curling around them, pouring up from the low country round the Dingle. Most of the children, being happily near at hand, were despatched at once to scramble after the sure-footed little pony, under the guardianship of Ned Blayney and his mother. Three only were missing, besides Mona, whom nobody had seen since the few words exchanged between herself and Madge. The party had scattered so widely over the hill, however, at the first moment of arrival, that it was not surprising that all did not at once respond to the call, and the two Tyrrells, with Miss Prior and Madge, remained behind to hunt up the missing individuals.

With the help of a little shouting, the children were speedily found, rather in a state of alarm at having missed their companions in the fog. They were at once sent after the rest down the hill under charge of Mrs. Tyrrell. Mona, however, was not with them. Nobody seemed to know anything about her, and very bitterly poor Madge blamed herself for not having paid more regard to her.

"Nonsense, Madge; it was the most natural thing in the world," Miss Prior said kindly. "We shall come upon her directly."

But as the minutes passed, and the fog grew more dense, and they still sought and called, and called and sought in vain, the matter began to look more serious.

"Where are you all?" in a shout from Mr. Prior, was a welcome sound to the searchers. They gathered together, unable to see each other's faces at a few yards' distance.

"Not found yet?" he asked. "This is extraordinary!"

"I can't imagine where the poor child can have wandered," said Miss Prior. "If she is near, she must hear us calling; and yet surely she would not have walked far."

"Tyrrell's gone down the side a good way, to look," said Madge. "But my fear is lest she should have slipped somewhere, sir, and maybe stunned herself."

It was the fear of all of them—that or worse. Why otherwise should she not answer?

"I trust not," he said. "But she can hardly have gone far in any case. She would never have left the hill."

They separated to search again more thoroughly,—Miss Prior, as a stranger to the ground, being left upon the summit, in case of Mona appearing there.

About ten minutes more of fruitless effort passed away. Then Madge and Mr. Prior meeting unexpectedly, stopped to speak together, and broke off with a simultaneous exclamation.

"Madge!"

"Sir!—What's that?"

"She's asleep, sir," Madge said, in utter amazement.
"It's enough to give her her death of cold."

Six steps, and they had found her,—quietly lying on the ground, with her eyes closed, and her hand under her cheek, and her black dress spreading over the grass. Their first impression was that she must have received some injury, their second, that no fall was possible in that spot. She had chosen the softest of flat mossy ground, with not a rock near.

"She's asleep, sir," Madge said, in utter amazement. "It's enough to give her her death of cold. Miss Mona, dear—do wake up now."

"It is not natural sleep, surely," said Mr. Prior, in an uneasy tone. "Mona, my dear child, you must not lie here."

She sat up wearily, in answer to their efforts, and then leant against Madge Hardwicke.

"O do let me rest a little longer—so early—and my head aches," she muttered drowsily.

"Miss Mona, dear, you're not in bed. You're up here, on the top of the hill; and you've got to come down the Dingle as quick as can be."

Mona opened her eyes more fully, and gazed round in bewilderment. "The Dingle!" she said.

"Don't you know where you are?" asked Mr. Prior.

"It's the fog confuses her," said Madge. "Isn't it, Miss Mona? You didn't think you'd wake up, and find the Dingle all misty, like this, did you?"

"Oh—fog—I see," said Mona, in a more natural voice. "How stupid of me! I thought I must be going blind at the first moment. What makes it so foggy?"

"It comes on sometimes like that," said Madge. "Do you feel better now, Miss Mona? Can you walk down the hill?"

"Why, I must have been asleep," said Mona, standing up. "How could I be so absurd! Why, Madge—"

"What made you go to sleep, Mona?" asked Mr. Prior, making her lean upon him, as they moved towards the path, while Madge went to relieve the minds of the other searchers.

"I don't know," said Mona, looking ashamed. "I think I felt dull and giddy, so I just lay down for a minute on the grass, to see if it would do me good. And the next thing I remember is, that I fancied I was being called in the morning to get up."

"You had a sound sleep at all events. Not a very safe sort of a couch to choose, though."

"No; it was stupid of me," said Mona languidly, for the exertion of walking was bringing back the feeling of sick giddiness which had assailed her before.

She had not much to say to Miss Prior, who came up the next instant, full of relief and curiosity, and rather disposed to scold playfully, till Mona's white lips stopped her.

"I'm afraid your grassy siesta hasn't been a very refreshing one," she said. "Poor child! It's of no use for you to try to walk fast. I'll go on, and tell them all that you are found, and get the children packed into the break. We had better be off as quickly as possible now. What a fog it is, to be sure!"

"It seems an unfortunate sort of ending to your bright day, Madge," said Mr. Prior.

"I wouldn't mind anything else, if Miss Mona was well," said Madge.

But Mona looked up with a smile and said, "O, I shall be all right, Madge—only sleep made me feel heavy. I have had a headache for two or three days past. The scrambling brought it on worse, I suppose,—but it isn't anything to signify."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DRIVE HOME.

THEY found that Mrs. Prior had been moved into the back seat of the chaise, where she sat with Miss Prior and Georgie, leaving the front for Mona.

"What, is she to be under my charge?" asked Mr. Prior. "Not quite fit for a turn at the reins to-day, I think, Mona."

"I should be sorry to drive in this fog," said Mona, as she took her seat. "And I wish Mrs. Prior had not moved on my account."

"Better, Mona?" asked Miss Prior from behind. "Come, you must wrap up well, or we shall have you taking cold. Here is another shawl."

She looked so much more comfortable, leaning back in the easy front seat, that Madge went off to the break in a tolerably satisfied frame of mind,—far better satisfied than Mr. Prior, who had a certain secret source of disquietude, about which Madge was ignorant. He allowed nothing of his disquietude to appear, however.

Driving through the dense fog was no easy matter. They were in danger now and then of running up a bank, or down into a ditch. The break was at first near ahead, and the children's voices floated back merrily, but the sounds grew gradually fainter as the distance widened, till at length they died away. And presently, a white light began to shine through the fog, and the dense curtain changed again into masses of curling rolls and waves.

"It will clear off now," said Mr. Prior. "Ha! That was quite a sunlight-gleam."

"It was curious your saying something about mists to the men," observed Mona.

"Did I? Yes, I remember. The Dingle valley is famous for them, which may have suggested the idea to me,—not that I expected to find myself in the midst of one so soon."

"It seems getting clearer now," said Mona.

"There is sunshine coming before long." And then with a half-smile he added, "There are other mists also, Mona, which the sun alone can disperse, and that another and a more radiant Sun than this of ours."

Conversation on different matters followed, and as the afternoon grew fairer, the drive home proved a more pleasant one than they had looked for. Mona was the silent individual of the party, but the others supposed her grave looks to arise from fatigue, and did not disturb her. They were not far from Alyn, and the occupants of the back seat were busily talking together, when Mr. Prior, after seeming for a while as thoughtful as Mona herself, remarked,—

"I am afraid your day has not been a very agreeable one after all."

"O yes, indeed it has," said Mona, starting. "At least, I am very glad I went, and heard your talk with the men."

"What conclusion have you come to in the matter?"

"I think—I have been—very foolish lately," she said, with some effort.

"'Thou knowest my foolishness,'" was the answer to this.

"Only it is hard not to be troubled by these questions sometimes."

"'Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.' David was a wise man."

"But, Mr. Prior—"

And then a pause.

"Well?" said Mr. Prior, as they passed under a low-bending larch, the boughs of which swept close over their heads.

"It seems as if one never got to the end of puzzles."

"You never will in this life. As I told you this afternoon,—go where you will, you still only end in mystery. It cannot be otherwise, with our present powers."

"But, Mr. Prior—"

"What is the difficulty now?" he asked.

"The heathen—" she said slowly. "What of them?"

"As the Lord wills," he answered gravely.

"But—doesn't it seem strange that there should be all those millions, who never had the choice given them of believing or not believing?"

"You remind me of a story I once heard. A man was cavilling at the text,—'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.' Why was it? What reason had God for doing so? 'I can tell you,' said his friend. 'Can you? Why?' '"Because He chose,"' was the answer. That is answer enough for you and me. Whatever He wills, from first to last, is righteous and holy and good."

"Yes,—I see—I know—I don't want to cavil," she said hurriedly. "But do you think—must they all perish?"

"I can tell you no more than the Bible tells me. For your comfort remember,—'He that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.'"

Mona was silent.

"You had better study the early part of the second of Romans, with reference to this subject,—not forgetting that the Gentiles were the heathen of St. Paul's day. You will find there mention of 'the righteous judgment of God, WHO WILL RENDER TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS,'—whether Jew or Gentile—'indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil,' but 'glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good.' In Revelation, we find again that the dead are to be 'judged, every man "according to their works."' Natural justice itself asks no more than this which God's Word declares."

"Mr. Prior, the heathen don't know God's will. They can't."

"Then, disobeying unknowingly, they will have the punishment of 'few stripes.' Remember too,—'These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.' Has a heathen no sense of doing right or doing wrong? Whatever perplexes you in this matter, you may always come back restfully to the plain and simple justice of the promise, that God 'will render to every man according to his deeds.'"

For some minutes, Mona thought over his words.

"But there is no other way to heaven," she said, as if carrying on a train of ideas. "I mean—except Christ."

"No other. Whether Jew or Gentile—whether babe or man—whether under law or under Gospel—none find acceptance with God save through the Son."

"Then how—then why—But I cannot understand," she said.

"There is no need that you should. 'The secret things belong unto the Lord our God,' and we cannot meddle in them without suffering hurt. This is a question about which very little has been told us. A man once went to Archbishop Whately, with his head full of some such perplexity, anxious to get the opinion of so learned a man. Whately sent him to find his answer in our Saviour's words,—'What is that to thee? Follow thou Me!'"

"Is it wrong to wish to know more?" asked Mona.

"Don't give the reins to your wish. A child cannot understand all his father's actions or motives for action, and strong curiosity may become an impertinence on his part."

Then, after a break,—

"There is a more practical light in which to view this matter. The command has been given,—'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' The real question is not, as men put it, Why doesn't God Christianise the heathen? But,—Why don't 'we' do all in our power to call lost souls into the flock of God?"

Through the last wreaths of fading mist, he pointed to a field by the road-side.

"Look there, Mona. God has given into our hands the task of seed-sowing in the material world, and He has given it into our hands in the spiritual world also. Every blade of wheat springs up just as He has fore-ordained that it should. But none the less certainly, in a field amply sown, you may fairly reckon upon a more or less ample harvest; while in a field scantily sown, a miracle alone could bring forth more than a scanty harvest."

"No,—I understand that," she said.

