sarcastic remarks on her own strange and unbecoming affection for a common servant-girl.

These observations, however, by degrees roused Millie from her torpor, and she thought, as many have thought besides, that there was no real nobleness of feeling in scorning any one simply because in lowly life. She thought of a carpenter's son, and a Nazarene, who trod our fallen world, bearing in his noble heart pardon for the guiltiest who came unto God through him. She remembered how the leper, forsaken by man, grew pure at his touch, and how, whilst he invited the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest, he had not where to lay his head. Millie knew that Mary was seeking to follow the example of the meek and lowly Jesus, and just as her character had risen to its highest pitch of estimation in her mind, her musings were interrupted by a cold-toned remark from Lady Puffington, expressing it as her decided conviction, that Miss Howard's intimacy with those beneath her was both ill-judged and improper.

How harshly those words fell on the poor girl's heart! A sudden bitterness of feeling seemed to put at a distance even her sorrow, and with the flush of excitement on her cheeks, and the spirit that could not endure within, angry words escaped from her lips.

It might have been surprise which kept Lady Puffington almost silent, for she looked at Millie with inexpressible astonishment, saying, after some

minutes had passed, "Well, child, take your own way; but let me tell you, that Mr Storer will never approve of such conduct in his daughter's governess."

We know not what manner of spirit we are of. We know it not when encircled by the sweet love of home, when a watchful parent's care anticipates our every want, and the tenderest sympathy lies in ambush at our side, ready to come forward at the first shadow which falls on our way, then, indeed, we know it not.

Millie was fairly startled at the tone of her own voice. Can I be the same being, she thought, who a few short hours ago lay like a child on Mary's bosom?

manner.

It was, perhaps, the first time in her life that she had encountered the abrupt, the positively unkind What marvel, then, that this chafing on a heart already from circumstances and education too sensitive, gave to Millie an excitement and irritation hitherto unknown to her?

She could not pray-her heart was too ruffled, but she thought of God, and "He who knoweth our frame, who remembers that we are but dust," scattered, as it were, fragments of holy reflection on her troubled heart; broken sentences forced their way into her mind, "Endured the cross, despising the shame;" and then she mournfully asked herself if she was resisting and striving against sin.

It was almost as if Mary had been at her side, and in truth there was One near her more intimately ac

quainted with the windings of the human heart than the gentle seamstress.

Millie felt humbled that in a few moments she had thus transgressed, and with more sense of her helplessness than she perhaps had yet experienced, she sought forgiveness and strength from Him who never sends the hungry soul empty away, and peace found its way into her heart. Without effort she spoke kindly to Lady Puffington, who answered with an indifference which at any other time would have been painfully chilling to Millie. But God was very near her, and as she looked out on that beautiful winter morning, where the frost was tracing with its silvery pencil every bough of the leafless trees, her heart was so filled with a sense of his faithfulness and love, even in trial, that she forgot her dependent situation, she forgot that Lady Puffington was near her, and could think only of that blessed land where sorrow is no more, and of the purity of those who, coming out of great tribulation, have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

The carriage stopped, and Millie was startled from her reverie; and if she did feel a sickness of heart when Mrs Storer's red brick house stood up before her, she was comparatively calm, for she knew in whom she trusted.

She was ushered at once into the school-room, and introduced by Mrs Storer to her two young pupils, who strangely lacked that courtesy of manner into which Millie had from earliest childhood been initiated.

With a pale, pale cheek, and a look in which suffering only was revealed, she took her seat at the table, and was no longer in anticipation, but in uncomfortable reality a governess.

Amidst the forsaken rooms at the chateau there still lingered one heart, O how sad!

The excitement is over, the last packages are gone, and Mary must just walk out and return home.

Is all thy quiet service at an end, dear, faithful seamstress? Is this the result of thy long, long solicitude and love? Why that drooping air, that saddened brow? Does thy courage falter, or thy faith fail? Oh no! "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." This was the language of her sorrowful heart; and in this childlike confidence she went onward, with winter around her, with winter on her heart too, for the boughs of joy, though not stricken, were just then leafless. There was, however, a spring-time yet to come; not, indeed, the early sunshine of the morning, but that clear and gentle beaming which so beautifies the atmosphere, purified by the rain-storm,-that chastened and confiding happiness which the spirit feels when amidst changes and chances it has learned to stay itself hopefully on God.

CHAPTER XXII.

PAINFUL TRAINING.

STRANGE to say, at the commencement of this her new life, Millie was comforted by a sense of her Saviour's presence; she felt that a heavy sorrow had fallen on her, but continually seeking strength to endure, she obtained much of that present peace in whose region the shadow of despair is unknown. Yet as week after week rolled on in the monotony of irksome duties, and in the endurance of distasteful society, the magnanimity of great forbearance seemed unneeded, and she who had stood bravely up in affliction, strengthened by heavenly might, trembled and almost fell amidst the petty annoyances which surrounded her.

Could she have recognised the day of trouble in these her vexations, she would have called upon her God; but now, in despondency of heart, she only wept that all these things had come upon her.

It was unfortunate for Millie that the stable-walls rose immediately before her bed-room window, but this very circumstance had perhaps appropriated that room to the governess.

Some trailing ivy, rising greenly out of the very dust, had contrived by its glossy leaves wonderfully to beautify the brick-work around it, but Millie in her present mood could draw no comfort