'We are going at once on a mission which the great God has awarded to me. I was told it last night in a dream. Do not attempt to track our steps; but leave my suffering child to His infinite mercy and goodness-"For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods." Ursula goes with me, peaceful, knowing that her husband has forgiven her. When she is at rest, you will hear from me again. Call at this house.

'RALPH PIERCE.'

Was this note a relief? Did Bernard breathe more freely when he found a respite? The wretched woman had only crossed his path to disappear again like the ghost she seemed.

But in this uncertainty Bernard avoided going home.

Desperately eager to end suspense, at the end of the week he again called at the house, in hope of news. The negress thrust another letter into his hand, displaying her ivories again—this time in recognition of a fifty-cent piecethen she disappeared, like a jack in a box, as quickly as she had

come.

Bernard knew what tidings that letter contained, and turned cold as ice as he perused it.

The next day he went back home -quiet, and with a shadow on his face, but thankful that an immensity of cruel perplexity had been spared him.

The shock of Ursula's appearance and end had broken into the happy tranquillity of that shanty life; but it was only for a brief space: no real evil had sprung from it, and with the lovers the dead past was left to bury its dead.

Bernard had prayed for a little +ime to elapse before the marriage,

trousseau.

'I'll be married when the violets are peeping through the long grass,' she said to her father; and I shall think they are Lennard's eyes, and that angels are watching over us.' So the wedding was fixed for the following spring.

It was a month after Ursula's death that Bernard brought home a packet of English newspapers for his mother.

She seized upon them with avidity, as was her custom. It was strange how eagerly she sought for tidings from 'home,' remembering what a home England had been to her.

Now she uttered a sharp cry; and Bernard, turning hastily, saw that she was as pale as ashes.

He took the paper she was holding towards him from her clammy hand, while she pointed to a paragraph with an unsteady finger.

Died at his residence, Gower Hilton, Hilton, Hertfordshire, Bernard Hilton, ninth Earl of Westerleigh, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His heir, a nephew, was lost sight of twenty-five years ago, and failing him, the peerage of Westerleigh becomes extinct.'

You will go at once, Bernard. The marriage certificate, the baptismal certificate-the proofs are here unbroken; there can be no impediment!' cried the woman feverishly, her thin face growing crimson with intense excitement as she spoke, while her great haggard eyes lit up with marvellous brilliancy.

'But you, mother-what will you do? The good fortune that may come to me will be nothing unless you can share it!'

No, no,' she answered hastily, with a heavy sigh; 'I never want to see Europe again. Do not look at me as though you doubted that.

I came from England a branded woman. The memory of that makes me shudder now. Andand-don't despise me, Bernard; but I love Steven Keane still, spite of everything; I could not leave him.'

'I would not ask it, mother; it would be like rolling a stone to your own sepulchre. But I won't desert the shanties, I promise you. I have been happier here than I ever was in my life. Ethel will make a lovely countess,' he said, smiling.

'Indeed she will; and how surprised Mr. Seymour and she will be! Shall I tell the good news?'

'No. Ethel shall know nothing of my luck until I come back here. I want to be a Lord of Burleigh, mother!'

'You will go at once, Bernard, that there may be no delay-no mistake!' Mrs. Keane insisted eagerly.

'I'll take my passage to-morrow in the first steamer going; and you will wish me God speed, mother?'

He turned to her with the old loving look in his face that she knew so well.

The woman wound her thin arms passionately round him, and strained him to her; then, laying her head on his breast, she cried like a child with joy. The dream of her life was accomplished. In spite of her shame and grievous guilt, her son would hold his own once more. Her miserable deed had not defrauded him of position and wealth. The horrible black shadow

that haunted her path was lifted from his, and in Bernard's happiness the memory of the bitter past might merge and soften.

You look so cheerful, ma'am; as cheerful as on the day I sold the Injy shawl,' Nell said to Mrs. Keane, eying her astutely, and with deep curiosity swelling within her. 'And, ma'am, Mr. Bernard's gone away for ever so long!'

'Yes, Nell; he is gone-gone to England, to the Old Country,' she answered, with radiant eyes and smile, clasping her slender fingers together. 'Join with me in my prayer, Nell: God, bless Bernard, and take care of the good steamship Schiller!'

Nell fell straight down on her knees and lifted up her small hands.

'God, bless Mr. Bernard, and take care of the good steamship Schiller,' she repeated gravely.

'Amen!' responded Mrs. Keane, with solemnity.

She never gave a thought, in her maternal pride and joy, that when Bernard claimed his rights, that horrible, horrible suspicion of his mother's crime might be bruited far and wide.

In the month of May 1875 the steamship Schiller, bound for Plymouth and Bremen, with many hundred souls on board, was lost off the Scilly Isles.

The peerage of Westerleigh is extinct, and the secret of Mrs. Keane's life lies locked in the bosom of the waters.

I KNEW them both. They were both very dear to me. I had watched them pass from childhood into the summer time of life.

