the world, Lady Euphemia, whom Dr. Henderson found with a croquet party on her lawn; and walking up and down, his talk with her was absolutely a tête-à-tête.

To tell you the truth,' said the lady, 'I did not half like your cushion business at first. I thought the girls had enough to do, and that it gave them notions of their own usefulness; and-you know I don't go along with your ways of dressing up churches, and all that. But they are good girls; and to cross them would have harmed them more than to let them have their way-not having time to argue out everything, like Mrs. Harding with her one girl. And I fairly own, Dr. Henderson, that I think we are under great obligations to that work. I thought my Bride there was a wiselike girl, that could be trusted anywhere, or with anyone; but there came one of those times of gaiety that will turn the soberest head, and an idle lad, that, to the best of my belief, was for daffing-as we say in Scotland-with any girl that would attend to him. What with their music, their croquet, their pic-nics, and Mrs. West's being greatly taken with it, I will not say but that we had more than enough of it, and the girls' heads were being turned. Only you see this work came in as a thermometer. They had it on their conscience; and there was the proof if they grew neglectful. I do assure you, it brought mine back to her bearings without one word on my part; and from that moment I had no anxiety. Yes-true, I had not much from the first. Bride is one fit for full trust; but the lad was plausible, and had a tone and way with him, and I did fear she might have a sore heart at the end of it, as I fear the poor little West girl has.'

'I saw something was amiss with poor little Camilla.'

'Why, you see, the lad (I saw his game, though he never guessed it) was making up to the heiress on one side, while, I suppose, Bride's talk and music and all attracted him on the other. The girls themselves never found it out, and had no jealousies; but a looker-on could see, and wonder how to interfere without putting nonsense in a lassie's head such as might otherwise never have taken shape.' (Very Scottish had Lady Euphemia's tones waxed in her confidential mood.) But when I found my girl sitting up till midnight to repair her neglected work, and giving up her pic-nic to do it thoroughly-why, then I knew that her conscience and her cushion had done their work, and that I might hold my tongue. Then came poor Clara's accident; and the party was broken up the lad was off yachting; and if the little West girl was silly enough to droop for the like of him, she will have worked some of it into her cushion, and be all the wiser when the next access comes.'

'Do you advise me to supply her with needle-work for the parish? She begs it, and her mother discourages it.'

'Her mother is too full of her airs to deserve to be attended to, as long as she is not led to flat disobedience. Give her the work, by all

means. They have taught her with all their might to be a fine lady; but it is not in her; and the poor child will never be happy without a duty to do. If her mother would let you fill her mind with some wholesome, practical, homely work-charitable would be best-there would be some chance for her.'

'Perhaps it may be provided,' added the Doctor, with a smile, 'if you keep the good lady up in the belief that such things are done by the élite.'

'I am sure,' said Lady Euphemia in her hearty homely way, 'I always wish my lassies to make themselves useful, be they where they may: and among so many, I hope more may be done in time than now; for what with their father's health, and the school-room full of little ones, and the living away from our own place, I have been forced to lay more on the two eldest than is natural at their age; but they are good girls, and I hope it will not be the worse for them in the end.'

'I am sure it will not,' said Dr. Henderson earnestly.

'And let me tell you farther,' continued the lady; 'I think it has been a very good thing for them all that we had to come here just at this time in their lives. How sore a trial it was to break up from home, you can well guess; nothing else than my husband's improved health could have made one bear it; but I am more reconciled to it now than ever I thought I could be. There were wills and wishes that came up when the girls came to the age for making their own characters; and we could hardly have dealt with them so satisfactorily without such an outer influence as yours has been-gaining the will by the way of what, for want of a better word, I must call the imagination.'

""The aërial gleam that fancy lends
To solemn thoughts in youth," '

said Dr. Henderson, much gratified: 'not the teaching in this place, but that of the Church.'

'I do not enter into all you say of that, or all you have taught the girls,' returned Lady Euphemia: 'it is not as I was bred up. All I meant to say was, that much that I was averse to at first, and thought tended to frippery and folly and irreverence, I see now has been to these young things a real expression of devotion, and training in it.'

'Because it tends to the glory of God,' said Dr. Henderson.

'Well-that's a question that perhaps persons bred so differently as you and I can never agree on,' said Lady Euphemia. "You think splendour and ornament to His glory. I like simplicity best, and feel it most in accordance with what I have always believed; but I see by my children that what seems grave and simple to me, is bare, cold, and repelling to them; and I am free to confess that what they have met with here has been good for them-very good. It has done what I could not do with them; and I shall be glad of whatever advice you may give them or the younger ones.'

Dr. Henderson had seldom been more gratified by any conversation with one of his flock, than by this candid testimony coming from so sensible a woman, and one so likely to be prejudiced against his views. He took it to himself as a tonic to prepare him for what was to come next-his call at the Turtle-nest.

Mrs. Henderson had written to desire to have Mary's piece of work returned, to be finished at once. It had been sent accordingly, and had been found to be not half done. At first sight it was plain that the canvas was tumbled and limp, the white lilies soiled, and the false commencement at the further end still not picked out. Closer examination had disclosed a tract of wrongly crossed stitches, then a leaf awry-and worse than all, that a thread of the canvas had been cut; and though there had been an endeavour to work over it, the result had been a mere botch. It was impossible to do anything but take a fresh piece and work it from the beginning; and luckily Mrs. Henderson had been prepared for such a catastrophe, and had the materials ready to put into the hands of her sister, who was to arrive that very day.

should hear, about dear Long before even Mr. Mrs. Rose did her more

Dr. Henderson knew perfectly well what he Mary's earnest wish and many interruptions. Rose's death, he had found out that talking to harm than good, and gave to himself the sensation of a bath of soapsuds. And to Mary, he was sure that to listen to such a conversation did infinite mischief. He was therefore much relieved to see her small person gliding on alone before him in the street; and longer steps, he soon overtook her, and addressed her. Mary; I am glad to have overtaken you; I was you.'