"Paul planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase. If Paul had not planted, nor Apollos watered, God would not have given the increase. Take a lesson from that field. You have precisely the same right to cavil at the dealings of God, in not converting the heathen nations as a body, as every farmer in the land has to cavil at the dealings of God in not bringing up a miraculous harvest of wheat, without requiring him first to sow the seed."

He let her have a minute to think it over, and then said gently, "Are you doing your utmost to save poor lost souls for whom the Saviour died?"

She shook her head. "What, Mona! When He has given His precious life for you, and suffered untold agony, to save men from eternal death, you will not even give your time to telling others of the price He paid! You are content to sit with folded hands, calmly criticising your Maker's will, in not saving you further trouble by a miracle, which in His wisdom He does not see fit to work."

He had said enough now, and he knew it, though her downcast face was turned away.

She answered presently in a stifled voice, "Thank you, Mr. Prior."

"And as for these questionings," he said quietly—"'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter,' 'Ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.' Put your trust in such promises, and rest upon the loving-kindness of the Lord. It is only for a little while,—only a little longer of child-like faith without sight,—and then all mist and darkness shall pass away for ever."

A few minutes later, they were passing up the hill, and stopped short at the garden-gate of the doctor's house.

"Better now?" Mr. Prior asked, as he handed her out. "You would not like my sister to go in, and see after you?"

"O no, thank you. There is the housekeeper, if I need anything, and uncle Chetwynd will be back directly," said Mona. "I shall try to get a good night's rest. That is what I want."

"So I hope,"—though he did not like the look of her flushed cheeks. "You are going to be a good child, and not lie awake, troubling your head with these matters any more."

"I'll try not," she said rather faintly, as she went up the garden-path beside him. "Only—I have been so wrong—"

"Just the mistake of a little child, trying to pry into matters beyond his understanding. Don't do it any more. The Master knows your weakness, and He is 'very pitiful, and of tender mercy.' Put yourself back at His feet, dear child, and don't let these things stand again in the way of your peace."

"Thank you; good-bye."

She could not have said more without bursting into tears, and hastened away as she spoke.

Mr. Prior only lingered to inquire, "Is Mr. Chetwynd at home?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know when he will return?"

"He didn't say particular, sir, as to the hour. He said he'd maybe look in upon the Rectory, and see if you was all back, and that might make him later."

Mr. Prior went thoughtfully down the garden-path. "If I can catch Chetwynd, I shall give him a warning," he said, as he resumed the reins. "Mona is very far from well."

"Just a headache from the sun," said Miss Prior. "And I should not wonder if lying on the grass in that fashion were to give her a chill."

"I shall be glad if things are no worse. I find she has been visiting in Wall's Alley, where there have been six cases of fever lately,—has seen a child sickening for it."

"You don't say so! Did she not know of the fever there?"

"I believe Mr. Chetwynd has a theory that girls are apt to catch fever through sheer nervousness, and therefore it is best to keep them in ignorance of particular cases. I hope this may prove to be nothing—but—"

They all felt that it was indeed a "but."

Mona, meanwhile, had gone up to her own room, merely telling the servant, as she passed, that she was tired and meant to go to bed, and would ring if she wanted anything. But the first thing she did when there was to take off hat and jacket, and throw herself down on her knees beside the bed. Too sick and weary for the exertion of steady thought, she did not so much pray in words, as feel herself only so utterly self-abased and worthless, that no other attitude seemed endurable. And though no connected petitions were on her lips or in her mind, yet the mere act of casting herself there in helpless lowly dependence upon her Lord, was in itself the very essence of prayer.

But an hour later, when Mr. Chetwynd came home, she had not risen. He had been made anxious by a word of warning from Mr. Prior, and came to the door to inquire if she were ill. All his tapping failed to obtain an answer.

She heard him dimly indeed, as she would have heard some far distant sound, but the power to reply seemed to have forsaken her.

He came in at length, and lifted her up, and laid her on the bed, with his hand pressing her burning forehead.

And then she knew he was asking a question—something—what was it?

"I can't talk, my head aches so," she tried to say. But other words than the ones she wanted came to her lips, and she knew by his face of concern that she was speaking utter nonsense. "I don't know what I am talking about! What makes me feel so strange?" she strove to ask.

"Hush, hush, darling; don't say that! Don't you know me, Mona?"

She was aware again that she had not said what she wished. And when she would fain have answered, "Uncle Chetwynd," the only words she could speak were, "Mother! I do so want mother's sweet cool hand."

"Hartly shall come and put you to bed," said Mr. Chetwynd, and Mona acquiesced.

But when the undressing was done, and he stood again by her side, she murmured confusedly—

"I haven't said my prayers."

"Poor child! Yes; you were kneeling down when I came in."

"I couldn't pray. Will He mind? He knows all. Won't He forgive me?"

What could Mr. Chetwynd say? This was no time for sneer or scorn. She turned her shining restless eyes full upon him.

"No, you don't believe it; you don't know. Oh, it has been dreadful. But He is tender and pitiful—tender and pitiful. Mother, say me the rest?"

What would not Mr. Chetwynd have given at that moment for power to repeat the whole verse, whatever it might be!

"I want to hear it all. I think I have forgotten it lately. Prying into matters too hard for me. But Jesus knows my foolishness, doesn't He?—So foolish and ignorant. He is tender and pitiful. Don't you think He will forgive me, though I could not ask Him rightly?"

And Mr. Chetwynd started at the sound of his own voice, saying steadily, "Yes, I am sure of it, Mona."

But what if he had spoken a truer word then than for many a year past?

All through the long hours of the night he watched by the side of the fever-stricken girl. The look of deep care which came and settled down upon his face, was the same as that with which he had summoned Madge Hardwicke on the morning of the fatal railway accident.

CHAPTER XIX.

A BLOW.

"FATHER, it's been just the nicest day I ever had in all my life," cried little Nannie eagerly, as she rushed into the cottage; and it was a rare thing for Nannie to have spirits to rush anywhere. "Such games down in the Dingle, all of us together, and—oh! father, only think—there was Mr. Prior and all of 'em in the carriage, with a real great hamper of things for all of us to eat. And we had such fun on the grass. O father, it's been just beautiful."

"Nasty foggy sort o' day," growled Amos.

"Ah, but the fog didn't last long, did it, father? I think 'twas all the more fun driving home, when we couldn't see our way. And d'you know they lost the pretty young lady for ever so long, and found her asleep on the grass, 'cause Madge told me."

"Yer can hold yer clack," said Amos ungraciously, not being of a sympathising turn of mind. He did not like to think of the provisions which she had had, and he had missed.

"And the parson made me a beautiful basket out of the peel of my orange," pursued Nannie, too happy to repress her delight at a moment's notice.

"Didn't cost him nothin'," said Amos.

"Ah! But he's as kind—as kind—" repeated Nannie. "And the lady that's come to the Rectory played some games with us, and then we all went up the Dingle."

A grunt was the response. Nannie's excitement was fast cooling. She gave one little patient sigh, as she lighted the tallow dip in the disjointed tin candlestick, thereby revealing a small sombre room of generally musty scent and comfortless aspect. Amos had chosen to close the rickety shutter before her arrival, thus cutting off the last remains of twilight. What a contrast to the Dingle, with its green carpet spreading out in the sunshine.

Nannie felt sobered all at once—hardly knowing why. She talked no more of the day's pleasure, but quietly took out her Testament, and began to learn her next Sunday-school lesson—a text and part of a hymn printed upon a small leaflet. But Amos interposed.

"I say—"

"Yes, father."

"Yer can stop that now."

"I'm only learning for Sunday-school," said Nannie timidly.

"I ain't ageing to have ye wastin' candles over that sort o' work. Get away to bed."

Nannie knew that remonstrance would be useless. She closed her Testament, and put it away quietly. And then, by a sudden impulse, she crept close up to his side. Such an unattractive repellent old man—the marvel was that she cared for him at all. And yet she loved him.

"Father—" she said.

"Tell ye, yer can get to bed," said Amos, jerking his thumb in the direction of Nannie's sleeping apartment.

"Mayn't I say one thing first?" asked Nannie, with a little heart which fluttered and yet was brave.

"Don't care!" said Amos surlily.

"Father, I ain't sure as you'll like it," said Nannie. "But I've been thinking ever so about you to-day,—and I've prayed you may love God,—but I'm so feared every morning that maybe it's the Resurrection-Day, and if you don't make haste, you won't be in time. I'd want the Day to come, but for that. O father—please!"

The little upturned face was touching in its humility. She had no thought of setting him right, or of interfering in matters which did not concern her. It was only that she was so anxious and frightened for him, that she could not help trying a few beseeching words.

But Amos Ackman was not in a state of mind to bear them patiently. Nannie received no answer in speech. His right arm and leg were thrust out sharply at the same moment, towards the slight figure of the little girl beside him. Not that he meant to hurt her. It was just a momentary outbreak of his crusty vicious temper. The candle was struck down and extinguished, and Nannie was flung away—somewhere—he did not know where, only he heard the sound of her heavy fall.

A fall, and then silence. Not a moan or a murmur broke in upon that stillness. A pin-fall would have sounded distinctly through the room. How dark it was! Only a glimmer of departing twilight crept in through the loosely-shuttered window. Amos did so wish he had not put up the shutter that evening. But he did not dare to go and remove it. He did not dare to lift a finger. He did not dare to leave his seat, for if he moved, he must needs go and see after little Nannie.

And the thought of that was dreadful to him. Amos Ackman was a coward at heart. He remembered the words Madge Hardwicke had once uttered,—"Thank God He's kept you from being a downright murderer."

Was he a murderer now? Nannie was lying somewhere on the floor in that small room—lying dead! Amos felt quite sure on that point. He had no doubt at all about the matter. The force of his own blow, as it had come back to his ears, and the sound of her heavy helpless fall, and the silence following, all told the same tale. Nannie was surely dead.

And he was her murderer! It was her own father's arm which had struck the brutal coward-blow. Her own father, whom little Nannie had always loved so well. What a gentle little girl she had been to him for years past, and especially of late! She had borne his rough usage with such patience and fortitude, clinging to him so tenderly through all. How bitterly he had seen her cry over his harsh treatment of her, and yet how ready she had been in the very midst of her tears to run and do his bidding.

And "his" arm had struck the blow. It came over him all at once, what a strange and terrible sight that little room would present to any one looking in. He pictured it to himself vividly, as he sat staring into the darkness, with drops coming thickly out upon his clammy face. The broken wooden dresser on one side, with two mugs and three cracked blue plates upon it. And the rickety round table in the middle. And the two chairs, one having lost a leg, and the other having lost half its back. And the old battered saucepan hanging up upon the wall, and the blackened pipe upon the narrow mantel-shelf, and the dirty stew pan lying down below in the fender among the cold embers. And the figure of the wretched bent old man, cowering and shaking on his three-legged stool. And the lifeless form of the little child, lying upon the floor.

