request that the young lady would let her hear once more -for the last time-her favourite hymn for the departing, in accents which trembled with emotion Flora sang the following verses.

HYMN FOR THE DYING.

The day of life is closing,

Its last faint beams have fled;
Yet faith, on Christ reposing,

Can death's cold waters tread!
The dark sea spreads before me,
Upon the brink I stand,
Oh! guide me, Lord of glory!
To Heaven's blissful strand!
To Thee, Lord, I flee;

My trust is in Thee,

O death! where is thy sting? O grave! thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting? O grave! thy victory?

After receiving the solemn, fervent blessing

of the sufferer, Flora quitted the cottage, followed by her companion. Ada felt that she had been standing on holy ground,—she was awed for the moment,-sobered by the scene of which she had been a witness. Did she envy her cousin that dying blessing?

At the gate of Mrs. Arkwright's little garden they were met by the silver-haired clergyman, evidently on his way to visit the suffering member of his flock.

"Just where I should have expected to meet our Flora," he said, with a beaming expression on his benevolent face.

He courteously greeted Ada, to whom he had before been introduced, and expressed his hope that her visit to the country would be a prolonged one.

"Oh, no! I leave Laurel-bank the end of next week; and I wish," Ada added, laying her hand on her cousin's arm, "to carry away Flora with me."

Carry away our Flora!" cried the old clergyman, shaking his head; "would you rob our poor village of its sunshine !”

Flora and Ada walked on some way in

I wonder," thought the latter, "who

would miss me were I to go to New Zealand to-morrow! Would there be one smile the less amid my gay companions? would I leave a blank in the brilliant assemblies which I have frequented so long? should I be more regretted than one of the flowers which deck the ball-room for a night, to be thrown aside withered and faded in the morning! After all, I am not certain whether Flora's life is not happier than mine; at least I suspect that it will be pleasanter to look back upon when youth and all its follies are past!"

CHAPTER III.

CONFESSION.

"DID you not admire the sermon?" said Flora to Ada, as, during the interval between services on Sunday, the two cousins strolled through the shrubbery.

'Mr. Ward was very earnest."

"Was he not?-and so eloquent! he is a very delightful preacher! You don't know how we missed him when he went away last

winter for a few months!

We had such a

dreadful man, with a sepulchral voice, really, -I know it was very wrong, but I could scarcely keep awake while he preached." And the young lady went on describing the messenger of the gospel in much the same terms as Ada would have used in speaking of an actor whom she did not admire.

"But Mr. Ward is so different!" she said in conclusion. "I was quite delighted with his sermon; were not you?"

"To own the truth, it made me feel a little uncomfortable," replied Ada.

"That is a compliment to the preacher's power," said Flora, with a smile. "I never

heard him speak more forcibly than he did today on the parable of the sower."

"And you were delighted with the sermon because all the last part of it belonged to yourself,—all the beautiful description of the good seed springing up."

Flora gave a little deprecating "Oh!"

"While I was wondering which part applied to me ".

"And which did you fix upon?" said Flora; -she was smiling, but Ada was grave.

"I am afraid," said the young lady with a little sigh, that I am most like the seed among the thorns."

"Oh! no, dear!" cried Flora, through whose mind the same reflection had been passing, during the greater part of the sermon.

"I am not always thoughtless," said Ada earnestly; "when I was a little girl how I used to cry over the story of the Young Cottager, and wish that I were like little Jane! and now often, on Sundays, when I hear a beautiful sermon like that of this morning, I feel like a different creature, really quite religious, and go to bed with such good resolutions; but then comes the morrow, and somehow I forget all about them till Sunday comes round again.

Flora was silent, for she knew not what to reply. "You are so good, so unselfish, so unworldly, so altogether unlike me!"

"My dear Ada, you are a sad flatterer!"

"But every one thinks the same: your mother, the clergyman, all who approach you see that you are an angel only wanting the wings! When I heard you repeating the confession of sins so fervently beside me, I could

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