But yesterday I stood upon the hill that kindly shelters the quiet village near which they dwelt. Looking down upon that peaceful homestead, familiar to my memory through the long communion of years, and reviewing with a sad pleasure each well-remembered spot, I thought long and deeply of them. I thought, too, of the days when each Sabbath found me surrounded by my slender flock within the consecrated walls of that ancient ivy-clad church.

Many memories came flocking to me like lost sheep-lost through the toil and bustle of intervening years passed in crowded cities, and now restored on finding the shepherd in the fold where they were born. But of all the memories that came back to me most forcibly was the memory that had strayed least from my mind-the memory of them.

'Who were they?' you will ask. I will answer you.

He was a young man fair to the eye, kind at heart, loving and much beloved. Full was he of the buoyancy of early life-active, highspirited, daring. His horses, his dogs and guns, all the necessaries of a sportsman's life, were his first consideration. All these things he had. His father, extravagantly indulgent to him in nearly all things, was regarded as a county magnate,

and had held the post of high sheriff. He was as fond of field sports as his son, and, having a good fortune, had devoted himself to the pursuit of his tastes. One of his chief faults was his ridiculously exalted opinion of his family status. Had the weak old man been a prince of the blood royal he could not have boasted more of his descent, and certainly would not have said anything about it. That he came of a good old stock there was little doubt; and this made it all the more deplorable and surprising that he should for ever be dinning into his neighbours' ears, with the pertinacity and ostentation of the vulgar, his imagined superiority. His son was for a time under my tutorage, and I did all in my power to counteract the folly his father's family vanity was calculated to instil into his mind. I believe that I in a great measure succeeded.

My heart warmed more and more towards my bright kindhearted pupil; and when the time came for him to pass from my care and become a member of the university so dear to me-my beloved Cambridge !-I felt a pang of sorrow at losing him. He would, however, pass the vacation at home, and that reflection in a measure consoled me.

I was consulted as to whether he should go in for the church, for law, or for medicine. He candidly acknowledged that he had no particular partiality in the matter, and

that whichever he decided upon he should not pursue as though his living depended upon it.

My profession,' he would say laughingly, 'will resemble the dad's. The noble profession of self-enjoyment, in the shape of a sportman's life.'

When he said this, there was a tinge of sarcasm in his voice that was seldom there to spoil its sweet melody; for I think I had made him feel a little ashamed of looking forward to an utterly self-indulgent life of pleasure. Nominally, however, he went in for the law, and nothing could have been more strictly nominal. This grieved me, for he had talent above the ordinary standard of men, had he pleased to exercise it. His name was Bertram Younge.

And now I turn to her. I recall her as distinctly to my mind as though she were standing at my side while I pen these words.

She was the daughter of a gentleman farmer. Her father was greatly reduced in circumstances, and farmed in quite a small way.

He had seen better days; but, be it said to his credit, he bore the misfortunes that had visited him, and that had reduced him to comparative poverty, without a murmur, and with the cheerfulness of a true Christian.

She was not a beauty, if strict regularity of features and unimpeachable symmetry of form are necessary to constitute that worldworshipped virtue. Hers was an extremely pleasing countenance, an expression demonstrative of a well-regulated and modest mind, and lighted with eyes whose 'holy fire' lent a charm-greatest of all charms-to her serene and striking face.

From Sunday to Sunday, embracing many weeks, many months, and a goodly span of years, I saw those two beneath the same sacred

roof kneel down and pray. From the days when first their tiny hands were taught to join in prayer to the days when they had reached the summer time of life, I watched them coming up as the flowers in spring. Even when he was quite a boy, I noticed what a charm Mary Lee's face had for Bertram Younge. While I was holding forth from my pulpit, warmed by the enthusiasm with which my theme inspired me, I did not fail to notice how long and how earnestly he would sit in the family pew with his eyes fixed upon Mary. As the years passed quietly away, and as they grew older-the calm and chaste expression of her face increasing with her years, the frank and comely expression of his increasing with his manhood-the charm was still upon him. He was wont to speak to me often, in our evening rambles, of the purity of Mary Lee's expression of face. It will, perhaps, seem strange that, living in the same neighbourhood, they did not, especially as children, enter into companionship. Bertram's father prevented it. The insufferable vanity of that wretched egotist had caused a coldness to spring up between himself and Mary Lee's father. Mr. Younge had been on one occasion, concerning parochial matters, so self-asserting as to his superiority, and so overbearing in his manner towards Mr. Lee, that the latter gentleman had found it necessary to inform the former that he was addressing one who, though poor, was quite as well bred as, if not better than, himself. This rupture had in a manner, after a considerable lapse of time, been made up, but, in his heart, the high sheriff had never forgiven the poor gentleman farmer; knowing, as Mr. Younge did, that his son had a strong partiality for Mary Lee's face, he left no stone unturned to keep him as far as possible out of the reach of