All were pleased at this arrival. Those who were well acquainted with Mr Strafford said it was one of his characteristics to shed pleasure on those around him, without the slightest effort on his part. Some declared this power came from his smile, which had a mellowed light, imparting to it that peculiar and manly softness so fascinating to the other sex. Others affirmed that it proceeded from his voice, which, though full and sweet, had that under tone of melancholy running through every note, which vibrated soothingly on hearts knowing but concealing their own bitterness.

At all events, this kindly influence, from whatever source it might have originated, worked specially on Millie.

She cast off her heart's languor at the very first look from Mr Strafford, and in the pure spirit of her unsophisticated girlhood, arrayed herself in the mantle of unsullied enjoyment.

And yet Millie saw her friend so often at home, -why was his presence necessary for this day's pleasure?

On the same principle, perhaps, that though light is invariably attached to the opening day, we should pine and fret had we only now and then to meet the morning in darkness.

An influence seemed to surround her like fragrance. A consciousness of happiness brightened through her heart, soft as the light which stole in through the jasmine-covered trellice-work.

It was not an imaginary enjoyment-a fantastic idea. By the inevitable necessity of attraction, Millie felt her girlish thoughts going out to mingle with, and take up strength from his.

With his love of literature and delightful poetry of feeling, with his vigorous mind and singularly happy mode of expressing his ideas, no wonder if Millie, with her taste for the beautified and her faculty for the ideal, gave brighter hues to his understanding than those with which one of maturer judgment and more familiar intercourse with the world would have invested it.

It was the constitution of his nature to take delight in looking upwards, and there was just the very slightest touch of awe lying on her affection for Mr Strafford, which in no way oppressed her confidence in him, but, on the contrary, gave strength and tension to her love.

She knew, too, that she was placed not lightly on his deep heart, though not indeed as the ardent lover places before him the object of his enthusiastic attachment. When he was wearied by the intricate entanglements of law, she rose over him as a bright spring view, crowned with flashing sunlight, and girdled with dewy flowers. She came in on his darkened moments, with her dimpling cheeks and innocent mirth, in which as yet there was no heaviness, as sunlight on a dim forest spot, kindling his heart into a sudden, and at times almost exquisite sense of happiness.

The homeward walk that evening rested long on Millie's memory, softened as it ever was in the picture by the timid light of the young moon sending its quivering rays through the beech trees, and the deep shadows that fell refreshingly on their path after the heat of the sunny day.

There was no argument in their converse, for Mr Strafford always listened patiently to Millie, as if his great and well-stored mind, when in contact with hers, naturally resorted to explanation instead of opposition. Millie unconsciously let out some of the work-room topics of conversation. She spoke of the heavenly wisdom, so often concealed from the mind that the world has cultivated, and revealed unto babes. He might have discussed the matter with her, and she would have been submissively attentive, but he turned and looked at her, and became silently engaged in his admiration of the beautiful, with which just then form and feature had nothing to do, but which, like flickering light, quivered around her, now making itself visible in the depth of a smile,-now colouring the earnestness of her manner with new and spiritual enthusiasm, and then lighting up her eyes into such intensity of interest that Mr Strafford marvelled when he recollected she was but the tender blossom of so few summers.

They were already in the shadow of the gateway. "Good night, Millie," said Mr Strafford, and the sweet maiden answered, "Good night, Mr Strafford,

dear Mr Strafford ;" and then Millie went on to the soft shadows of her quiet bed-chamber, and Mr Strafford remained alone in the glimmering moonlight.

Did nature sympathise with him in his solitude, that the very atmosphere seemed freighted with the echo of those parting words,-that the evening breeze as it passed moulded its whisperings into the form of that soft "Good night!"

Surely there must have been some such mysterious influence at work, for the murmuring river took up the pleasant tone, the thundering rail-carriage could not overcome it, and the next day, in London's din and bustle, the soothing accents were distinctly heard, "Good night, Mr Strafford, dear Mr Strafford!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE ATTIC WINDOW.

THERE was simple but genuine refinement in the heart of Mary the seamstress, that would have befitted the wearer of costly apparel, one on whose high-born features rested the tracing of ancestral honour.

It was the effect of Christianity, which, in some measure appreciating Christ's great love to her, made

her spirit go forth in tenderness to those around her. It was the prevalence of hope, which, creeping into every corner of her heart, sprinkled with diamond light its very sorrows, and impressed on her manner that quiet cheerfulness, that patient, waiting trust, which distils a portion of sweetness into the bitterest draught of life.

Could that window have spoken, it might have told of many a conversation between those two girls,— rich, in the singular and impressive mixture of simplicity and original thought.

Neither one nor the other knew any thing of argument, and yet they did not always agree.

Millie would place before the work-woman, in glowing language, gems of thought from classical literature, hoping that Mary would not only appreciate but acknowledge the entire supremacy of the bold conceptions and glowing descriptions of those learned. heathens over any other style whatever. But Mary, in her entire lack of what is called education, raised up as superior to this the " thought, the inSscriptions of he ible, so prayerso quietly memory. g pathos, Millie