'Oh,' said Mary in her timid manner, thank you. come in? Dear Mamma will be so glad to see you.'

by making a few 'Good morning, on my way to

Will you not

'I think not. It is you whom I wanted to see. I wanted to thank you for your exertions in behalf of the church.'

'O Dr. Henderson,' began Mary, a little uncomfortably, 'I am so sorry-'

'There is no cause for sorrow if you were better employed,' said Dr. Henderson.

"Why, you see dear Clara's accident was so all-absorbing, allengrossing,' said Mary, exactly in her mother's tone.

'Ah, true! But I never quite understood what you did for Clara.' 'Oh, then it is very ungrateful-I do say that!' exclaimed Mary. 'Why, dear Mamma and I were hardly ever out of the house till Emily and Susan came.'

'I see. And you were very much occupied with the care of her?' 'Why I don't know,' said Mary, who had some truth in her; 'the Maclaines did so put themselves forward. But then we might have been.'

"Then I am to understand that your constant attendance upon Clara is the reason that you were unable to finish the cushion?'

'No-not exactly-quite,' hesitated Mary, 'not if it is put in that strong way; but we were naturally anxious to be at hand; and one could not think of carpet-work when the dear girl's state was so precarious.'

Her mother's tone again.

'Mary,' said Dr. Henderson gravely, you must not imagine that there is any sense of personal vexation at your being the only one who has not finished the work.'

'Am I the only one?' interrupted Mary in a genuine voice of surprise and mortification.

'The only one.

Clara's was finished by Alice Coxe.'

I am sure

'Well!' exclaimed Mary, 'I never thought Miss West, or Miss Harding, or Miss Maclaine, would have done theirs! someone helped them!'

'No one, Mary.

But may I ask how that affected your cushion?' Mary hesitated a moment, but answered, 'I thought hardly anyone else would finish so soon, and then it would not signify.'

'What would not signify to what?'

'Dr. Henderson,' she said, fretted out of her bashfulness, and almost ready to say, 'How tiresome!' but recollecting herself, I thought if no one else had finished, you would not care.'

"The point is not whether I should care, but whether, having undertaken to make an offering for the Sanctuary, you have done your utmost.'

'I am sure I have done nothing else! I have not been to concerts and parties and croquet and pic-nics.'

Having the alternative, you gave them up on that account. Is it so, Mary?'

'Well-no; but then we have never sought the world and its snares.' 'It appears, however, that these same snares did not hinder the completion of other cushions.'

'Some people do work faster than others.'

It was the first approach to an admission of any sort of inferiority. 'And why, Mary? Did you ever try to find out?'

'Mamma says nothing is more dissipating and distracting than to live in a hurry.'

"True; but there is a medium. Mary, I want you just to answer yourself candidly this one question: Why was not your work finished? Was it really owing to your attendance on Clara? Was it absolute incapacity? Or-stay, here is the short cut to the Rectory. Come in, and look at the work.'

Mary had much rather not, but was forced to submit.

The Doctor put her into the study, and himself fetched the six pieces, and spread them out. Mary looked, and spoke not a word; but great

tears slowly gathered in her eyes; and at last she said, 'It is very odd! I did think I should have been the one to do it best.'

'And what did you found that expectation on?'

'I don't know. The humblest always is.'

"The humblest! That is true! But how about the humility that claims to be the humblest?' said the Doctor, more than half amused, though sad and pitying.

'What!' exclaimed Mary, in unfeigned amazement, 'do not you think me humble?'

"The question is not what I think, Mary.'

'But I am humble!' exclaimed Mary.

'See, here, Mary. If this was a story such as you have often read, the widow's daughter in the little house, who never goes to parties, would be superior to all the grand young ladies. The tortoise would beat the hare. It is very gratifying; and tortoises sometimes do. But then they are tortoises that go on: of the two, I had rather have a hare asleep than a tortoise asleep-or a tortoise too sure of the race to bestir himself-eh?'

'O Dr. Henderson, are not you hard on me?'

'My dear Mary, I care greatly for you; for I valued and loved your father; and I think you much need the discipline you lost with him. My dear, do not talk about it to anyone; but before you go to bed tonight, look at the Parable of the Talents, and observe that it was he with the one talent, who hid it in the earth, and threw the blame away from himself upon his lord's austerity. Joan Harding writes to me how nearly she failed; and asks if her life will be like the history of her cushion. Mary, it will be well for your life, if you take warning in silence by the history of yours.'

(Concluded.)

LILLA'S RELATIONS.

CHAPTER XVII.

It was between three and four o'clock on an August morning; the window was open in Grace's room in the Rue de l'Université. A soft gentle breeze was ushering in the dawn; all of Paris that was awake were the sparrows, and a line of street-sweepers, who were clearing away betimes all the dust and dirt of the traffic which would soon begin again— nay, was already beginning-in the shape of a huge vegetable-cart, rumbling in from the country. The sound of their cheerful voices, men and women, as they followed each other in regular line in their unpleasing occupation, was wafted up, so that the inmates of the sick-room could hear it.