western extremity stood a massive building of hewn stone, two stories high. The moon's light shone slantingly upon its front, and displayed two antique figures in robes and periwigs this was the Tholsel-round which they turned into Nicholas-street, lying in the shadow of the night, for the moonbeams shining from the east could not find their way into it, and the dim and flickering oil-lamp shed but a faint and partial light around.

"Now mistress," said Regan, "you're in Nicholas-street. There is the church, and farther on is Kennedy-court. What house are you seeking?"

The woman hesitated for a moment. She seemed to be struggling with some feelings that ultimately got the better of her. At length she said, with some embarrassment

"I will not trespass on you any farther. I can now find the house I want. I am very thankful for your kindness. I wish I could show my gratitude as fully as I feel it."

She held forth in her hand a silver coin. The old watchman shook his head, and said

"No, no, mistress. I can afford to do a good turn for nothing; besides

that drunken young scapegrace paid me well enough already on your account. I have a wife myself, and daughters too, for that matter; and for their sakes I can help a friendless woman, and so good night, and God protect you. I must hurry back to be on my beat to sing out 'all's well' when the inspector goes his rounds."

She

Then the watchman retraced his steps, and was soon out of sight round the corner of the Tholsel. The woman passed on rapidly a few paces, then she stopped at a doorway on the left side of the street. A projecting oil-lamp burned muddily over the heavy stone pediment, and gave her light enough to to see a massive brass-knocker. lifted it hurriedly, and knocked with a trembling hand. The sound reverberated through the still air, and smote upon her heart with a sudden shock. A thousand memories were evoked by that sound. Hopes, fears, doubts, agonies crowded upon her; they were too much for a frame weakened by illness, and nerves shaken by the events of the evening; and, ere her summons was answered, she sank down unconscious in the snow that lay upon the steps.

WHEN she who had wandered through the midnight snows and sunk on the cold door steps, opened her eyes, and became once again conscious, she was as one waking from a long dream. Years,occupied by that dream, vanished, and she gazed around on familiar objects. The room and its quaint orderly furniture were those of her childhood. There was the curtained window at which she had stood by day, the bright cheery hearth at which she had sat by night. The chimney-glass in its antique frame, with the peacock's feathers at each side. The old clock ticked upon the mantelpiece. The green parrot swung upon his hoop in the gilded cage. And, kneeling beside her, one chafed her temples, and kissed her cold hands, with all the gentle kindness which it is the blessed gift of woman alone to minister. And there, too, bent over her, one whose eyes were full of awe and wonder, of unutterable love and tenderness, of joy and sorrow, hope and doubt, strangely blended.

"Are you my own dear Mary, alive

and in the flesh? or are you her blessed spirit come to summon me to my last dread account? Speak, in the name of God's own mother, I adjure you."

66

Laurence, dear Laurence, I am your own sister Mary. God has spared me life to come back and throw myself upon your love."

The man smote his breast with his open palms, and heaved a mighty sigh: 'twas the heaving of a heart that cast off for ever a load that was dragging it down to the grave.

"Then I am no murderer! O Lord, I thank thee;" and flinging himself down on his knees beside the couch, he kissed her poor, pale forehead and her cold lips again and again, and wept and laughed by turns, while that gentle sister clasped his head in her wasted hands, and soothed him, and blest him, and wept with him; till at last the other woman, fearing that the excitement would injure both, rose up, and with quiet, yet firm restraint, drew the man away.

"Dear husband, you must compose yourself, for her sake as well as for your own. See how weak and faint she is, you will surely injure her. Come," and she led him to a chair apart, and then returned as quietly as before to the suffering one, and busied herself again in tending her, saying little, but doing all things needful. And the man looked on the while wonderingly and musingly, yet not daring to speak, keeping closed the flood-gates of his feelings lest they should break out again, and overwhelm him. And, after a little time, they were all more composed and tranquil, and Mary spoke for a time in a low voice with Mrs. Kennedy, and then she arose and tasted, in thankfulness, of the food that was set before her, and drank of the old Spanish wine, which her father had loved, and would give to her, as a child, on festive occasions. And then they sat by the fireside, that long-severed, long-estranged brother and sister, her hand in his hand, her head upon his breast. And the quiet, gentle wife, she had stolen noiselessly away out of the room, leaving the two together, while they poured out their hearts in mutual explanations.

"Yes; dear Mary, from the hour when I snatched my hand from you, as you supplicated me upon your knees, and I passed out through that door, with reproaches on my lips and bitterness in my heart, I have known no peace. Ere one week had passed, I sought for you at his lodgings, everywhere, but you were not to be found; you were both gone, nobody knew whither."

