"it did astonish me one day to see how patiently she allowed her bird to hop about her writing-table, and even perch on her shoulder and on her head, when, as I should have thought, she would rather have been let alone during my visit."

"Goldie might do as he pleased," replied Miss Harrison; "his mistress being one of those reserved characters who like to be made free with."

"Who could ever make free with Miss Waller?" exclaimed Mr Jones; "we were all too much afraid of her for that."

"Just so; but surely you have observed that dry, stiff people always get on best with those of an opposite character who are willing to go more than half-way to meet them."

"Dry people, like myself," said Mr Jones, almost accomplishing a smile; "that is a fact beyond dispute. But surely there was more than ordinary dryness about Miss Waller; and if any being on earth could have softened her, one would have expected her niece to have been that one."

"Yes; but Mary was always afraid of her aunt; and while her aunt's injudicious treatment of her from the first was the source of that fear, she disliked Mary because of it. If Mary could have thrown off all fear—but that would have been impossible, circumstanced as she was with her auntthey would have been more comfortable together. I was deeply touched," continued Miss Harrison, "by an observation of Miss Waller's, the evening. before her illness."

"What was that?"

"We were speaking about love,—love in general, the love of God in particular,—when she suddenly said, 'I am sure I am not a person calculated to inspire others with love for me, but all my life I have had the most intense desire to be loved."

"Miss Waller said that!-marvellous !" exclaimed Mr Jones.

"she

"Wait a moment!" said Miss Harrison; said more than that. I am sure,' she said, deliberately, 'that if I thought a snail crawled after me because it loved me, I am sure I would love it.' Those words haunted me through the night," Miss Harrison added, "and decided me to make every effort to win one who could make such a statement as that. But it was too late, the opportunity had passed. The first thing I heard in the morning was of her illness, and I cannot but feel myself greatly to blame for not having studied her character more, with a view to her real good."

6

"I am sure you are right," replied Mr Jones; "we do not sufficiently consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.'”

In a few days, Mr Norris, Miss Waller's solicitor, came down from London to arrange about the sale of her furniture, and the giving up of the house to the landlord.

"Shall I put the bird in the inventory?" he inquired. Phoebe looked imploringly at Miss Harrison, and she immediately replied, "I should like to keep the bird, if there is no objection to my doing

so, and am quite willing to pay whatever you think right for him and his cage.'

"You are welcome to keep him," replied Mr Norris, "free of charge. He couldn't bring much at the auction."

"I thought you would like to have Goldie," Miss Harrison said to Phoebe, when Mr Norris left the house. "He will cheer your little room, and I daresay any lady who may engage you, when you have time to look about a new service, will not object to your bringing him with you."

66 Thank you a thousand times, ma'am!" exclaimed Phoebe, in delight; "no one could mislike letting him into their house, if they only knew all the good he did the poor mistress. The little missionary, as I always call him, I'll be glad to have him."

"I feel quite a regard for him too, Phœbe; and am very glad the poor little fellow has fallen into such kind hands."

"You're very good, I am sure, to say so, Miss Harrison," said Phoebe, as she carried the cage to her room.

"A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air,
And in my cage I sit and sing

To Him who placed me there;

Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.

"Nought have I else to do;

I sing the whole day long :

And He whom much I love to please
Doth listen to my song.

He caught and bound my wandering wing,
But still He bends to hear me sing.

"Thou hast an ear to hear,

A heart to love and bless ;

And though my notes were e'er so rude,
Thou would'st not hear the less:
Because Thou knowest, as they fall,
That love, sweet love, inspires them all.

"My cage confines me round, Abroad I cannot fly;

But though my wing is closely bound,

My heart's at liberty.

My prison walls cannot control

The flight, the freedom of the soul.

"Oh, it is good to soar

These bolts and bars above,
To Him whose purpose I adore,
Whose providence I love;
And in Thy mighty will to find
The joy, the freedom of the mind."

-Madame Guyon.

CHAPTER XIX.

A YEAR has passed away, during which many changes have taken place in Bloomfield, but the greatest change has been at the Rectory. Mr Jones is gone, and has been succeeded by the Rev. George Fulham, late rector of Cranborough, who has now been just a month in the parish, and is, by degrees, becoming acquainted with his parishioners, poor and rich.

Calling on Miss Harrison one day, he asked whether there had been much effort made in the parish to enable the poor to help themselves.

"I am afraid not," she replied, "except in a few isolated cases."

"And yet relief appears to have been given with a lavish hand, if I may judge by what I hear among the cottages.

66 Yes, there is an immensity of relief distributed amongst our poor in various ways; too much, I often fear."

66 You are probably right, if it is exclusively gratuitous relief. The more I know of the poor, the more I am persuaded that the greatest help we can give them is to lead them to rely on their own exertion, so far as possible, for their support."