AMONG LIONS.
(Continued from page 268.)

UT how did you get here, for
Netherbrook is at least twenty
miles off?' said Mr. Swayne.
'It was a big cart,' said
Bell, and the man was kind,
he let me ride all the way.

I said I was going to see my granny,' she added, with an air of having done something very clever.

"Oh, Bell!' said Mr. Swayne. 'Is this the little girl who promised to try and speak the truth?'

'But I wanted so to get here,' said Bell earnestly, and I'd forgot that promise; but I won't do it again.'

'Where is the show now?' asked Mr. Swayne. Will not Mr. Pottinger want you back?'

Bell shook her head. 6 It went away the day after I got ill-a lad told me so; and she (Mrs. Pottinger) is dead, and so is Antony.'

'Poor woman!' said Mr. Swayne; 'you are sorry for her, are you not, little Bell?'

'Not now,' said Bell stoutly; she'll be a deal quieter in the graveyard: no one will beat her there for trying to say prayers.' Poor Bell! she had indeed seen the dark side of human nature in Mr. Pottinger; no wonder that she regarded his wife's death with complacence: the poor creature had so long looked forward to it, and spoken of it as the only possible end of her troubles, that Bell in her childish heart had even

helped her to form the prayer for speedy release that had so angered her unfeeling

husband.

CHAPTER XVI.

BELL settled down as quietly into her new life as if she had always been used to tend sick children. Dr. Darell said it

would be her doing if Johnny recovered, for she seemed to have a hold over him that no one else had managed to get, and to his poor, wandering, overwrought brain, soothing was everything.

A few days after her arrival Mr. Swayne received a small packet containing a coral necklace and an old letter, or rather part of one, for the last page with the signature from whence the parcel came, but he guessed was missing; there was no word to say

that it had been forwarded to him by the poor dying woman.

Bell jumped for joy when she saw it.

'My necklace! my very own!' she said, and would have clasped it round her neck there and then; but Mr. Swayne gently explained to her, that if he took care of it, it might be a help to finding her relations some future day.

'But I don't want to find them,' said Bell, very downcast; maybe they'd beat me too: I'll stay here,' said the poor out'Give me my necklace.'

cast.

So to content the child it was placed round her neck, Miss Dawkins drawing attention to the fact that it was a trinket of some value, and that on the clasp was engraved the word 'Mabel.'

'Is that your name, Bell?' asked Mr. Swayne.

'It's my necklace,' said Bell, trying hard to catch a glimpse of the treasure which now hung round her neck; and that's the letter she said I was never to lose : but you may have that,' said the little girl, presenting it to Mr. Swayne.

evidently been the handwriting of a lady, The torn, dirty scrap contained what had and seemed to be congratulations on the birth of a little girl. Could it be Bell herself?

As you say you are going to call her after me, I send you a necklace I wore

as a child, for her,' said the writer; but would it not be better to name her after

your mother? It might soften her heart towards you; and, after all, I fear you were most to blame in your hasty marriage.' And then other names were mentioned and plans spoken of regarding the writer's family.

Bell, however, knew nothing whatever about it, and had only been taught to regard it as a thing of value; she therefore presented it to Mr. Swayne, thinking that to him it might possess the same charms that the red beads had for her.

Mr. Swayne put the bit of paper carefully by, resolving, as soon as the present storm-cloud had passed over Moor Thornton, to exert himself in trying to discover Bell's parentage; for he felt more strongly than ever that she was no gutter-child, but had once belonged to a respectable home.

After that he gave her in charge to Miss Dawkins and Miss Brett, and went to the Rectory to write a letter to the officials at the Netherbrook Workhouse. As he expected they gladly gave up the child to him, and with the restoration of a little bundle of check garments Bell's connexion with the Workhouse terminated.

Alice was greatly excited and pleased to hear of the return of little Bell, and was satisfied to await her father's advice as to future inquiries about her.

In truth she was now heart and soul deep in another undertaking, the rousing of Gilbert to exertions over his holiday task. 'I'll tell you what it is, Alice,' said Gilbert one morning, as he lay full length on the little sofa in their room; you remember that catechising in our church the day Bell turned up first? Well, I've thought it over, and my lion is laziness.'

Gilbert said this with such an air of satisfaction that Alice almost laughed.