"We left the country the day after that bitter parting. Why should we stay where we were outcasts and beggars?"

"I sought for you everywhere; I advertised in the papers here and in England. I made inquiries through my correspondents abroad, but in vain ; no answer, no clue, and yet you must have seen them, Mary. Was this well done, sister?-you were not used to have an unrelenting spirit."

"Yes; I did see what you put in the papers copied into a foreign journal; and oh dear Laurence, God knows how my heart yearned towards you; but he would not suffer me to reply. The wounds you had inflicted on his pride and honour were still rankling. You had called him, he told me, a beggar and an adventurer. You accused

him of abusing your confidence and hospitality; of clandestinely seducing your sister's affections; of making a base and ungrateful return for your bounty. What bounty, save the money that he earned by his own honest toil!-oh! brother, brother! you know not the man you so accused.'

The woman raised her head from where it had been resting, and a flush spread over her pallid face. It might have been anger, it might have been but pride; whatever was its cause, it soon passed away. That meek soul had been too severely schooled by the world's trials, too deeply taught by God's chastisements, to cherish the one or the other emotion; and so she laid her head once again lovingly upon her brother's breast.

"I did all that you say, Mary, nor do I now seek to justify it altogether; but when you judge my conduct, do not forget how sorely I was tried— tried in all that was dearest to my heart, my affections, my religion, my pride, my name."

The woman shook her head mournfully, but made no reply. It might be that she knew how her brother had felt all these things, though she could not admit that they should have tried him so severely.

"Bear with me for a little while, dear sister," he continued, "while for once I lay bare before you my heart and my motives. Even should it pain you, still you will not deny me the opportunity of pleading my own cause. When I shall have done this, my lips shall be closed on the subject for ever. Condemn me then as you will. God knows you cannot condemn me as much as my own conscience does.

"Of all his children, you and I alone were left to our dear father. How he loved you, you know well; but he loved you not more dearly than I did, when on his death-bed he commended you to my care. I watched over you, Mary, more as a father would do than a brother. You were the light of my home, and the pride of my heart, and I sought for no other companion while I had you, no other mistress for my house. And so passed on many a happy year till you were a full grown woman; and then came the shadow over our bright life.'

The merchant paused as if half afraid to proceed; at length he took courage and resumed.

"One morning I received from a

Bourdeaux correspondent a letter requesting my good offices in favour of a French Protestant who had been forced to leave his native land. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, the bearer of that letter. 'Twas Joseph Le Maistre. I pitied him; for I hated in my heart all persecution for conscience sake. My house was opened to him; I procured him tuitions as a teacher of languages, and I suffered him to make you perfect in the knowledge of his native tongue. Oh! Mary, my own sister! was it honourable, was it generous, that he should creep in between our hearts, that he should rob me of your love-that he should estrange your heart from its duty, and your soul from the religion of your fathers. And yet all this he did, Mary; and I suspected nothing of it, till one and the same day I learned that you were a Protestant, and the wife of Le Maistre."

"All this my husband did, Laurence; yet was he neither ungenerous nor dishonourable. If there be cause for blame, and I do not deny it, let that blame rest where it should, upon me. My love for my dear husband I have never for a moment repented; in my changed faith, I humbly rejoice. I do not, and I never did, justify my marriage without your knowledge; he would have had it otherwise, but I overruled him; for I knew your quick temper and your strong attachment to your faith, and I feared that you would prevent our union. Dearly have we paid the penalty, when you sent me forth fortuneless upon the world; I know you had the right legally to do so, for my portion was made subject to my marrying with your consent.

"And every farthing of that portion I placed to your credit, and will account to you honestly for it and all its fruits."

"Oh! brother, this is indeed being more than just-it is generous, generous and good as my own dear brother was wont to be in our young days. This will enable us all to be independent, will save us from the sharp pang and degradation of poverty-him and my child."

Kennedy started involuntarily. Up to this moment he had not thought of the existence of Joseph Le Maistre ; somehow he had concluded that he was dead.

He

"He was not in the Santiago. had sailed a week before in a vessel bound for Barbadoes, where he had friends on whose aid he relied. There we were to meet him when the Santiago touched on her voyage to Europe. I will not relate to you the terrors of that dreadful night, when our ship went down so suddenly that the sleepers were awakened to rush on deck and find their graves in the sea; nor how, as I sank with the vessel in the seething waters that sucked us downwards, with my arms round my child, I thought of you, brother, and prayed God to forgive us both."