Amos saw it all in his mind, and he was glad that he had put up the shutter after all. There was a sort of shelter in the darkness. He felt that nobody could possibly look in and see what had taken place. By-and-by, as daylight dawned, people would come and find out all, and Amos would be dragged away to prison, and had up before the magistrates, and then—why, then, if they did not contrive to bring him in as insane, which Amos felt quite sure was not the truth, he knew the alternative. It was very dreadful to think of all these things as coming upon him, but still now—just now—he felt relieved to know that nobody could look in through the darkness.

Nobody! What of ONE.

Amos started and shuddered. For happening to glance up, his eye was caught by the steady shining of one brilliant star—a planet rather, but it was all the same to Amos—the beams of which came through a hole in the closed shutter, straight to where he sat.

   "The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good."

   "The darkness hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee."

Where had he heard those fearful words? What was there in the shining of that star to bring them to his mind? Were those the verses little Nannie had been conning over so busily in her low clear tones the previous Sunday evening? He had listened a minute or two, and then had struck her book angrily out of her hand, and sent her off supperless to bed. He had little thought those words would ever come back to him—words he had learnt at his own mother's knee in early boyhood, and had long since forgotten. And here they were in strong living power ringing in his ears.

   "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."

   "The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee!"

Then His Eyes were there, beholding the little room and all it contained. Darkness could make no difference. Darkness was clear as noonday to those all-seeing Eyes.

Amos could not stand the radiance of that star. He pushed his stool a little on one side, so that he was not able to see it. But he wanted to know soon if it were still there, so he pushed his stool back again. And next he wanted to know if the star were shining on the spot where Nannie lay. He half rose from his seat to go and see, and then he was afraid, and sat down again.

   "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion."

What had brought "that" into his head now? He did not remember hearing Nannie say it. Possibly he had, however, and that was how it had come back to him. It was too bad. Amos hated having those texts ringing in his cars. He would take care Nannie should go no more to the Sunday-school, and then she would not pester him with them. No, nor to Madge Hardwicke's either. Nannie should stay at home and be busy. He would have no more nonsense.

Nannie stay at home! Nannie not go to the Sunday-school! Why, he had forgotten! What could he be thinking about? If Nannie were dead, what had she to do any more with Sunday-school or Madge?

Amos groaned, and let his face drop down in his bony hands. He had nobody to help him. He thought how Madge Hardwicke would pray if she were in trouble, but he knew nothing of prayer. He had scorned all notion of religion. Prayer was a foreign language to him altogether. Nobody to help him now. Nobody to love him ever again. Nat Tyrrell would never speak to him after this, and Nat Tyrrell was his only friend. He had dashed aside the love of the one frail little creature, who had held to him so steadfastly. And now—nothing was left to him.

"Father!"

A cold touch came upon his hand in the dark. Amos started back violently in his fear. The old ignorant superstitious man did not think it was Nannie herself come to see him, in the poor little body which he had used so badly, but something of a spirit form—something dreadful, unnatural, terrible. He was ready to believe anything that night.

It was Nannie's own little voice, however, which said again—

"Father." And then, as she felt how he shook and trembled before her, she added, "What's the matter, father?"

"'Taint Nannie, sure," said Amos hoarsely. "I—I wish yer 'd get along."

"Why, father, don't you know me?" asked Nannie. "I couldn't think what you was after, when I got up, and saw you sitting there."

For early dawn was stealing in through the closed shutters, and the long night-hours had passed away somehow. Amos did not know how. He never would know. He might have lived through ten years, or only ten minutes, since the evening before. It was all the same to him. He could have believed either assertion.

Nannie went and opened the closed shutters with her little feeble hands, which had not much of even their usual strength in them this morning. Then she came back again, and for the first time he ventured to look at her.

"I'd been thinkin' I'd killed you outright, Nan," he muttered. "I ain't agoin' to knock you down again, though,—and I didn't mean to then, neither."

"Won't you do it, father, even if I speak to you about the Lord Jesus once in awhile?" asked little Nannie, true even in her pain and weakness to her constant aim, as the needle to the pole.

"I'll let yer say what yer likes," returned Amos. "Be you very bad, Nan?"

Nannie's white drooping face looked up with a brave smile. "I'll be better soon, father. I'll go and lie down a bit, 'cause I'm so tired. But we ain't going to tell nobody about to-night."

"They'd have me took up an' punished, sure enough, if 'twas known," said Amos in fear.

"No, nobody ain't to know," repeated Nannie. "I think I've been stunned, you know, but I'll be better by-and-by. And you're going to love me now, ain't you, please?"

She leant against him feebly. "I've been a bad father to yer, Nannie, I have," he said self-reproachfully.

And then, with a gentle kiss—the first she had dared to give him for a long while past—she walked away and laid herself down on the little palliasse which formed her bed. And Nannie probably knew scarcely better than did Amos himself that the long unconsciousness which followed was not sleep, but alternate fainting and stupor. Poor little Nannie! She had no one to help her in her need, so she only lay in patient meek endurance.

Somewhere about nine o'clock Madge Hardwicke came to the door.

"Amos—up, are you?" she said. "Where's Nannie?"

"Asleep, an' you'd best leave her," said Amos, not caring that the two should meet sooner than was needful.

"Maybe the little lass is tired with yesterday. 'Twas something new for her, and she don't look well neither of late. Tell her from me, will you, Amos, that I'm called off down in the town, and maybe won't be back a good many days."

Amos concealed his satisfaction. "What's the matter? Doctor wants yer, eh?"

"Miss Clyde's down with the fever. Will you give a truthful message for me, Amos? Tell Nannie she's to pray. Poor young lady. I doubt me but it's a bad case, and the doctor's nigh heart-broken already."

"I'll give yer message," said Amos, anxious to have her gone.

And Madge withdrew, marvelling much what could have made him so unlike himself.

CHAPTER XX.

SUNSET CLOUDS.

A BEAM of setting sunlight came slanting through the lattice-window of Nannie's tiny bedroom, and fell athwart her palliasse. She was lying there as she had taken to doing lately, not undressed, but just resting patiently, with one little thin hand folded over the other, and her wistful eyes travelling to and fro over the bare walls and cobwebbed ceiling. The gleam of red light brought a sudden look of pleasure into her face.

"O it's pretty. Father, ain't it pretty?"

"Eh, Nan? Did yer call?" asked Amos, shuffling in hurriedly, in his uncouth fashion.

"Ain't that a pretty bit of sunlight, father?"

Amos looked hard without discovering any particular beauty, but said,—"Sure, yes, 'tis,"—in uncertain tones, wishing to humour her.

"Don't it seem long since Madge went down into the town?" said Nannie with a sigh, as a tinge of deeper crimson crept into the red.

"Fortnight to-day," said Amos.

"And the pretty young lady is just as ill as ever," said Nannie sorrowfully.

"Well, I don't know as she ain't better this afternoon, but Tyrrell he telled me this mornin' that the doctors said if the fever didn't turn soon, as how she'd die."

"Madge said I was to pray, didn't she?" said Nannie, putting the same question which she had put twenty times before in the last fortnight.

Amos nodded. He could feel no possible doubt now that he had delivered Madge Hardwicke's message faithfully.

"But maybe it 'ud be better for her, if she wasn't to get well," said Nannie thoughtfully.

Amos did not feel himself called upon to hazard an opinion in the matter. He waited a moment, and then, finding that she did not speak again, went back to his bench. Nannie rose, and followed him out slowly.

"Eh, Nan,—so here yer are," said Amos, looking up. "Seems yer pickin' up again."

Nannie smiled thought she did not acquiesce in words. "Will you have me read to you, father?"

Amos could not refuse. She had fallen into the habit of reading a chapter aloud to him, morning and evening, and though he never troubled himself to listen particularly, he rather liked the sound of her voice. It gave him a lulled sensation which was akin to repose, and therefore agreeable.

So the little brown Testament came out, and Nannie read on for a while, in her soft monotonous tones.

Amos worked steadily, and heard in a certain fashion, without paying any close attention. When there came a pause, he looked up, and said,—

"Yer a clever Nan to read so pretty,—that's what yer be."

"Father, ain't the words beautiful?" said Nannie wistfully.

"Sure, yes," said Amos rather uneasily, for he had not the remotest idea what they had been about.

"O father, I wish you cared," said Nannie sadly. "It don't seem to be nothing to you. And I'd sooner have you love God, than anything else in all the world."

The red gleams of sunlight faded away, as the sun dipped down behind the horizon-line of the clear blue water,—not behind West Point at this time of the year. The dark headland shone like burnished armour in the yellow glow, till the evening shade crept over its brightness, and left it gray and cold again. But the clouds were torn about in fantastic shapes of wildest beauty; and every pyramid, peak, and mountain, up in that watery land, was tinged or deeply dyed with crimson and purple and gold. The very air seemed filled with a rich pervading red, and Nannie's little white cheeks looked almost healthy for once, as she sat there, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous view before her.

"Father," she said suddenly,—"don't you think it'll be like that when He comes?"

"Eh?" said Amos, looking down at Nannie.

"He'll come in the clouds of heaven, you know," said Nannie softly. "The Lord Jesus, father. He'll come riding in the clouds, with thousands and thousands all in shining white coming after Him. O father, I'd like so to hear the trumpet, and to see Him,—if only I just knowed you'd be caught up with me to meet Him."

"Caught up?" said Ackman. She was talking a foreign language to poor old Amos.

"Up in the air," said Nannie, her face shining as if it had caught a reflection of the western sky. "All that's loved Him, you know, father. He'll call up first them that's died, out of their graves, and then all of us that's alive—we'll go up, up, through the air to meet Him. And He'll make us beautiful like He is,—all in one moment. And oh, father,—think how He'll smile!"

"Don't know," said Amos slowly, looking subdued. "Seems to me He wouldn't do aught but frown on me, Nan, for nigh a-murderin' of you."

"O father! But He's died for you too, and He loves you," said little Nannie confidently. "And He'll put His Spirit into your heart, if you ask Him, and then you'll be quite different."

"Need be, sure enough," said Amos. "Why, Nan, I'd be awful feared to see all you're a-telling me of." Something in the child's earnest face and manner brought it home to the old man's heart, as it had never come home before. His bony hands shook nervously, and his deep-set eyes peered up at the clouds, as if he almost expected there and then to see an avenging angel's sword flash forth through the radiant air.

