ever become entirely assimilated to the life on which she had entered. Not that even in the secresy of her musings she claimed any superiority to Mary, but the world of poverty in which she now moved looked on her as in it but not of it, and she was often made sensible of this by some bold remark on her appearance, which steeped her very soul in terror, and sent her trembling home. From all this, Mary, by some secret talisman, seemed protected. In fact Millie's look of alarm, as she passed the disorderly inhabitants of these streets, was sufficient of itself to attract attention. Sometimes she felt a strong inclination to turn and run, and once she had some difficulty in suppressing a scream, so that, after all, there was perhaps some truth in Mrs Hendon's remark that she had been guilty of imprudence.

It is true that the work they received from Mrs Hendon was a help to them on their way; but, as we have before said, Mary was in debt, and it was but a very small portion of these their earnings that they could keep for their daily necessities.

An earnest thoughtful look deepened on Mary's face, but she was not gloomy. Trial, in the rugged form of want, stood before her, but she stayed herself upon God, and light penetrated the darkness. If ever weary pilgrim drew comfort from the promises, then did Mary. She drank of the brook by the way, and therefore, even in much tribulation, lifted up her head.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

ARTHUR.

MILLIE often went to Mrs Hendon's, and when she returned there was something in her very smile, and in her manner too, which told Mary, that if she was not cheerful, there was a peace blending with her trouble which sanctified it.

But on the morning of which we now speak it was her turn to notice Mary's looks. "Something has happened, Mary," she said, throwing her shawl on the table, and turning on her friend a smile so genuinely bright that the workwoman's thoughts were carried straight back to the chateau. "There is a ripple of pleasure awake in your heart, as if surprise had been putting your poor benumbed thoughts into pleasant motion. You know very well there is an electricity of feeling connecting us, and that whatever gladdens your poor heart," she continued, in her tenderest tone, "is as balm to mine; so keep me in suspense no longer," Millie added, tapping Mary's cheeks in the playfulness of happier times; but the quiet smile quivered on the workwoman's lips, and stitch, stitch, stitch was her only answer.

Yet concealment after all was impossible, for Millie's quick eye fell on the purple basket, and it was her turn to be silent now, though not silent if blushes could speak.

"Oh, I see," at length said Millie, trying to call up into her voice and face all the gladness she could command, though its measure was but scanty just then: for poor Mr Taylor was linked in Millie's mind with a sense of the imprudence of the step she had taken. "And there is butter for your grandmother," she continued, rising and going towards the basket as she spoke, "and look," she added, bending over the hamper to hide the very doubtful expression of thankfulness which she knew must rest on her face, for all the while she was heartily wishing the basket had never come at all.

"There is something more," said Mary, in her very calmest way," a letter to me." Never was personal pronoun more comforting to Millie. "It is so full of kind and unpresuming interest that I cannot but see in it the hand of God," resumed Mary.

Millie was ashamed of her own ingratitude. She stood silently leaning on Mary's chair, with her eyes fixed on the half-open parcel, but she lifted up her heart in prayer. She could scarcely, perhaps, have formed her request into words, yet the sensation of discomfort began to melt away, and it was with a tone almost cheerful that she said, "Well, this seems to soften off the little unacknowledged asperity of our parting."

"Suppose, Mary," she said, after a few moments' more thoughtfulness, "that instead of writing you were to call and thank him for his kindness. There is more to be expressed in manner than could be conveyed

through a whole sheet of paper." Mary thought so too, and the very next day Millie sat alone at the little table by the window,-alone, amidst lawns, and calicoes, and piping cord, and edging, plying her needle in quiet assiduity, but with her thoughts flitting round the old picture frame in Mrs Hendon's room, and, by some mysterious and unaccountable fancy, linking Mr Strafford's gravely intelligent face with the gentle smile that the canvas had so carefully preserved.

Indeed, all her conversations with Mrs Hendon had the strange effect, cheering and soothing as they were, of making her think more yearningly than ever of the kindness that had vanished from her way.

It could not have been eleven o'clock when Mary set off to the butter shop, looking peculiarly neat and modest in the dusky brown shawl with the red border, not much the worse for wear.

It was a damp morning, with a thick warm mist, almost amounting to rain, but the umbrella shielded her new bonnet, cheerfully encircled with green ribbons, and not the less valued because it was a gift from Millie.

She took with her too, though this was almost out of sight till one spoke to her, a heart which, having passed through the furnace, showed clearly the Refiner's image. Another ornament became very visible as she entered Mr Taylor's shop, and it must have been the gentle beaming of this meek and quiet spirit which called up such a smile of welcome

into the butterman's face as Mary advanced towards him.

"I am come to thank you, sir," she said, “for your kind present," and the softening veil of simple Christian feeling fell so beautifully over her manner, that he settled at that moment in his own mind that hers was the best sort of Methodism he had ever met with.

They soon entered into conversation, and when he learned how he had cheered and assisted all the little family at Pump Court, a thrill passed through his whole frame very much like happiness; it seemed as with sudden dew to soften his spirit, and under its influence the shop all at once became less distasteful,he could still make glad the hearts of others; and oh, in this very consciousness there is a hidden blessing! Mr Taylor had a great deal of awkward reserve,—a sort of uncouth bachelorism about him, but he contrived to tell Mary of the dull void in his heart, which had so oppressed him, that with every comfort around, he seemed to stagger under the burden of life.

And Mary did not laugh, and tell him that he was in love, and that he must seek in brighter smiles to forget those he had lost.

With a quiet, listening sort of intelligence she showed how deeply she entered into his feelings, and when she had convinced him of her sympathy, without any difficulty in the world, she spoke of Him whose delight it is to replenish the sorrowful soul. "Nothing else will do, Mr Taylor," she said;