upstairs, and draw his curtains, and wind up his watch, and perform two or three other little services for him, leaving him only the tumbling into bed to execute for himself.

But Alice went to her bed very happy she had conquered her ill-humour consequent on their dispute early in the day, and her gentle reception of Gilbert had opened his heart to her, and also convinced him that he had been in the wrong. 'He will wait for leave now, before he goes out again,' thought she, with great relief; and he is not the least vexed with me, though I was so cross with him.'

Alice said her prayers very thankfully that night, and woke in the morning with a feeling that the world was a very bright

one.

CHAPTER XV.

MEANTIME, Moor Thornton was in the thickest of its troubles. The fever had made the quiet village its stronghold, and though the deaths in proportion to the sick were few, thanks to care and good nursing, still a blight seemed over the place.

Farmer Mills' barn and the school-house were both used as hospitals; the former for grown-up people, the latter for the children. Professed nurses from London were in charge of the former, but Miss Brett, and afterwards Miss Dawkins, had always kept the superintendence of the little ones. Most of the gentlefolk of the countryside had fled to some safer region, leaving, it is true, alms for their less fortunate neighbours with Mr. Swayne. He kept He kept stedfastly to his post, resisting all entreaties to take at least a week's rest with his children.

'By-and-bye,' he would say. 'I am strong still, and the strength is given me for a purpose.'

and comforted, his sick flock, taking advantage of the softening influence of sorrow to win some stubborn or wavering ones into the fold.

Miss Dawkins was an able assistant to him, simple, straightforward, and she proved herself an excellent nurse.

Her chief need, however, was some one to work under her in the day-time, to amuse the half-convalescent children, and to run messages; not a difficult post, but her last assistant, a farmer's daughter, had sickened and died of the fever within a week: which sad occurrence so terrified the poor villagers that the school was regarded with the greatest alarm, and Mr. Swayne himself was almost the only means of communication between it and the outer world, save when a sad little procession visited it, father or mother or big brother carrying a new candidate for admission, just struck down.

Miss Brett had indeed recovered enough to lend a little aid, and as the elder children got better they did what they could to help the rest, but still the Children's Hospital was very short-handed.

Matters were in this state when one afternoon the school door, which generally stood ajar to admit what air was stirring, was gently pushed wider, and a small pale child stepped in.

No one noticed her for a moment, and the little girl looked puzzled and bewildered. She well might; for who could recognise Moor schoolroom as it used to be, in the row of little beds, sofas, and couches scattered about, while for the hum of busy voices reading and spelling rose the pitiful moan of half-conscious children?

Miss Dawkins was sitting by a little bed trying to soothe one very restless child when the new-comer approached her softly,

'I could mind Johnny, if you'd only let me stay.'

Did Miss Dawkins know that spare little figure with the bright eyes and closecropped head?

There was so much doubt in her gaze, that the child saw it, and said, 'I'm little Bell; and then, with the air of a small woman, she took the sponge from Miss Dawkins' hand, and began smoothing over the sick boy's fingers as she had seen her do.

People were surprised by nothing in those days, so Miss Dawkins let her go on, only saying,But the fever, child; have you had it?'

Bell nodded: In the Workhouse out there.'

And then Bell sat down by Johnny's bedside, a steady little nurse. For it was indeed Johnny Weir, the pride and wonder of his home, who lay tossing with fever. Father and mother were both struck down at home, and had neither sense nor strength to do aught for their darling, so they took him to the schoolroom. And it fared badly with Johnny. The doctor said his brain had been overworked for long before. this illness attacked him, and certainly his wandering talk was all of long sums to be added up, and lessons which he muttered over. Nothing had seemed to soothe the poor child till Bell came and sat down beside him.

'Don't, Johnny!' she said, as he began his poor school chatter; 'it wakes the little girl there.' And Johnny was silent for a while.

Presently she asked for his medicine in a business-like way, that made Miss Dawkins say,

'Did you help to nurse in the Workhouse, child?'

'Yes,' said Bell, and went back to her charge.

Johnny liked her, half-conscious though he was, and Miss Dawkins took the new little nurse as Heaven-sent.

At sunset Mr. Swayne came in, as was his wont, and going to look at Johnny, the most anxious care now, was surprised to see beside his sleeping face another as white and worn, also with closed eyes. It was little Bell asleep by her charge. They put her into a spare crib, and waited till morning to question her further. Then her tale soon made out. The check-cotton frock, marked with a large N.' was recognised as the uniform of Netherbrook Workhouse.

was

'I was taken bad there,' said Bell, and she couldn't look after me, so the master sent me to the Workhouse. I don't know how long I lay a-bed, but when I got better they put me to help with the nursing, and I liked that. And then by-and-bye they sent me out of the sick-ward into the schoolroom, but the children teased me. and I wanted to come back here: soand here Bell turned very red,-'I ran away.'

(To be continued.)

ON THE WATER.

TIS summer-time—the lilies float

Upon the glassy mere; We'll spend our leisure in the boat

Come, Dora, you shall steer; And I will push the skiff along, And Ruth shall cheer us with a song.

SONG.