"Maybe now, father, 'cause you don't know the Lord Jesus," said Nannie gently. "I'd a deal of fear once too. I used to think dying in a bed all quiet wouldn't be half so bad. It seemed to me as if the great trumpet 'ud sound so awful—and then the bright light, and the ground shaking, and Him coming in such glory, with the clouds and the angels, and all the white shining and dazzling,—I was ever so feared to think of it all."

"When you was naughty?" demanded Amos, with a glance towards his own troubled conscience.

"Why—yes, father; and pretty near always that was too. It used to seem to me as if I was so small and poor, that maybe among such a lot as He'd have to catch up into glory, I'd just be forgotten and left behind. But I know a deal better now. The Lord Jesus forget! Why, father," and Nannie smiled a bright, almost amused smile,—"why, father, 'twas the strangest thought ever anybody had, to think He could 'forget,' after dying for me."

Amos looked at her in wonder. How came this little child to know so much, when he, an old man of many long and weary years, knew so little?

"And then I'll have the mark in my forehead, Madge says, for the angels to know me," Nannie went on. "Maybe they'd know without, that the Lord Jesus loved me, but that 'll make it all as sure as can be. And then, you know, father, I don't see how I'll be able to be frightened, 'cause it won't be a strange dreadful Judge coming, like He'll be to some people, but only just my own Lord Jesus, that's loved me such a while. I couldn't be frightened to see Him, could I? And Parson says He smiles so on the little children. But,—oh, father, I'd be so happy if I didn't be afraid He wouldn't be able to smile on you, 'cause you won't come to Him now."

And Nannie put her head down on her father's knee, and burst into tears. Old Amos was strangely moved. He could not bear to see Nannie's distress, and he shrank in terror from the thought of what might come upon himself. How could he, poor miserable old man, stained darkly through and through with the unwashed sins of over three-score years, dare to meet the Face of Kingly glory, for which little Nannie so eagerly waited?

"I don't know nothin', Nan, but I'll do what you tells me," he said brokenly. "Maybe your Lord Jesus wouldn't mind if I was to ask Him to put me right somehow; only I don't know how, Nan. I be an awful wicked old fellow, Nan."

"We'll come right in, and ask Him now, father," said Nannie, rising up and pulling at his sleeve.

"Father!" A cold touch came upon his hand in the dark.
Amos started back violently in his fear.

Amos was fain to follow her, though with a half-bewildered look. He was too stiff himself to kneel, but he let little Nannie kneel beside him, and plead in her simple earnest language, that "God would have mercy on poor father, and send His Holy Spirit into father's heart, and wash away all his sins in Jesus Christ's blood." And then Nannie looked up and whispered, "Just say after me, father,—'For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen;' 'cause that 'll mean you really wants it ever so."

"For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen," repeated Amos slowly, like one stumbling out a few syllables in an unknown tongue. "Sure enough, an' I do want it too. But I say, I don't feel different yet, like you said I would be."

"Ah, but it'll come," said Nannie gently. "We'll go on asking till it does."

Then Nannie kissed him, as she had often done of late, and went away to her own room.

Amos crept after her in a little while, hardly knowing why, and found her lying there in the twilight, with her hands folded together, and her eyes looking up to the rough rafters overhead.

"What are yer a-seeing, Nan?" he asked half fearfully. Something in her face gave him a strange feeling of uneasiness, for which he could not account to himself.

"I'm only thinkin', father, how I'd like to hear the angels' song to-night," said Nannie, smiling.

"Wish yer wouldn't talk like that," said Amos, fidgeting.

"Why, father,—they're singin' about you!" said Nannie.

Amos gave a startled look up and around, as if he expected to catch an echo of the wondrous chorus. But the fretting of a bough against the cottage-roof was the only sound which came to his ears; and rather relieved, though disappointed, he said, "Yer a-dreaming, Nan; I don't hear nothin'."

"They're singing," said Nannie quietly; "'cause the Bible says so, father. Leastways, it says there's joy among the angels, you know, soon's ever anybody turns to God."

Amos did not know anything about it, but he only asked, rather fearfully, "Do you hear them, Nan?"

"No, father; not yet awhile," said Nannie. "Maybe I will soon."

And then she shut her eyes, and went peacefully off to sleep.

But Amos stood looking at her for some minutes, thinking how changed she had grown of late. He wished Madge Hardwicke would come home, and tell him whether she needed anything doing to her. She seemed to have faded into such a white frail shadow of a child these last few days. She never complained of pain, and only lay about because she was "so tired." But somehow, Amos could not overcome the impression that all was not quite right with her.

CHAPTER XXI.

"O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH."

THROUGH fourteen weary days and nights Mona had tossed and murmured ceaselessly, in burning fever and delirium. And then came the longed-for sleep, quieting down the throbbing pulses, and hushing the wearing pain. For hours she lay in that deep heaven-sent repose, while the flush faded from her check, and the look of suffering from her brow.

Just when little Nannie was enjoying the bright western colouring, and when Madge, in her silent watch, had noticed how even the dim sick-room was gaining a reflection of the outer glow, there came for the first time some words in a clear and natural though feeble voice.

"Madge, what makes the air so full of red?"

It had been "mother" instead of Madge, during the last fortnight, and in truth not even Mona's own mother could have nursed her with more devoted tenderness.

"It's the sunset, Miss Mona," Madge said gently, while her heart beat fast with joyful relief.

A glass of pale liquid on the table awaited this moment of first awakening. It was given and taken, and then Mona said drowsily, "I should like to see the shining on the water."

She was asleep again before Madge needed to answer, and through the two nights and days following, the same calm slumber lasted. They could scarcely rouse her at intervals sufficiently to receive needful nourishment. Fair and pale as a snow-drop she lay there, with one white cheek resting lightly on her wasted hand. And the somewhat oppressed and troubled look, which had been visible in her first sleep, was exchanged now for an expression of such complete repose, that Madge bent many a time over the bed, to listen anxiously for the calm breathing which never failed to reassure her.

Nearly forty-eight hours had elapsed since the red sunset, when Mona showed symptoms at length of fairly waking up. Mr. Chetwynd was out, but the ever-watchful Madge was at hand with proper nourishment, delicately prepared and served. Mona seemed ready to take any amount, but she obeyed when told she had had enough, and only said, "Come and sit down beside me."

"Won't you go to sleep again, Miss Mona?"

"I'm not sleepy—I am wide awake. Madge, have I been very ill?"

"Yes, but thank God, you're better now, Miss Mona."

A sigh answered her. Madge kept silence, but Mona was evidently in a talking mood, for she soon began again—

"I can't remember things clearly. I wish I could. It seems to me as if the last clear thing was that drive from the Dingle."

"You were taken ill that very evening, Miss Mona; and Mr. Prior's been twice a day since to ask after you, and has prayed many a time by your bedside."

"Has he? I am glad," said Mona involuntarily. "But—uncle Chetwynd—"

"He never spoke a word against it, Miss Mona, though he held back from joining."

"Madge—have I talked a great deal?" asked Mona suddenly.

"Pretty well, Miss Mona. But I wouldn't begin thinking and speaking about all that now, if I was you. It's bad for your head. You'd better rest."

"No—I have had rest—I am better now. I wish you would come here and sit close beside me. I want to tell you something."

Madge changed her position at once, putting aside her work, and letting Mona's head rest upon her arm.

"Yes, that is nice. Mother used to do just so, last time I was ill. I've seen her so often lately, Madge—not really of course, but—O Madge—do you think—"

"Yes, dear Miss Mona."

"Am I wrong?" whispered Mona. "I did think I was going home to mother—and I can't be glad now."

Madge's cool fingers were passed lightly over her brow.

"It's best to be willing to wait the Master's own time, Miss Mona."

"I think it is hard not to wish," said Mona.

"Maybe the Lord 'll have you wait, dear Miss Mona, till it's Himself and not your mother that makes the glory and joy of your heaven."

"Ah, but it is—it is that too," said Mona quickly. "Not enough, I know—but I have learnt more of Him now than I knew before."

Then, after a little break, during which Madge expected that something else was coming—"I want to tell you a sort of dream I had."

"Wouldn't it be better to wait till you're stronger, Miss Mona?"

"No, I am not tired. It will do me good to talk." She spoke so quietly and firmly, that Madge fancied it might be so indeed, and did not oppose her.

"I don't know when it was, or whether I was wandering or asleep, Madge. I have had so many fancies and dreams that I get puzzled among them, only this was quite different from all the rest. I thought I was out alone in a little boat on the sea—such a wild rough sea. The great waves were rising and falling, and flinging their spray all over me, and breaking up against one another in the mad sort of way they do out beyond the Point on a stormy day. It was such spray, and the mist was so thick, that I was half-blinded, and so tired and cold and sad, that I seemed to have no strength to row. Just as I have often felt. And all sorts of dreadful thoughts and feelings of doubt kept rising up, and I had no power to conquer them.

"And all at once I saw a dark gloomy figure coming towards me over across the water—softly, slowly, with such an awful stillness, and long black robes sweeping down into the waves, which seemed to lull before him as he came. Madge, you don't know how frightened I was. For I knew I could not escape. I knew quite well that what I saw was the Angel of Death, coming to take me. I had not been afraid of death in my illness before that, but now in the midst of doubt, and thick mist, and dashing waves, it seemed terrible. And there was the bright sword gleaming in his hand in the moonlight, and his face was all muffled up, but I knew how stern it must be behind. And he never moved faster, but came slowly, slowly and steadily on, straight towards me, with the waves all still beneath his feet, but dashing more wildly than ever round me. Madge, do you see it all as I saw it?"

"I'm thinking I do, Miss Mona."

"He came closer and closer, and I knew I had no way of escape. It was quite hopeless. And I think gave one shriek of fear, as the hem of the dark heavy robe first touched me—so heavy and cold it felt. But then—then—oh, Madge!"

"Yes, Miss Mona, dear."

"Madge, if you could have seen as I did. He threw aside slowly, quietly, the dark cloak, and underneath was all one glory of dazzling kingly garments. And the shining sword, as I had thought it, was only a sceptre. And He let me see His face, which had been covered up—and oh, Madge, it was Himself!—my Lord! And I knew then that the Death-Angel was no stranger, but my own Master who loved me, and who had come, as I thought, to take me home. Madge, I wish He had. I wanted so to go. And the way He took me up in His arms, and held me, and smiled down on me, with a smile so sweet and bright that I could scarcely face it,—I don't know how I bore at that moment to think how I had doubted Him, and dared to question His doings. And the next thing was that I found myself down at His feet, clinging there, and trying to sob out a prayer for forgiveness—"

Mona was crying so that she could scarcely speak. "No, let me go on," she said, when Madge would have interposed. "I must tell you, and it won't hurt me. You don't know how terrible it was to me to think of the last few months—and it seemed as if I remembered everything clearly at that moment. And I knew He knew it too—and I dreaded even then that His anger might be coming. But instead of anger, He only said in the gentlest, tenderest tone of reproach—'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?'"