And are you going to lie there, that

the lion may quietly eat you up, Gilbert?' she asked.

'Oh, it's all very well for you to talk, Alice; you've nothing to fight against; you've always been a good sort of girl, you know, by nature: now I can tell you it's no joke to be trying and trying to overcome anything of this sort. I did think I'd begin, but

Here Alice interrupted very eagerly,—

6

Gilbert, I must speak; if you only knew, ever since the day father spoke to us in the church of Satan being a lion waiting to devour us through our besetting sins, I have been trying too. And I think my lions give me most trouble of all. When one has been thought and called good all one's life,' said Alice, blushing, one gets to feel a sort of pride in oneself, as if one was better than any one else. Till that day I was quite contented with myself, and thought such advice was only meant for Dora and the schoolchildren. And then, somehow, it struck me that the lions about my path might be of that dangerous kind which don't roar but only spring on you, and that made me very unhappy. And then I fell ill, and when I was getting better I thought a great deal more of it all, and now I am trying hard in my prayers, and every day, to guard against such lions. But oh, Gilbert, it is dreadful work! laziness is nothing to it!' and poor Alice sighed deeply.

And Gilbert, to comfort her, could only say from his heart, 'Oh, Alice, you are good though,' which so touched her that she burst into tears.

It was a new thought for Gilbert that good, busy, managing Alice, had an inner life of self-reproach and struggle; it drew him nearer to her, and gave him a feeling of tenderness for her that he had never had for the good girl' of the schoolroom.

That morning made a mark on the lives of brother and sister never to be effaced.

From talking of their own troubles they went on to their father's, and Gilbert told Alice how much he thought he missed their dead mother. And Alice felt in no way aggrieved, as she would once have done, to think she did not completely fill her father's heart; she only felt sorry that she had ever added a pang to his troubles. And the two made a compact to follow his wishes in every possible manner. Then they got back to the old point-Gilbert's laziness. He jumped off the sofa and shook himself.

'I'll begin to-day, Alice-I will, indeed; he will be so pleased if I get the prize. Where are the books? In my box upstairs? Get them for me, there's a good child. No, no, I didn't mean that,' and Gilbert laughed, and pushed Alice down on her chair again: ' of course I'll go. A pretty beginning I was making!'

Thenceforward there was generally a good two hours' work every morning in the little parlour before the shore was visited, and the advance of civilisation' progressed with rapid steps.

6

(To be continued.)

THE WET SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

HE rain came down heavily, and the wind blew roughly, so that it was no easy matter to hold up an umbrella, and few folk were in the streets, even for a Sunday afternoon.

'I can't go to school in all this rain, mother,' said Emily Fletcher. Teacher surely will not expect me, for I should get drenched through before I was half way.'

Mrs. Fletcher looked from the window, and then glanced at Emily's bright, healthy face. 'I don't believe it would hurt you, child, with a thick pair of boots and an umbrella. It's not more than a few minutes' walk either.'

"Time enough to be wet through, though,' grumbled Emily, as she took a seat by the fire, with a look on her face which seemed to say that she did not intend to go.

'Oh, Emily!' cried little Arthur, 'you won't stop at home? If the teachers don't mind, it isn't worse for us than for them. I shall go. Mayn't I, mother?'

'Not by yourself, Arthur; you couldn't hold up an umbrella in this wind.

The little boy's face fell; he was trying hard to win a reward at the next prize-giving, and he did not wish to miss a Sunday: besides, he knew that as he and his sister were often out in the rain on week-days, it could not hurt them to run to Sunday - school, which was so very near their home.

'Emily, please go; it's nearly time,' he pleaded, drawing near and hanging on to the back of the chair.

'Be quiet, Arthur, and get down! I tell you I'm not going out in rain like this. I don't believe Miss Mansfield will be there herself, either. I am going to read this book from the school library.' And Emily settled herself down by the fire-side.

Tears rose up into Arthur's eyes, and he ran after his mother: 'Oh, mother, make her go. I want to get my marks, and I want to please my teacher.'

Mrs. Fletcher stroked the brown hair. Dont cry, Arthur. If it is to please God you wish to be in your place at Sundayschool, He knows you can't go by yourself, and He will love you for giving it up with a good temper.'

'Make Emily go, mother,' he repeated. 'No, dear, I shan't make her go. If Emily will not brave a little rain for the