Helen's eyes were full of tears as she answered: 'Jessie, I do not know how to thank you. I cannot even attempt it. I am glad to say, however, I can give the information your mistress very reasonably requires. My father was a respectable tradesman in Glasgow, who kept a small grocery-shop near- Street. My mother died when I was twelve years old, leaving only my sister and myself. My father was very fond of us; and as he was well to do in those days, he kept a servant, and sent us to a ladies' day-school. I was always fond of reading and sewing, particularly flowering, and used to work collars and veils, and such things, for myself and my sister, who was very pretty. My father died suddenly two or three years before my sister was married. I then went to Ayrshire, where I gained a living for some years by working muslin.'

'Ye wad like to gang back to Ayrshire, I fancy?' said Jessie. 'Ye wadna like to be a servant?' glancing at Helen's small, thin hands, which did not look as if they had been accustomed to rough work.

'No, I do not care about going back to. Ayrshire, if I could maintain myself here. I have no friends in Ayrshire-no one anywhere who has been so kind to me as you have. I am one of those people who do not easily make friends. I would take any place, if I thought I could do the work; but I am not very strong. I could be nurserymaid, or to wait on a sick person. I am good at the sewing, and would take a very small wage.'

The report which Jessie took back to Todlaw Mains proved so satisfactory, that Mrs Young set about forthwith looking for a nursery-maid's place for Helen Gray. But it was a season of the year when places were difficult to be had. Three weeks had elapsed; and as Helen's health was quite restored, she was beginning to feel very uncomfortable at continuing to be a burden on the Gibsons, when a place turned up for her in a sudden and rather lamentable manner. One day, when Miss Ann Young was riding, she was thrown from her horse, and her spine severely injured in consequence of the fall. In the delicate state of health to which she was reduced, it was found necessary to have a person on purpose to wait upon her. It struck all the family as well as Jessie that Helen Gray would answer exactly; and as the latter had no difficulty in undertaking the duties required of her, she was at once installed as nurse to Miss Ann. It would have been impossible to find a nurse more gentle, quiet, and cleanly than Helen; still, she was not so great a favourite with any of the family as Jessie was. She was neither physically nor mentally of the stamp that most pleased Mrs Young. Although she got through her work by dint of determination and perseverance, she was not naturally active, and often looked languid, and as if she felt that she had to do a task. Then, though always obedient and civil, she seemed incapable of being delighted with anything. Mrs Young would rather have seen her occasionally a little 'put out' and cross, like Jessie, when anything annoyed her, if, like Jessie

6

also, she would sometimes have looked lively and joyous. She has been unfortunate, no doubt,' said Mrs Young; still, she has been in great luck to get a place like ours, and ought to feel and look thankful and happy instead of miserable. I cannot help thinking there must be something under that low, downcast look. I do not like your close, reserved people: I can never quite trust them.' And thus a sort of vague prejudice grew up in the minds of Mrs Young and her family against poor Helen, who, after all, was only guilty of having a different class of faults from themselves. She was slow, and she was reserved. Bodily exertion was always an effort to her; and her disposition, naturally shrinking and pensive, had been rendered more so by the events of her life; but as she made the effort, and never murmured at her lot, perhaps she deserved praise rather than blame.

IV.

The dark months had now passed by. It was spring. Robin Rae had obtained the situation of gardener to Mr Oliver of Springsyde House, and was to enter upon his new duties and take possession of the lodge at Whitsunday. He and Jessie were to be married as soon as the month of May was over-it being a popular superstition in Scotland that it is unlucky to marry in that month. The prospective departure of the latter was loudly lamented by the whole family at Todlaw Mains, who rejoiced, nevertheless, on Jessie's account. Every member of the family gave her a present, while Helen sat up at night to work her a set of collars, which Mrs Gibson pronounced to be fit for ony leddy i' the land.'