"And He does say it to each one of us," murmured Madge. "He's every bit the same now as in Peter's days."

"I knew it meant forgiveness," said Mona. "And I thought He was going to take me up, and carry me away with Him. For the mist had cleared off in His presence, and I could catch a glimpse of glory shining over the mountains in the distance. And I knew that my Home lay beyond, and that mother was there too. But He only laid His hand on my head, and said still more sweetly—'My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' And then when I looked up, He was gone, and the mist had disappeared, and the water was still, so I just lay down in my boat, and went to sleep. And the next time I woke up, I found myself in bed, with a strange red look in the air, and you beside me. I knew then that I was getting well. O Madge, was it all a dream, or did I see Him really?"

"'Twas a word of comfort sent to your heart, anyway, Miss Mona. I'd take it so, and doubt no more."

"And you don't think I am wrong to wish I were safe out of all the fighting?"

"Maybe a little wanting in courage, dear Miss Mona. I do think the Lord likes us to want to be with Him, and to see His glory. But it wouldn't do neither in a battle, if all the soldiers were crying out that they were so tired of fighting, they wanted to go straight home and rest. I don't know how ever the victory would be won. I think the Captain would say—'Fight on, my lads, and conquer first, and then 'll come your rest.' And the Master has a right to look for us to be willing and glad to do His work, so long as He has work He wants us to do. Home 'll be all the happier after, for the waiting."

"Don't you ever feel impatient?" asked Mona.

"I've three sorts of feelings about it, Miss Mona. One is, I've a wish to stay here just as long as my Master wills I should. Another is, I've a deal of longing to see His Face. Another is, I can't help thinking how now's the very last time through all Eternity that I'll be able to show Him my love, by bearing pain and trouble for His sake. There 'll be service and praise in Heaven, but there 'll be no showing of patience, under pain and sorrow, to honour His Name. I don't know as I'd wish to have it over-much shortened, though I'll be right glad too, when the day comes to go Home. But 'tis sweet to be waiting and bearing for Him now."

"I never thought of that," said Mona. "And I have borne so little for His sake, and hardly worked for Him at all. Madge, I think you have made me glad that He has not taken me away just yet."

And Mona fell asleep again, with her head on Madge Hardwicke's arm, and a smile upon her lips. She did not know how Madge sat there, and prayed that she might be kept by the "Keeper of Israel" through all the dangers and difficulties of her future Homeward journey.

CHAPTER XXII.

WARNING.

"MADGE, she is wonderfully better," said the doctor one evening, two or three days later. He had called Madge into his study, for some purpose unknown to herself, leaving the housekeeper in charge of Mona, and had bidden her take a seat. There was a small fire in the grate, and the doctor's fingers were turning up the lamp-wick.

"She is getting on marvellously,—seems to have no end of capacities for sleeping and eating. Poor little Mona! I hardly thought at one time that we should pull her through."

Madge was silent. The doctor brought his attention to bear upon her somewhat curiously, wondering what thoughts might belying beneath those intent gray eyes.

"The fact is, your care and splendid nursing have saved her, Madge, as they have saved many a patient of mine before to-day. But I never thanked you so heartily as now."

Silence still, and there was a troubled look on Madge Hardwicke's face.

"What are you thinking about?" the doctor asked, with a puzzled air.

"I'm thinking, sir, that I'd sooner you hadn't begun with all them kind words to me," said Madge quietly, "for I'd a thing I wanted to say to you, as wouldn't sound so kind back again."

"You!" said the doctor, opening his eyes. "You're mysterious to-night. I've a thing to say to you too. But you shall have your turn first. By the bye, you don't mean anything about Miss Mona,—any fresh symptoms?"

"No, sir. I think she is getting on as well as need be."

"All right. I don't mind anything else. What is it, Madge?"

Madge looked thoughtfully into the fire for a minute, during which he watched her rather comically. There were tears shining in her eyes, when she turned and faced him.

"Sir, all through the last fortnight you and I've been many a time together by Miss Mona's side, and heard the poor lamb's mutterings and ravings. And though I've said no word to you, nor you to me, we both know well what 'twas all about."

Mr. Chetwynd nodded. He had not expected this, and did not quite know how to meet what he guessed was coming.

"And you know, sir,—maybe a deal better than I do, for all she's said,—what it was that brought her so much misery."

"Poor little lassie!" he said, with would-be lightness. "Come, I acknowledge that I have been rather reckless in my remarks before her. Will that content you, Madge?"

She passed over the last question as if it had not been spoken. "Sir, it's a deal more than that. It's Satan's own work you've been after,—going and putting your doubts and unbelief into the hearts of those whom the Lord would fain have to be peaceful and happy. It's the work of Satan that you've taken up,—and oh, sir, you'll find him one day a hard and bitter taskmaster, letting alone the judgments of the Lord Himself upon those who dare to meddle in His work."

She spoke solemnly, yet with a strange sort of compassionate longing, as if it were rather for his sake than for Mona's that the words were uttered. The doctor positively could not find it in his heart to be angry, though he told himself that he ought.

"You are hard upon me, Madge," he said. "Are rational men never to admit a doubt, where doubts exist?"

"There's two sorts of doubtings, sir. I've nought of blame for them of the Master's weaker disciples, who are tempest-tossed, and buffeted about by Satan's temptations. I tell 'em only to fight and trust on, and in the end He'll bring them through. But there's another sort of doubting, that's just a cool pulling to pieces of God's Word, and upsetting this, and denying that,—and a deal of it only from a man's love of showing his own cleverness. The Lord has one word for all such,—'He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.' It's a plain word, sir,—and it's a plain and fearful answer He'll have for all such in time to come."

"Come, come, don't be unmerciful, Madge," said the doctor, speaking lightly still, though somewhat annoyed. "I'm not one of those folks who would throw over the Bible by any means. Don't I go to Church every Sunday of my life, and hear it read,—most devoutly I assure you? I look upon it as a highly valuable and useful volume in every sense, and couldn't do without it at all. Why, Madge, don't you know I have family prayers?"

"Yes, sir. But the Bible you couldn't do without, sir, is a piecemeal Bible of your own, and not God's Word as He has given it to us. Like as if I was ill, and you were to give me a prescription to make me well, and I was to say,—'No, I'll leave out this and that, lest they're a mistake, and have the rest made up, and take it,'—and then was to blame you for not curing me, if I found myself dying for want of the right treatment! It wouldn't be 'your' prescription at all that I'd followed, if I didn't take the whole."

"You're too clever a woman by half, Madge!" said the doctor.

Madge always held to a straightforward course in conversation, and was not to be turned aside. "Sir, you know well enough I'm a poor ignorant woman, and haven't half your learning. But maybe there are things in the hidden life, which I have learnt afore you."

"Well, well, perhaps I shall learn them too some day," said the doctor, hoping to silence her. "Come, I know what you are driving at. I'll promise you to guard my words most carefully for the future, in Miss Mona's presence. I see the thing won't do. Why, you might have the common-sense to know I should do it, for the sake of her health alone. She will be unequal to any agitation for a long while to come. Are you satisfied now?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Chetwynd looked at her in surprise. "Not! What next?"

"I've no right to say more," Madge answered sorrowfully. "Save that you're always so kind to me, I wouldn't dare to venture. But 'tis that very kindness makes it harder to bear, to see you hanging over a great gulf, and maybe any moment to go down—down—for ever."

He positively gave a half-shiver, and then laughed. "Madge, you really are preposterous. But don't think I'm angry. This isn't the first attempt you have made, at converting me to your own views."

"'Tis the Bible views, not mine, that I'd see you converted to, sir."

"Why, Madge, haven't I just been telling you that I do read the Bible, and value it too?"

"Maybe you do, sir. I've nought to say against that. But you might go a deal farther in the way of reading and valuing, and yet be no nearer heaven."

"Come, Madge, come,—what right have you to say I'm not so near as you are yourself?" asked the doctor, somewhat nettled.

"There's but one road to eternal life, sir," Madge answered. "It is not reading the Bible, but believing what's written, which takes a man to heaven."

"'I' don't disbelieve the Bible, Madge," said the doctor.

"You don't believe it, sir, if you please."

Mr. Chetwynd shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Go on, Madge; I see you are determined to have your say, and I owe you too much to grumble."

"Sir, I've no thought to take advantage of that, and I would grieve to be of a meddlesome or judging spirit," said Madge gently. "But maybe you'll let me put a question to you."

Mr. Chetwynd nodded permission, and waited.

Madge did not speak in a hurry; it was not her way.

"Sir, you say you believe the Bible—or leastways, you say you don't disbelieve it, which isn't at all the same thing. But will you please tell me, or tell yourself—it don't matter which—what 'do' you believe in the Bible, sir?"

The question came very calmly and softly. It sounded so simple that he smiled at first and said, "To be sure I will; let me think a moment."

But when he came to consider, he found the matter not quite so easy. Those gray eyes opposite, watching and waiting, disturbed the current of his thoughts. It was more easy to generalise than to descend to particulars. He ran over a few ideas in his mind, but could at such short notice discover no satisfactory answer. He had set up a very comfortable little religion of his own, founded upon certain doctrinal theories, most of which he vaguely believed were to be found in the Bible. Only there were undoubtedly a good many other things to be found there as well, which certainly would not square with the said private theological system of his own, and which, therefore, in plain terms, he did not believe.

"It is getting late, Madge," he said, with some impatience in his tone. "Hardly time to enter upon a discussion on that point to-night, I think. At all events, I believe a good many things which you believe, and possibly some which you don't. Is your conscience satisfied now?"

The last words were pleasantly uttered. Madge rose obediently, but lingered still for a moment.

"It isn't to satisfy my conscience, sir, that I've spoken, but because I couldn't hold in any longer; and I've said little now that I'd like to say. Maybe you'll think it over, when you've spare time, and see how the Bible is the Word of God Himself, and how, if you do believe it, you can't go right against its plain teaching. Maybe you'll remember, sir, that there's no middle way for any man, and a half-and-half belief is as bad as no belief at all."

"And what if I do not believe the Bible, Madge?"

The question came involuntarily. He had not meant to ask it.

The answer was in a tone of deep compassion.

"Then, sir, there's nothing left to you—no hope, no pardon, no Saviour, no heaven! You're just a lone and helpless soul, standing apart from God for ever."

