But I need not, Edwards, I need not (recovering himself a little), he is cursed enough already: to him the noblest source of happiness is denied; and the cares of his sordid soul shall gnaw it, while thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on those mangled limbs that have saved thy son and his children!" "If you want anything with the school-mistress, Sir," said the woman "I can show you the way to her house." He followed her without knowing whither he went.

They stopped at the door of a snug habitation, where sat an elderly woman with a boy and a girl before her, each of whom held a supper of bread and milk in their hands. "There, Sir, is the school-mistress." "Madam," said Harley, “was not an old venerable man school-master here some time ago?" "Yes, Sir, he was; poor man! the loss of his former school-house, I believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down; and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the meantime."-" And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"-"Ay, Sir, they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish; and more promising children I never saw." "Orphans!" said Harley. Yes, Sir, of honest creditable parents as any in the parish; and it is a shame for some folks to forget their relations, at a time when they have most need to remember them."-"Madam," said Harley, "let us never forget that we are all relations." He kissed the children.

"Their father, Sir," continued she, "was a farmer here in the neighborhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can help misfortunes: what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, Sir; there was not a properer man to look on in the county than John Edwards, and so indeed were all the Edwardses." "What Edwardses?" cried the old soldier hastily. "The Edwardses of South-hill; and a worthy family they were.""South-hill!" said he, in languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water, and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time, then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms, "Oh! my children, my children!" he cried, "have I found you thus? My poor Jack! art thou gone? I thought thou shouldst have carried thy father's gray hairs to

.

the grave! and these little ones his tears choked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of the children.

66

'My dear old man!" said Harley, "Providence has sent you to relieve them; it will bless me, if I can be the means of assisting you." "Yes, indeed, Sir," answered the boy; "father, when he was a-dying, bade God bless us; and prayed, that if grandfather lived, he might send him to support us."—"Where did they lay my boy?" said Edwards. "In the Old Churchyard," replied the woman, "hard by his mother."-"I will show it you," answered the boy, "for I have wept over it many a time, when first I came amongst strange folks." He took the old man's hand, Harley laid hold of his sister's, and they walked in silence to the churchyard.

There was an old stone, with the corner broken off, and some letters, half covered with moss, to denote the names of the dead: there was a ciphered R. E. plainer than the rest: it was the tomb they sought. "Here it is, grandfather," said the boy. Edwards gazed upon it without uttering a word: the girl, who had only sighed before, now wept outright: her brother sobbed, but he stifled his sobbing. "I have told sister," said he, "that she should not take it so to heart; she can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig: we shall not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grandfather neither." —The girl cried afresh; Harley kissed off her tears as they flowed, and wept between every kiss.

HE RETURNS HOME.

It was with some difficulty that Harley prevailed on the old man to leave the spot where the remains of his son were laid. At last, with the assistance of the school-mistress, he prevailed; and she accommodated Edwards and him with beds in her house, there being nothing like an inn nearer than the distance of some miles.

In the morning, Harley persuaded Edwards to come with the children to his house, which was distant but a short day's journey. The boy walked in his grandfather's hand; and the name of Edwards procured him a neighboring farmer's horse, on which a servant mounted, with the girl on a pillow before him.

With this train Harley returned to the abode of his fathers: and we cannot but think, that his enjoyment was as great as

if he had arrived from the tour of Europe, with a Swiss valet for his companion, and half a dozen snuff-boxes, with invisible hinges, in his pocket. But we take our ideas from sounds which folly has invented; Fashion, Bon ton, and Vertù, are the names of certain idols, to which we sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul; in this world of semblance, we are contented with personating happiness; to feel it, is an art beyond

us.

It was otherwise with Harley; he ran upstairs to his aunt, with the history of his fellow-travelers glowing on his lips. His aunt was an economist; but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things, and withal was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him. She received old Edwards therefore with a look of more complacency than is perhaps natural to maiden ladies of threescore, and was remarkably attentive to his grandchildren: she roasted apples with her own hands for their supper, and made up a little bed beside her own for the girl. Edwards made some attempts towards an acknowledgment for these favors; but his young friend stopped them in their beginnings. "Whosoever receiveth any of these children” — said his aunt; for her acquaintance with her Bible was habitual.

Early next morning, Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay he expected to have found him a-bed; but in this he was mistaken: the old man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with the tears flowing down his cheeks. At first he did not perceive Harley; when he did, he endeavored to hide his grief, and crossing his eyes with his hand, expressed his surprise at seeing him so early astir. "I was thinking of you," said Harley, "and your children; I learned last night that a small farm of mine in the neighborhood is now vacant; if you will occupy it, I shall gain a good neighbor, and be able in some measure to repay the notice you took of me when a boy; and as the furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much trouble saved." Edwards's tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place he intended for him.

The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the beneficence of Harley, set about improving its neatness and convenience. He staked out a piece of the green before for a garden, and Peter, who acted in Harley's family as valet, butler, and gardener, had orders to furnish him with parcels of the dif

ferent seeds he chose to sow in it. I have seen his master at work in this little spot, with his coat off, and his dibble in his hand: it was a scene of tranquil virtue to have stopped an angel on his errands of mercy! Harley had contrived to lead a little bubbling brook through a green walk in the middle of the ground, upon which he had erected a mill in miniature for the diversion of Edwards's infant grandson, and made shift in its construction to introduce a pliant bit of wood, that answered with its fairy clack to the murmuring of the rill that turned it. I have seen him stand, listening to these mingled sounds, with his eyes fixed on the boy, and the smile of conscious satisfaction on his cheek; while the old man, with a look half turned to Harley, and half to Heaven, breathed an ejaculation of gratitude and piety.

Father of mercies! I also would thank thee! that not only hast thou assigned eternal rewards to virtue, but that, even in this bad world, the lines of our duty, and our happiness, are so frequently woven together.

IAN MACLAREN.

IAN MACLAREN, pseudonym of Rev. John Watson, a Scottish clergyman and novelist, born in Manningtree, Essex, England, in 1849. Though born in England, he is of pure Scotch blood. He was educated at Edinburgh University, and studied for the ministry at New College, Edinburgh. His first pastorate was in the Free Church in Logiealmond, Perthshire, now known as Drumtochty. He is now the minister of a Presbyterian church in Sefton Park, Liverpool. It was not until 1893 that Mr. Watson became known as a writer. He has published: "The Days of Auld Lang Syne (1893); "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush" (illustrated ed., 1896), both very popular; "The Upper Room" (1895); "Kate Carnegie " (1896); "The Cure of Souls" (1896); "Home Making;" "The Mind of the Master" (1896); "Ideals of Strength" (1897); "The Potter's Wheel" (1897).

A GRAND INQUISITOR.

(From "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.")1

THE Free Kirk of Drumtochty had no gallery, but a section of seats at the back was raised two feet, and any one in the first pew might be said to sit in the "briest o' the laft." When Lachlan Campbell arrived from the privileged parish of Auchindarroch, where the "Men" ruled with iron hand and no one shaved on Sabbath, he examined the lie of country with the eye of a strategist, and seized at once a corner seat on the crest of the hill. From this vantage ground, with his back to the wall and a clear space left between himself and his daughter Flora, he had an easy command of the pulpit, and within six months had been constituted a court of review neither minister nor people could lightly disregard. It was not that Lachlan spoke hastily or at length, for his policy was generally a silence pregnant with judgment, and his deliverances were for the most part in parables, none the less awful because hard of interpretation. Like every true Celt, he had the power of reserve, and knew the 1 Copyright, 1894, by Dodd, Mead & Co. Reprinted by permission.