the soul has "worked out its own salvation," the hand and the tongue are feeble and faltering in the service of God.

Her comparatively lonely life, too, instead of making Mary selfish, had quite an opposite effect— quickening her sympathies for those in sorrow, under whatever form it existed. Perhaps, too, it was this feeling of loneliness which made the union. between Christ and His Church-the blessed, intimate fellowship with Him who gave Himself for her -so precious a truth, enabling her to speak of Christ as of a friend known and loved-one not far off, but dwelling in her heart.

CHAPTER V.

DAY after day found Mary at the bedside of Alice Wilkins, who gradually grew weaker, while her cough became more wearing. It would not be easy to say by which of the two these visits were most enjoyed. Alice would have so much missed the cheerful, sympathising voice-the hymn she so much loved-the encouraging word of promise, often repeated, until, as she said, "she couldn't forget it, if she tried." While to Mary the feeling of being a comfort, she almost thought-Alice had often said so-necessary, to any one, was so new and delightful, that she regarded her visit to the lonely hut as almost the happiest hour of the day.

The fact is, that Mary's isolated position-without father, mother, brother, or sister-combined with a natural love of solitude, had given a morbid tone to her mind, a tendency to feed upon sad and lonely thoughts, to picture herself to herself as one for whom no one cared.

That she was useful at home, she very well knew. She left out the things for breakfast every morning before her aunt came down-stairs; shut the window and opened the door, or shut the door and opened the window, as directed; took care of the house

linen; and darned her aunt's stockings. Besides, she answered all her aunt's letters which were not "strictly confidential," and of such Miss Waller received but few. It was a part of her duty, too, always to sit at the foot of the dinner-table opposite to her aunt, to carve-if there was anything to carve-if not, "to keep the table straight." That was "always the way," Miss Waller said, "in the good old times," and she "hated novelties." Her father and mother "always sat opposite to each other, and called themselves Darby and Joan." Names Miss Waller would gladly have adopted, only she did not "exactly know which, she or Mary, should be Darby, and which Joan; and a mistake would be awkward." All this Mary knew, "but then," she used to say to herself, "any one else could do all these things just as well." Yes, she felt certain her aunt did not want her herself; any other person could easily fill her place.

This unhappy view of her position had taken such hold of her imagination, that Mary came to look on any lonely, isolated object as a personification of herself. For instance, the tall pampas-grass in the Rectory garden, the only specimen of the plant in Bloomfield, that she thought resembled herself; nothing like it to be seen in the whole parish. The roses were quite different-quite unlike herself and the pampas-grass. There were many roses in the Rectory garden. They had, to be sure, different names-the Gloire de Dijon, Princesse, Cloth of Gold, &c.-to distinguish one from another; but

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then, they were all roses-all had, as it were, the same surname, just as Fanny, Harry, and Blanche were all Wrights. "Yes," sighed Mary, as she pondered over the matter, "but one pampas-grass -but one Woods, in the whole parish!"

But, if this was a source of sorrow to Mary, there was one, at least, to whom it was a comfort. Swift, the Bloomfield postman, rejoiced in the fact that, while the "Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons" in the parish were enough to "bewilder an angel," there was "never but one Woods in the bag, and that seldom."

Poor Swift was indeed to be pitied. How was he to know? Could any one expect him to know whether the letter addressed to "Miss Brown, Bloomfield," was intended for the Squire's daughter at the Hall, or the little dressmaker at the foot of the hill? No wonder, then, that mistakes would and did occur. For instance, when Miss Brown, at the foot of the hill, was expecting a note from Mrs Thrifty, to say whether her velveteen jacket, which was being altered to "look like new," was to get new buttons, or the old ones to be put on again: when this note was anxiously expected, instead thereof, Miss Brown received an invitation to the county ball! "It was aggravating," as she, poor thing, declared, when she handed back the re-sealed letter, impressed with the unmistakable mark of her thumb, to Swift, with a good scolding for "not knowing who's who."

And the Joneses were nearly as perplexing; not the rector, the Rev. Mr Jones, for, as Swift grate

fully acknowledged, "those who had handles to their names were pretty sure to come right." But then, there were Mr Jones, the magistrate, and Mr Jones, commonly called "old Jones," the clerk. Swift fervently hoped the day would come when "old Jones" would be "put outside his own letters, as he ought, and then he wouldn't be left at the wrong place." And, moreover, poor Swift himself would, by such an arrangement, be spared many a scolding for being late in the shop where he served when not "doing postman."

But a new phase of life had opened upon Mary since she began to visit Alice. She certainly loved her for her own sake, and not merely because of what she received from her. Alice had often said, and Mary believed her, "that no one else in the world could be the same to her "-a most delightful hearing to Mary. Yet there was no natural connexion between the dying, poverty-stricken woman and the young, blooming girl—none whatever-name, character, position, education, all totally unlike one to the other. And this revealed to Mary a truth she had not before recognised, that the hidden links which bind humanity together, the secret ties which unite heart to heart, are stronger than those of mere bodily relationship. The latter, without the former, cannot produce true, genuine love; while the former, deprived of the latter, can, and often do so, all the more fervently, because of the absence of artificial or self-interested means for calling it forth.