"Madge, that same Bible tells us, 'God is love'—a God of mercy."

"Ay, sir," Madge answered, "and 'our God is a consuming fire'—a God of justice. You've got to put the two together, as Mr. Prior would tell you. God is love, sure enough, but if His love don't come down to you through Jesus Christ His Son, it's little you have to hope for from it. And if you don't believe the Word of God, how are you to believe in Him of whom the Word all through teaches us?"

She had done now, and moved quietly towards the door.

"Good-bye, Madge," he said, with a little nod, much in his usual fashion. "Many thanks for your kind intentions, you know. Tell Miss Mona I am coming in directly, to say good night."

"I will, sir; and thank you for letting me speak."

She disappeared with her noiseless step, and the doctor sat for a minute with bent brows, thinking over the past half-hour. "Pshaw! What is it to me? We all have our own opinions, and Madge has hers with a vengeance. Common-sense enough in every-day matters, but quite a 'tête exaltée' about religion. Couldn't refuse, of course, to let her speak, after her devotion to Mona; but the thing is done now, and having relieved her conscience, I suppose she will be content to leave me in peace for awhile."

Rather hastily he started up, leaving his lamp burning still upon the table, and went to Mona's room.

Madge let him in, without look or sign of consciousness respecting the conversation just ended, and he gave her in passing a careless little nod, which conveyed condescending forgiveness for anything of presumption on her part. Madge received it meekly, and followed him towards the bed.

"Well, my dear—getting on all right?"

She put out her hand in welcome. "Madge, I wish you would get me a glass of fresh water while uncle is here, and bring it back when he goes."

Madge moved off obediently, aware from the manner rather than the words that Mona wanted a few minutes alone with her uncle.

Mr. Chetwynd noticed nothing of the kind. He had his finger on Mona's wrist.

"What are you fluttering about now, my dear?" he asked, looking keenly at her.

She stretched the other hand across, and brought out a little Bible from under the bedclothes. "Uncle, I haven't had my reading this evening. Won't you read me a few verses?"

"I!" said Mr. Chetwynd. "Isn't that Madge's business?"

"Won't you, for once?" she asked.

"My dear, I really think that is more in her line than mine. I always do say it is a pity she could not be a clergyman."

"I am not jesting," said Mona gently. "I should like it so much. You have never read to me all the time I have been ill. Won't you, uncle?"

The doctor began to feel rather irritated. "I say, do you know what Madge and I have been talking about?" he asked involuntarily.

Mona's surprised look was answer enough. "No,—what?"

"Oh, nothing of consequence; never mind. I was only thinking of a curious instance of the doctrine of coincidences," said Mr. Chetwynd.

And Mona wondered whether Madge could by any possibility have made a like request, but decided against the supposition.

"Well," said the doctor, after a moment's watching of her face, "shall I summon Madge and say good night?"

"I am not sleepy," said Mona. "You don't always go off in such a hurry. Uncle Chetwynd—"

"Some big thoughts troubling this small brain, eh?" asked Mr. Chetwynd. "Come, come, you must be a child a little longer, my dear, or you'll have quite a disfiguring dent on that smooth forehead."

"I am too old to be ever a child again," said Mona. "But I am quite happy now, and I shall be—if—"

"If what?"

"If you will let me,"—and tears rushed to her eyes.

At it again! The doctor's prominent sensation, which was happily of care for Mona, barely sufficed to cover his secondary sensation of personal aggravation. And this time he really had something of hurt feeling as well.

"I let you! My dear child, don't you know yet that you are dearer to me than all the rest of the world put together?"

"I know," she said, with trembling lips. "I know you would do anything for me—almost anything—and you are as kind as kind can be, except—"

"Except when I am cruel."

He wanted to turn it off lightly, but she answered unexpectedly by a faltering—"Yes."

"Cruel, am I, eh?" said the doctor, rather displeased.

"Only in one thing," she murmured, clasping her hands. "O uncle, you didn't think,—but if you knew how dreadful it was all those months—"

"Come, come, my dear, you are excited this evening. What was so dreadful?"

"To lose everything—everything," she said slowly, yet with somewhat of passionate energy in the low voice. "To lose all faith and hope—all hold upon my Saviour—to stand outside in the black darkness, feeling that the light was gone from me, and it might be, was gone for ever."

"Mona, I always most conscientiously avoided arguments with you on disputed points," he said gravely.

"Yes, you did, and that was the worst of all, I think. If you had even argued, I could have tried to answer, and I might have gone to friends to ask what to say. That would have been bad enough, but this was worse. There was nothing to take hold of, only those terrible things—little things—which you used to say just in passing. And they seemed to take hold of me, and shut me in, till I could only feel that I was helpless, just drifting farther and farther away from God."

"Now, Mona, my dear child, you have been brooding over these ideas, till you fancy them ten times worse than they ever were," said the doctor, in a tone of expostulation.

"Worse!" She raised herself to a sitting posture, with a gleam in her eyes. "You don't know, uncle. I'll tell you what it was like. I used to feel that I was standing on the very edge of a slippery precipice, leaning over and looking down, and so giddy that I could scarcely keep my footing. And I had not only no power to draw back, but I had almost left off wishing to draw back, though sometimes I had a glimpse of the danger I was in. I think it was a sort of dreadful fascination. And it was you who led me there."

"Not intentionally, Mona."

"It was you," she repeated, with unsteady lips. "Thank God, He did not let you send me over. But I had gone so far—that at one time—it almost seemed—as if nothing could ever draw me back."

He did not choose that Mona should see how closely her words had touched him, and only said: "Am I forgiven now?"

"It isn't forgiveness—I don't feel like that about it," she said hurriedly. "Only—oh, uncle, if you go and do the same to others, it may be they will not be stopped in time, and then their death will be upon you."

As with Madge, so here, anxiety for himself came strongly out. She caught his hand and held it tightly, with tears in her eyes. "You are always so good and kind to me,—like a father," she half whispered. "I can't bear to say such things to you. But it frightens me to think that all might come over again,—with others, if not with me too. I am very weak, and words like that take such hold, even though I know at the time they are not true."

"You shall not hear them from me again," he said. "Will that content you?"

She looked up wistfully without speaking. He did not choose to wait for anything more.

"There, then, that will do. Go to sleep now, like a good child, and don't worry your head any more with such matters. I'll send Madge to you at once."

"And you don't mind what I have said?" she whispered.

"Invalids are privileged people. Good night, my dear. Shut your eyes, and don't think about anything until morning comes."

He gave her a kiss—kinder than usual, if that were possible—felt her pulse once more, patted her hand smilingly, and walked away to summon Madge.

Mona did as she was told, and went quietly off to sleep.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WISDOM OF THE WISE.

BUT Mr. Chetwynd sat long in his study, gazing into the fire, and playing with a glass letter-weight upon the table. Somehow he could not easily shake off the impression of the double warning which he had so singularly received. It was evidently a mere coincidence, and quite undesigned, though very probably the result on both sides of some conversation upon the subject that afternoon.

And the two coming thus closely together—the warning of Madge Hardwicke, the simple-minded strong-hearted cottager; and the warning of Mona, his gentle niece—had left an impression behind. It was a confused impression at first. A good deal of annoyance, and a good deal of hurt feeling, were mingled with some genuine reproaches of conscience. The words of Madge alone, or of Mona alone, might scarcely have sufficed to do so much, but coming together, they had shaken him out of his usual self-satisfied composure. He found there would be small likelihood of sleep, till he had come to some sort of an understanding with himself. So he sat still, and thought the matter out.

Mona had said some hard things to him—that slight young creature, whom he had regarded as scarcely more than a child. If he had ever soberly considered the matter, he would have supposed her to be quite incapable of entering into the real meaning of such remarks, as those in which he had often indulged himself before her. He little knew the dormant capacities for speculation in the mind of many such a girl as Mona.

And "he" had led her to the precipice-edge! And "his" words had done the mischief! And "he" had been the source of pain and misery to the child of his lost and only sister. Why, he would have given his very life to save hers any day. And yet—

Amos Ackman had narrowly escaped becoming the murderer of his child. But he had had no power, in all his sullen anger, to touch the life enshrined within that little frail body. Mr. Chetwynd, it might be, had narrowly escaped guilt of a still more awful dye—even the death of the soul of one who was to him as a child of his own!

He did not know of the crimson stain, which the old man on the hill had so nearly gained. But Mona's words had brought dimly before him something of what he himself had well-nigh done.

"It was the work of Satan that he had taken up,—Satan, a hard and bitter taskmaster,—letting alone the judgments of the Lord Himself on those who should meddle in His work!" What! He—the scientific intellectual trusted physician, the clever well-informed leading man in Alyn—he a servant of Satan! The words stared him boldly in the face. He would not meet them, and turned away—only to find others starting up in their place.

"It was you who led me there! Thank God, He did not let you send me over! And if you should do the same to others,—" Why, he had done the same to others, scores of times. A day never passed that he did not indulge himself in some light sneer or cutting sarcasm upon religious questions. Was every word thus uttered indeed a drop of poison allowed to fall, for which future account must be rendered at the bar of the eternal God? Would lost souls be verily laid to his charge—souls which but for him might have attained to the joys of heaven?

"Stuff. Nonsense!" he said petulantly. "One would think I had caught a reflection of Madge's notions to-night!"

But what if these things were not nonsense? What if he himself stood in the black darkness, of which Mona had spoken in such low-voiced horror,—if he had stood there so long that he knew not what it was even to wish for light?

One after another these questions came to him, in much the same speculative fashion in which questions did come to him, by mere force of habit and bias of mind, at all times. But he could not now, as on other days, shake them lightly aside.

What if he did not believe the Bible to be the Word of God? Could he in very truth say that he did? Then—"No hope! No pardon! No Saviour! No heaven!"

So Madge had assured him! But who was Madge to dare to speak such words to him? What right had she, a poor ignorant cottager, to stamp him as a man in such awful case? A desolate helpless creature, standing apart from God for ever! He to be thus!

Apart from God! Why, that there was a God he knew full well. His doubtings were at least the doubtings of a man of sense as well as intellect,—not the mad dreamings of a clever fool. He literally had too much of common every-day manly sense, to give in to shallow theories of atoms developing themselves into worlds, or of a universe somehow sprouting up spontaneously out of nothing. He had some sort of vague belief in the Bible, taken generally—only he had always insisted upon holding in his own hand the scales of judgment, that he might retain or reject each separate doctrine, according as it suited or opposed his private notions of truth.

And here had this woman come in, breaking down his calm security, dashing aside his proud serenity, and telling him boldly, face to face—albeit with all meekness—that no such middle course lay open to him, that he must either believe or not believe, that he must either accept, with implicit faith, the Word, and the Saviour of whom the Word testified, or find himself cut off from God and heaven for ever. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." There lay a hard rock against which to stumble.