Instead, however, of becoming more cheerful as the days became longer and brighter, Helen became even sadder; it was not, however, that she was insensible to the charms of this loveliest season. Far more than Jessie, who liked them too, as she liked everything that was cheerful and sunny, she felt their beauty, and sympathised with their deeper spirit; yet, except at occasional happier moments, a settled grief seemed to prey upon her mind. Miss Ann said one day to her mother, that she gave her the idea of a person who had a troubled conscience. This was a hint sufficient to engage the attention of the active-minded and somewhat suspicious and prejudiced Mrs Young. She 'would watch her,' she said, 'and keep an eye upon everything. It had struck her lately, that the tea and sugar had been vanishing rather quickly, and, except the family, nobody ever had the key but Helen and Jessie; and Jessie was of course above suspicion. The disappearance, too, of that gold brooch was a very mysterious affair; she was almost sure it was in her dress when she came in from the field. She wished there might be any truth at all in Helen Gray's story. Very likely, after all, the infant was her own, and she might have another to support she did

not choose to tell of. In short, there was no saying; but she would keep a strict watch.

Leaving Mrs Young for the present to set on foot the system of espionage she meditated, I shall now proceed to unveil to my readers the true cause of Helen's increasing melancholy. The truth was, she had begun to discover the system of petty depredation which Jessie carried on. Helen Gray was a girl of the very highest moral principle-as conscientious in trifles as in greater things. The smallest act of her existence was with her a matter of conscience. With affections less warm, but not less true or lasting than those of Jessie, and with far less natural industry and activity, Helen's more earnest convictions and higher and steadier principles supplied the comparative deficiency of both. Never had she felt herself in so painful a dilemma as now. Hitherto, it had always been clear to her how she ought to act; now, opposite duties, as well as opposite feelings, seemed to call her with peremptory and conflicting voices. She knew not what to do. She could not satisfy her conscience that it was right, even by mere silence and passiveness, to connive at robbing her mistress; but how could she repay the heavy debt of gratitude she owed to Jessie by denouncing her as a thief? It was this painful struggle going on in her mind, combined with distress on account of the latter, that oppressed her spirits with a melancholy such as she had never felt before, even in the severest distress. After much deliberation, she at last decided on remonstrating with Jessie herself. It was a terrible effort for a shy and reserved girl like Helen Gray to make; but she was nerved to it by the paramount obligations of conscience.

Violent was Jessie's indignation at poor Helen's kindly meant remonstrance-all the more violent, perhaps, that a faint glimmer of its justice pierced through her darkened understanding. It set her weel to cast up to her that she wasna honest, her that awed her a'thing. If the mistress was pleased, what right had she to find faut? Her no honest! she wadna touch a penny that didna belang till her if she was starving.' So said Jessie, like many people in the world, healing the wound one sin inflicted on her conscience, by applying as an anodyne the idea that she would not commit another. Poor Helen Gray felt that further remonstrance was vain. Her spirit was bowed down with the weight of an obligation to a person whom she could not respect, and with the sad alternative of either being an accomplice in defrauding her mistress, or the instrument of ruining and disgracing her benefactress. Oh, if she could only have been the means of reforming her! Fervent and eager were her prayers that some way of attaining this object, might be presented. Helen felt that there was no desire so near her heart. Henceforth, it should be the grand aim of her existence. When Jessie's ruffled temper had regained its ordinary equanimity, she felt sorry she had reproached Helen Gray with the services she had rendered her, and

testified her regret by many acts of kindness, which only plunged poor Helen into the deeper distress. From that day forward, however, all confidence and cordiality between the two girls were over. Helen frequently found part of her work already done by the active Jessie; but the latter shunned as much as possible, without being absolutely rude, all communication with her. If Helen's remonstrance had at first given her slightly uncomfortable feelings, they quickly vanished beneath the soothing influence of Robin Rae's visits and attentions, the high estimation in which she was held by everybody, and the general brightness of her prospects. moments of elation, it appeared to her highly presumptuous in a person so much her inferior, in every one's opinion, as Helen was, to have dared to have found fault with her; but she could easily forgive her in the magnanimity conferred by her own superior happiness and consideration.