'The Abbey mill-wheel, grinding slow, Is all we hear to-day;

We move in silence as we go;

And in yon sheet of may
The Nightingale, with folded wing,
May sit and listen as I sing.

If I must sing with all my might,

And pour my heart abroad;
If I must make your bosom light,

I, too, will praise the Lord.
No other theme demands my best,
No other hushes Care to rest.
And nothing but a psalm of praise

Chimes with the faultless tune,

Which Nature's thankful minstrels raise

This summer afternoon:

Each pulse, each sound, in her vast frame,
Brings glory to her Maker's Name.

To our frail bark in love draw near,
Lord of the earth and sky;
Walk on the bosom of the mere,
As in the days gone by;
And open our blind eyes to see
Thee in Thy works, and only Thee!'
G. S. OUTRAM.

THE MOTHER'S OLD BIBLE.

(Concluded from p. 263.)

OR a time letters often came from Jessie, telling of her happiness in her lady's-maid's place; but after the first year news grew rarer, until at last there came words which half broke the hearts of the father and mother -that their child was married to a gentleman's servant, whom she had scarcely known at all before the wedding-day. From that day Jessie was miserable; what she endured none knew but God, for she never complained of her husband; and as she had nothing good to tell she left off writing home, and tried to forget about it.

Tom and Katherine Brooke were no longer young, and after their child was thus lost to them it seemed as if they faded and weakened day by day, and within six months of each other they were buried in

Bryford churchyard, about two years after Jessie's miserable marriage. To the very last Mrs. Brooke had held firmly to the belief that her daughter would one day come back to find them, and there was lodged in the bank of the next county-town all that remained of their savings, waiting for Jessie; and with old George Grey she had left the family Bible, which had been amongst the Brookes for generations, with its list of births, deaths, and marriages, for all those One marker she had placed in it

years.

a few threads of her own white hair, at a place where there were words which should comfort and help Jessie; and with many an earnest prayer the good old mother had closed and wrapped up her cherished Bible when she felt her end was near.

This, then, was what had happened before Jessie Saunders' sorrowful coming back to Bryford, and it was several weeks before she was able to listen to what George Grey's daughter had to tell of her father and mother. Of herself she said nothing, except that her husband was dead and she had nothing but her own labour to support his children; but when they pressed her to take the old cottage she had lived in as a girl, and furnish it with the money which was waiting for her in Ulverton bank, she shrank from the plan: the only strong wish she had was to get far away from a place where every remembrance was so full of

sorrow.

Only a little money would she take, the rest was left untouched, so that it might be there to bury her, she said; and then, as soon as she could stand, she started on her journey to some distant place, where she would be unknown. Up to this time she had never opened her mother's Bible. She carried it with her as her greatest treasure, but she dared not look upon its pages lest the words should fill her heart with a more

So

bitter remorse than was already there. she went her way, faring hardly, sleeping where she could, sometimes in the cottages of the kindly country-folk, sometimes in barns and outhouses, with the quiet stars shining above her head; and if the children questioned her as to where she was taking them, her answer was the same always, 'To the sea-to the sea!'

But little sickly Ally grew worse; she could not eat, but cried and moaned always; and one night the mother saw a look in the little wasted features which told her that her child was dying. Her heart rose in rebellion at the thought; God was cruel and unkind, indeed! Had she not sorrow enough already, but He must take her youngest-born, her pet Ally, from her? What a night it was! The elder child lay sleeping on the straw of the loft where they were sheltering; not a sound was heard except the rustling leaves, the murmuring river, the laboured breathing of the dying child. And yet in her misery something in the night brought thoughts to Jessie Saunders of things she had heard and loved in childhood--of Jesus the Son of God, Who was as poor and desolate as she; Wholike her had not where to lay His head;' and then a sudden impulse seized her to open the old Bible, and glance at the wellremembered pictures, and read some of the half-forgotten words. She touched the clasps, and opening the book, the leaves fell back at a page marked with tear-stains, and where a few silvery threads of hair remained as a memory of her mother. Tremblingly Jessie's eye wandered along the lines: would she find reproach there? Ah, no! only words of man's sorrow and God's mercy-the words of David when he cries for pardon, 'Have mercy upon me, O God!' And as she finished reading the once wellknown psalm the poor woman's heart was

hard no longer, but she cried to her Father in Heaven, as David too had cried in his distress.

A week afterwards, the Bryford people saw Jessie Saunders once more toiling along the sunny, dusty road; but only one little child is by her side now, for Ally's soul is with God in Heaven, and her tiny body is in a distant churchyard. But the sorrowing mother is come back to her childhood's home, with a heart no longer rebelling against her Maker; but trying to accept her suffering and bear it with patience, she seeks the old place as the spot where she will, by God's help, bring up little Katie to love. and serve Him.

All day long, week by week and month by month, Jessie Saunders works hard for her living and for the support of her child; but seldom an evening passes without her visiting two green graves in Bryford churchyard, where she sheds many a bitter tear over her past wilfulness and disobedience. And yet she is not hopeless. The words of the psalm of David speak comfort to her heart, and when she is most cast down by anxious fears for the present, or mournful memories of the past, she bids little Katie turn to the page marked by silver threads of hair, and read to her the words which her grandmother loved so well in the old family Bible.