"What 'do' you believe in the Bible?" The gentle question came back and back to him persistently. What did he believe? What did he? Half unconsciously, he found himself searching for an answer,—seeking into his own belief as he had never honestly sought before.

How about the power of prayer? No doctrine is more closely interwoven with the very texture of the Bible, than that of prayer and its workings. But Mr. Chetwynd had simply disbelieved it altogether.

How about the fallen condition of man, and Christ Jesus as the only hope of salvation? No doctrines in the Bible stand out with more sharp and decided outline. But Mr. Chetwynd had rejected all notion of man's degradation; and while not denying the great fact of the death of Christ, he had had most hazy ideas respecting the necessity for any such sacrifice.

How about the hidden spiritual life? No Bible doctrine is more full in its development than this. Mr. Chetwynd had sneered at its professed experiences, professed lofty superiority to its weaknesses, despised its faith, and discredited its very existence.

If these things were true, where was he in his captious standing apart from God? If not—?

"He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar." These things were plainly written in the Word of the living God. If he did not believe them, "then" he believed not God; "then" he made God even as a liar; "then" there remained to himself—what? Again Madge Hardwicke's words rang mournfully in his ears: "No hope! No pardon! No Saviour! No heaven!"

"Anything rather than that!" he murmured. And he rose and took down his mother's Bible, unused for many years. He had a dim impression of the last time he had ever stood at her knee, and of her making him spell aloud to her a few verses in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Like a man revisiting a garden, seen long before, and wandering instinctively to one remembered corner,—for notwithstanding all Mr. Chetwynd's church-going, family prayers, general knowledge of Biblical doctrines, and special knowledge of popular cavils, the Bible had been with him for years a neglected book,—he turned to that same Epistle. He began glancing through it slowly, as he sat there, with the lamp-light falling on his bent and troubled brow.

   "It is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

Was that meant for him? Was he one of "the wise?"

   "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise."

He stopped there again, and another verse, learnt in early boyhood, flashed across his mind:—

   "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

He thought of little Nannie—of Madge Hardwicke—of Mona. How he had looked down upon them, in his conscious intellectual superiority! Was it in very truth that God Himself had veiled these matters of mighty import from him, in his pride of earthly learning, while revealing deep mysteries of love and grace to the simple-hearted women and children? Mr. Chetwynd had been wise and prudent in his generation; but these things had been hidden from him; so that he, hearing of them, yet in his blindness seeing them not, had deemed their very existence but a fable.

   "Not many wise—not many noble—are called."

"Not many." But, thank God, it does not say, "Not any." He thought of Mr. Prior. Madge Hardwicke all untaught in worldly lore, and Mr. Prior, with whose strong intellect Mr. Chetwynd would scarcely have cared to measure his own, met here upon the same level. With the one, indeed, was to be found the spirit of deep research, and a full knowledge of historical and critical evidences; while the other knew and cared little for evidences beyond her own practical knowledge of the life and truth and peace which she had found in her Bible. But alike they entered the Kingdom of Heaven, alike receiving the teaching of the Word with the simple loving trust of little children.

   "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain."

He read so far, and then he sat and thought—thought, till all in the house but himself had gone to bed,—thought, till his lamp flickered and failed for lack of oil, leaving the study in darkness. Mr. Chetwynd did not even notice the change. He sat with his hand over his eyes, deeply communing with his own soul.

Had he ever honestly searched into these matters before? Had he not rather skimmed recklessly over their surface, in a spirit of semi-sceptical criticism, and measureless self-conceit? There seemed to open out before him at last some insight into things unseen—some power to pierce through the veil, which for long years past had shrouded him in darkness.

"And I have been one of these 'wise,'" he said to himself. "Wise with the wisdom which is foolishness in the sight of God! Is that the meaning of the intellect, which men worship in the present day? Plain words spoken here—uncompromising as steel. Can it be that I have been one of these self-deceivers—seeming, and only seeming, to be wise? If so, 'let him become a fool, that he may be wise!' Become one! What if I have been a fool all along—ay, worse than a fool, daring to set up my puny notions in the very face of what God has revealed to us!

"As well meet the matter boldly. I am not a coward, at all events. What if I have been altogether in the wrong? 'The Lord knoweth!' How St. Paul's words seem to meet one at every point . . . Will Madge think she has gained a victory? Not to triumph at any rate. Better that, than to find, too late, my whole life a failure,—I, with all my wisdom, shut out from heaven,—and very fools pressing in before me!"

He sat upright, felt for a box of matches, took a silver candlestick from the mantelpiece, and struck a light. The open page of the Bible lay still beside him.

"If this indeed be the Word of God, through and through, the very truth of God,—then where am I, and what am I, at this moment?

"Ay,—no doubt what Madge would say. An unsaved sinner,—apart from God,—worthless and helpless. I know it all by heart,—have heard it often enough,—have laughed the notion to scorn. What if, after all, it be very truth—and my wisdom there be very foolishness?

"A helpless sinner,—standing apart from God! So they say,—and so it may be. How can I prove the contrary? There are things which the wisest living cannot fathom. Suppose a clue lies here. But never mind generalities just now. Suppose 'I' am in that condition,—a condemned man, cut off from my Maker,—needing—needing what?"

Did he pause here, with a feeling like that which constrained Job, in olden days, to cry aloud for a "Daysman" to stand between him and a holy God? Something of the kind it must have been. And an answer came once more breathing softly across his heart, in words learnt long ago from a mother's lips:—

   "There is One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus."

For a moment there was stillness,—a hush of body and mind, as he slowly grasped the wondrous words, and caught a glimpse of their boundless meaning. And then, he bent his head,—reverently, as for long years past he had never done,—and uttered half aloud—

   "God be merciful to me, a sinner,—for Christ's sake."

The first step was taken. Mr. Chetwynd had a hard lesson to learn, but he did not quail before it. He was not far from the Kingdom of Heaven that night. Madge Hardwicke's and Mona's words, which but a few weeks back might have passed unheeded, save by smile or sneer, had reached him at the right moment. They had fallen like seed into prepared ground,—prepared, all unknown to himself, through the Holy Spirit's guidance, under the influence of Mr. Prior's teaching, and of Mona's illness following. And the day was not far distant, when the once careless half-unbelieving caviller thanked Madge from his very heart, for the kindly boldness of her warning words that evening.

CHAPTER XXIV.

HOME!

"SPLENDID day it has been,—only a trifle too hot for any but a salamander," said the doctor, sauntering into Mona's room on the afternoon of the following day. "Well, my dear, how are you getting on?"

His pleasant manner that morning to Madge had convinced her that she need fear no displeasure on account of the last night's conversation. But something now, beneath his would-be careless bearing, gave her a twinge of anxiety.

"I am getting on as well as possible," said Mona brightly. "I quite want to begin sitting up again."

"Patience awhile before that," said Mr. Chetwynd. "More haste worse speed, in some cases."

"But Madge has been reading to me to-day."

"Nothing sensational, I hope."

Mona smiled at the idea.

"Ah, well, I suppose I may trust Madge. She isn't addicted to that sort of literature. Madge, could you be happy to leave Miss Mona for awhile this afternoon?"

"If you wish it, sir," said Madge, somewhat surprised.

"Well, I have a—an errand for you," said Mr. Chetwynd. "Just call Hartly to sit with Miss Mona while you are out, and then come to my study. I'll explain to you where to go, and what to do."

"Madge wants a little air, I am sure, after her imprisonment in this room," said Mona, trying to be unselfish.

"It's no imprisonment, Miss Mona," said Madge. "I'll come as quick as I can, sir."

"I suppose there is some shopping for you to do," observed Mona when he was gone.

And Madge smiled in answer, though aware that the guess was a wrong one. She summoned the motherly old housekeeper from down-stairs, saw that everything which could possibly be needed was at hand, went for her own shawl and hood, and finally made her way to the doctor's room.

He looked up, as she entered, from the letter he was writing.

"That's right. Hartly has had so much to do with the nursing that you need not be uneasy about leaving Miss Mona. And I don't expect to have to go out again this evening, so I shall be at hand."

"Mrs. Hartly can do easy enough all that's wanted," said Madge. "Where am I to go, sir?"

"Sit down a minute, and I'll tell you," said Mr. Chetwynd gravely. "The truth is, I called you in here yesterday evening, to mention something I had heard, but you put it out of my head, and this morning I thought I might as well find out more before making you anxious. About little Nannie Ackman, I mean."

He was evidently moved. Madge saw now in what quarter lay the coming cloud. The little child up on the hill was very dear to her heart. She had not felt surprised to see and hear nothing of Nannie lately, on account of the infectious nature of Mona's illness, but now a sudden fear took possession of her.

"Mr. Prior went up to the old man's cottage yesterday morning, and was so struck with the little one's altered look that he asked me to go and see her. I did not suppose there was any immediate hurry, and I was busy, so I put it off till this afternoon. I have just come back from there,—but—"

"Do you think her ill, sir?"

He shook his head silently.

"Sir, you don't mean that Nannie is in danger."

"She is dying, Madge."

One low sob and no more reached his ears. "How soon?" was asked with an effort.

"Would you like to go and see her?"

"I should, sir. She'll want comforts and looking after."

"She is past all that now. If you want to see her again, you must go at once. Never mind about Miss Mona. I will arrange all that for a few hours. You will be back before night."

She knew he meant that all would then be over. "Is it the fever, sir?" she inquired.

"I can hardly say. There may have been a touch of it hanging about her. Old Ackman seems stupefied, and can give no particulars, though he blames himself bitterly, and with good reason. She was up and about yesterday evening, he says, but seemed to break-down this morning. Nannie herself was unconscious while I was there. She may rouse up again, or may pass away in stupor. But I can do nothing for her."

"And nobody has known the poor lamb to be failing," murmured Madge, passing her hand across her eyes.

"I can't gather that there have been any indications of absolute illness, beyond weakness and languor. My own impression is, that the sudden break-down may be the result of some undetected injury, from the father's rough treatment awhile ago. But after all, it is a cruel conjecture without sufficient proof. She has always been a frail little creature. I won't hinder you any longer, however."

Like one walking in a dream, Madge left the house and went up the hill. It was three weeks or more since last she had been in that direction, for all her few walks of late had been taken in the town, generally with the chemist for their destination.

How forlorn her little cottage looked, with its closed door and shutters, and its growth of garden weeds. Ah, that had never been, if little Nannie had been equal to the task of keeping clear the unwelcome growth, in the absence of her friend. Amos Ackman's door was open, so Madge walked in noiselessly, leaving her shawl and hood in the outer room, but hardly standing still there for a moment on her way.