In her

Meantime, the estrangement of the two girls did not escape the lynx eyes of Mrs Young. She questioned them both on the subject, but could obtain no satisfactory answer from either. The scrupulous Helen looked sad and confused, and returned an evasive reply. She was not used to deception of any kind, and the slightest shade of it made her awkward. The bolder and more practised Jessie answered at once, that they 'didna gree about a thing or twa; but they were gude freends, for a' that.'

'It is a shame for Helen to quarrel with you.' 'Oh, we dinna quarrel. that's a'.'

Helen has a wheen queer notions,

Nothing further could be elicited from Jessie; but her manner was perfectly frank and unembarrassed. 'Queer notions!' thought Mrs Young; 'I wonder what about. Servants always think they should not tell tales of one another. That Helen is a sly slut; I do not like her quiet look.' And with all her former suspicions renewed and strengthened, Mrs Young watched more narrowly than ever. She soon became certain that the supposed disappearance of eggs, meal, tea, sugar, and various other things was no mere fancy. There was a dishonest person in the house; so much was certain. It only remained to bring home the theft to the guilty individual. Mrs Young would not inform against any one on mere suspicion, however certain she might feel in her own mind; but she was not a person to let such a matter rest without endeavouring to bring it to an issue.

Mrs Young had a brain fertile in expedients, and was not long in devising a plan by means of which the criminal might be detected. A large basket of eggs usually stood in a cupboard in the bedroom story, to which, besides the family, only Helen and Jessie had access. Besides eggs, this cupboard contained tea, sugar, arrowroot, and preserves-all of which articles, Mrs Young felt certain, were greatly diminished beyond what they could have been by the

consumption of the family. Mrs Young now resolved, on a certain day, to replenish this basket with eggs, counting them as she put them in. To make doubly sure, she marked each egg, as she placed it in the basket, with a tiny cross of pink dye. She then set the basket in the cupboard, remarking the next morning that ten were boiled for breakfast; she resolved to count them again that night.

But before I proceed further with my narrative, I must explain that Helen Gray slept in a small room close by this cupboard, the door of which, as well as the door of her room, and all the bedrooms on that floor, opened upon a sort of long gallery or passage, which was separated from the staircase by a railing. At the further end of this railing were the stairs; and any one going thither from the cupboard, had to pass the doors of all the bedrooms on the way. Now, Helen's room being next to the cupboard, it would have been easier for her than for any other person to have secreted anything abstracted from it, as she was the only one who had at hand the means of concealment. All these circumstances strengthened in Mrs Young a suspicion that Helen was the thief—a suspicion which, from being dwelt upon, was in her mind now converted into a certainty.

As usual, Jessie, who was always on the watch for the basket being full, as there was then less chance of what she took being missed, had remarked that it had been replenished. As she had got leave to drink tea that evening with her mother, the occasion seemed altogether tempting. Accordingly, when she was up-stairs making the beds, and all the family-with the exception of Miss Ann, who was a prisoner to a couch in her own room-were, she thought, at breakfast, she stole along the gallery to the cupboard, which was open, but with the key in the door. She had just abstracted half-a-dozen eggs and a handful of tea, carrying them in her apron, when she heard her mistress's step upon the stairs. For an instant, all seemed lost. She had not time to replace the eggs, and she knew not where to escape to. She trembled from head to foot, but it was only from the dread of detection. Another instant's hesitation, and she was discovered: her mistress would be in the gallery. Suddenly an idea struck her. Quick as thought, she darted into Helen's room. Even if Helen were there, she felt convinced she would save her. Helen, however, was not in the room; and Jessie, greatly relieved, was just beginning to breathe again, when she heard herself called by her mistress from Miss Ann's room. What was to be done with the eggs?

There was in the little chamber a small, old-fashioned chest of drawers, where Helen kept her scanty supply of clothes; but they were all locked. Jessie was almost at her wits' end. At last she descried an old worn-out trunk in the window, which served as a seat, and to keep odds and ends in. Into this trunk Jessie now put