Her first glimpse as she neared the bedroom was of the old man himself, crouching forward on his stool, with his face half hidden by his hands, while a low groan broke from him from time to time. And then, as she went farther, she saw Nannie. Could it indeed be Nannie?—So white, so changed, so wasted! Mona Clyde at her worst had been nothing like this.

"Ay, ye've come to see her die, have yer," mid old Amos. "Yer was a deal kinder to her than her old father too."

Madge knelt down by the rough mattress, and softly moistened the child's parched lips. And all at once Nannie opened her eyes, and the wan features broke into a smile of recognition.

"She knows you, she does. Sure she'll soon be well now," said Amos falteringly. "Don't yer think so, Madge? I'd be main glad, for 'tis all along o' my doing. She'll get well now, eh?"

Madge knew better, and so did Nannie. But Madge thought that the face of an angel could hardly have worn a look of more loving compassion, than that which shone through those glazing eyes, as they turned slowly towards the unhappy old man.

"Poor father!" was softly breathed forth, with an appealing glance towards Madge, as if to beg her to comfort him. "There 'll be nobody to pray for him now."

"I'll pray, Nannie. Is it that you want?" asked Madge. "I'll never let a day pass without praying for him. And God won't forget all your back-prayers, you know."

"No, 'cause they're written up there, ain't they?" said Nannie faintly yet confidently, with a slight upward gesture of one hand.

"Why, she's beginning to talk ever so," said Amos, in a pleased tone. "Ain't she better now, Madge?"

"She'll be better soon," said Madge. "She'll be better up in the Father's Home, Amos. You'd best make sure, and see you're in the way to go there too, or it'll be a longer parting for you than for Nannie and me."

Amos drooped his head again. "I'm thinkin' it'll have to be a different heaven to hold old Amos, from what 'll take in you and Nannie," he said heavily.

"There's only one heaven, and one way into it, for her and you and me," said Madge.

And before she could say more, Nannie's lips formed, clearly and tenderly, the sweetest Name which language ever framed—

"JESUS!—father."

"Ay, it's all Him, and Him alone," said Madge. "You've only to go to Him, and ask pardon through His blood, and it'll all come right."

Madge did not know how the poor old sin-burdened man had already begun to stumble, with his failing steps, up to the foot of the Cross. But Nannie knew, and though too weak to explain, she said in a low voice,—

"He'll come, Madge."

"Ay, the Lord 'll surely bring him, Nannie," said Madge.

And then Nannie shut her eyes and lay quite quiet, with her two little thin hands folded together, and the panting breath so irregular that it sometimes seemed as if it would stop altogether, without another word being spoken.

Madge knelt there just as quietly, praying that the little one's troubled life might have such a peaceful ending as now seemed likely, that no clouds of Satan might be sent to try her faith. And Madge had what she wished.

An hour passed, while the life of the summer day and the life of the little child ebbed sweetly away, side by side. And the sun went slowly down upon the one, but rose in dazzling radiance upon the other. And presently Nannie opened her eyes and murmured—

"They're singing—"

"Who are, Nannie?"

"Up, somewhere," said Nannie. "I'll hear 'em now, won't I? O Madge!—I won't see the Resurrection-day after all from here."

Was it a momentary feeling of something like disappointment?

"Maybe not from up on this hill, Nannie," said Madge. "But you'll see it, sure enough, for you'll rise before we're caught up, and you'll come on with the Master in His glory to meet us—if so be I'm spared till then."

"With Him!" And Nannie's face, as she uttered the words, lighted up with a strange and holy joy. "O Madge! Think what it'll be—this very night—to see my own Lord Jesus! Why, Madge!—"

"Ay, won't it be—?" Madge had begun, trying to quell the impatient longing which throbbed at her own heart, in answer to the child's burst of joy. But she broke off, for words from her were no longer needed, and a look of glad surprise had flashed into the dying eyes.

"Why, Madge! I didn't think it 'ud be so soon, but I'm going quick. I'm ready, ain't I?—'cause Jesus died for me, you know. O Madge, I wish you was coming with me too. Isn't He—just—beautiful?"

Two long faint gasps between the words,—one sigh,—and Nannie was at rest.

Better so. The little worn-out body lay there still. But Nannie—poor little Nannie!—after all her hopes and fears and longings, had reached the loving circle of the gathering family, in her Father's House above.

Madge knelt on for a minute, with her head bent low. Then, with a calm singular smile upon her face, she rose and went to Amos.

"Don't you stay here any longer," she said. "Nannie's well off now."

He shook his head, and crouched lower, without response.

"She's well off," repeated Madge. "She's at rest now, poor little lamb, and she wouldn't want you to grieve for her over-much. Don't spend your time looking back to the past, Amos, but see you make ready to join her where she's gone—maybe soon. There's the Blood for your sins and mine, no less than for hers."

"I wouldn't ha' believed it, though, if it hadn't been for her praying," murmured old Amos, as he yielded to Madge's guiding touch, and went out into the front room, while Madge remained behind, and did all that needed to be done to the lifeless body lying there.

Poor little Nannie! More of a martyr was she than even Madge Hardwicke guessed. But Madge knew enough to bend over her, and kiss the small white cheek, whispering—

"'She's' had her meed of suffering for the Lord, and she's gained her rest early; but maybe Nannie's one of the last that 'll be first in the Kingdom of Heaven."

Then Madge left the room, and going past old Amos, who in his solitary grief refused to answer when she would have set herself to comfort him, she passed into the pleasant evening twilight beyond.

Some impulse—she could not have defined it—made her step across into her own garden, and stand there near the door, with her eyes fixed on the blue waters, and her heart very full of the little friend who had been taken from her. Nannie had grown to be almost like a child of her own during the past few months. Only the blow had come so suddenly, and the passing away had been so peaceful, that as yet she was thinking more of what Nannie had gained than of what she herself had lost.

"Beautiful! Ay, she knows the Master's beauty at last,—more than the wisest man that ever lived on earth. Little Nannie! I'd like to see your joy this very minute. Well, 'tis sweet to think that my turn 'll come too, some day. Maybe, I've more work to do first for my Lord. She'll never get to the end of knowing His beauty more and more for ever; and by-and-by I'll see it too. It's only a glimpse I get now, once and again, but He'll shine out there in glory. And Nannie sees it now."

The sound of a footstep on the pathway made her turn. A manly figure, of somewhat foreign appearance, was briskly advancing towards the garden-gate. Madge stood as if rooted to the spot, with a sudden dimness over her eyes, and a quickened beating at her heart. Was it a dream? Could it be indeed a reality? O faithless Madge even yet.

"Mother!"

"Mother, I always said to myself that I'd be sure to
find you here, whenever I came, looking out for me."

Only the one word! Madge did not even exclaim.

But if his strong arm had not in that moment been around her, she would have fallen to the ground.

"Mother, I always said to myself that I'd be sure to find you here, whenever I came, looking out for me."

She did not contradict him, for, in truth, he "had" been in her heart and thoughts at that moment, side by side with Nannie. She made no answer at all, except by the passionate clinging, which seemed as if she could never again loose her hold of him. He began to know now what the long agony of suspense had been.

"It's a wicked son I've been to you, mother dear, leaving you all these years, and never writing. Only that once, at least. And so much the worse then, that I didn't keep my promise. But maybe it's a good thing I'm come now, and not sooner, as I once thought to do. I'd have come back in a reckless sort of mood at that time; but I've learnt since to look on things differently. Mother, will you forgive me, and take me home, and teach me the lessons I wouldn't let you teach me when I was a little boy? Will you, mother?"

"Forgive you!" Madge said, lifting her face to his, all wet with happy tears. "O Neill,—thank God He's given back my boy to me again. It's worth all the waiting to have you come like this. And you'll never leave me any more?"

"Never more, mother, of my own free will. God alone shall part us now."

She would not take him into her cheerless unprepared cottage, but walked up and down with him awhile on the hill-top, in earnest conference, till the first excitement of the meeting had in some measure passed away. And then they went down the path, and stopped at the doctor's house.

Mr. Chetwynd came out to meet Madge in the hall, but he had not looked to see that face of chastened brightness.

"Why, Madge—" he began, and stopped.

"Sir, it is as you thought, and little Nannie has gone to her rest," said Madge. "But the Lord has sent me a blessing alongside of the sorrow, and between the two, I'm nigh in as great a strait as St. Paul himself, as to whether I'll smile or cry."

Mr. Chetwynd looked from Madge to her companion,—half guessing the truth, yet scarcely liking to ask. For the lad he once knew was altered; and perhaps only a mother's eyes could have known him again at a glance.

Madge put her arm into Neill's, and drew him a step forward.

"It's my boy, sir," she said, and the smile won the day.

Mr. Chetwynd held out his hand warmly. "I am glad to see you home, Neill. You have changed indeed since last we met," he said. And then in a different tone, turning to Madge—"You were right and I was wrong, Madge. Your faith certainly deserves its reward."

"No, sir, if you please, you're wrong there," said Madge steadily. "I've nought of desert about me, save desert of evil."

"Didn't you say all along that Neill would surely come home some day?"

Madge was silent a minute, seemingly pondering his words.

"Well?" said the doctor, and Neill too looked inquiringly.

"Sir, it may be I'm mistaken, but it does seem to me that the Lord has just kept back from granting my wish, till He's taught me to lay my will in His, and to leave all in His hands. I used to say Neill would be pretty sure to come home, and to think it too. I've said and felt little of late, save 'Thy will be done!' And now—He's given back to me my boy!"

The last words came like a note of sweet and joyous triumph to the doctor's ears. "You know more about such things than I do, Madge, but I hope I may learn more in time," he said rather sadly. "Neill must sleep here of course to-night. You can arrange with Hartly about his bed. And to-morrow I suppose you will wish to go home with him to your cottage."

Madge did not gainsay the remark. She felt that her boy must come first, and that to prepare a comfortable home for him at once was her simple duty. "Only I'll come in as often as I'm wanted, sir, to sit with Miss Mona," she said.

"It is well Neill did not return a week sooner, or we couldn't have spared you," said Mr. Chetwynd. "But you must spend part of every day with us still, or Miss Mona will be lonely. Well, I am unselfish enough to be very glad you are so happy."

She had her desire at last. There was joy in the mother's heart that night, at the return of the wanderer, and there was joy for her sake throughout the doctor's house, and among the inmates of the Rectory and the town. But the greatest joy of all was the joy of little Nannie, who had passed beyond the mists and the shadows of earth, and had been welcomed into her eternal Home.

THE END.