The merchant groaned; he called to mind the picture that his distempered fancy drew of that awful scene, and how different it was from the reality. The woman continued:

"Some friendly hand threw me a rope. I seized it, and was drawn, with my child, into a small boat. There were but two men in it. All that dreadful night we drifted about; and when the light of the morning broke, they discovered a ship not a mile distant. One of the men took my shawl, and raising it up on an oar, signalled the vessel. After some time she perceived us, and in half-an-hour more we were on board, and in safety. We were landed at St. Lucia, and I contrived from that to make my way to Barbadoes, and found my husband. There we remained many years, and at last we have sought my native city; for I had a strong belief that God would not will that we should be thus estranged for ever. And I said I would seek you once again, and humble myself before you, my own dear brother."

"Nay, dear sister, not so; you shall not humble yourself to me, for I, too, have erred; but you shall lie in my heart as closely as you did before. When you left me, Mary, my house was lonely, and I sought one to solace me in my sorrow, and such a one I found in my dear wife, your old playmate, Hester. She will be to you as a sister, and you shall share our homeyou and your little one.

"Laurence, there is one whom you do not name. I share no home and no heart in which he also is not a sharer.

Whither he goes, I go. His people shall be my people, as his God is my God."

The woman paused, and looked anxiously at her brother for a reply; but no reply came. His brow grew

dark. The evil spirit was upon himthat spirit of anger against the husband of his sister, which years of suffering had not subdued, He rose hastily from his seat, and paced the room with rapid steps. Oh! poor, frail, human nature the slave of sin and passion! with all the light that shines upon you from above, still loving the darkness; with the voice of God speaking to you everywhere and in everything, still closing your ear as the deaf adder; with countless unseen pitying angels around you, ever striving to bear you in their hands, and raise you heavenward, still grovelling in the dust. There, in that man's heart, was then going on one of those mysterious spiritual battles which, from the first hour of the first man's fall till the last hour of the last man's life, have been, and shall be, waged the good and the evil striving for the mastery, as Michael and the Devil contended for the body of Moses. And the battle is fierce, and the fortune of the fight shifts and wavers, but at last 'tis over, and the evil angels are masters of the human battle-field for. a season, and enter in, and possess it.

Kennedy stopped short before her. "I wronged you, and I am ready to make all reparation, sister, in my power to you. Him I never wronged, but he has sorely wronged me. Let us be as we are, strangers for ever. I swore that it should be so. Shall I break my solemn oath ?"

Mary Le Maistre rose from her seat, pale as death, yet composed as one who had taken a fixed resolve.

"Laurence Kennedy, for the last time, farewell! Your hasty and violent temper I knew well, and I did not cease to love you, even when that temper wrought me sorrow and suffering; but I did not know till now that you had so unforgiving a spirit. To-night I left my husband without his knowledge, while he slept after a heavy day of toil, and alone in this cold winter's night, I sought your house with what hopes it is idle now to say. Well, well, these hopes have failed me. I will return to my husband, and we will pray that you may never plead in vain for that forgiveness which you refused to another."

She moved towards the door, but Kennedy stepped between it and her. "Mary, Mary, for the love of God do not leave me!"

"The love of God! What do you

know of the love of God, or how do you dare to appeal to it? God loves the vilest soul that sins against him, and pardons him. That love is not in you, Laurence Kennedy. If a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.'"

The words fell upon the ear of Kennedy with a terrible and solemn force, and pierced his heart as it were with a sword. The memory of that scene years ago, when last they stood togegether in that very room, even as they did now, face to face, came vividly before him; and the words which she had then spoken sounded again as distinctly in his ears as they did that dayan awful denunciation and appeal to God against him. Once more the lifebattle is renewed in his soul, and the word of God, quick and sharp as a two-edged sword, drives back the evil angels till they have but one stronghold left.

"My oath-my solemn oath!" cried the man, perplexed and in agony. "If I had not taken that oath

"Think you, Laurence Kennedy, that you can plead that oath against Christ's command to love your brother, when you and that brother shall stand, at the last day, before his judgment-seat? Look round and answer me that question."

Mechanically he turned his head in the direction to which she pointed. There stood the man of whom they spoke, as if summoned by some mysterious power to confront him now in the presence of an unseen God, as he should yet do before his visible judge. A slight, small man, on whose delicate face the lines of sorrow were prematurely traced, with a dull, languid eye, from which all the playful light of bygone days had vanished. There was no pride now in that form, somewhat bent with a habitual stoop; and as Kennedy looked at him, he could have fancied that half-a-century had p: st over that man since last they met. He stood meekly, yet with a manly and composed dignity, just within the doorway, awaiting the advance of his wife's brother. Kennedy stood irresolute and motionless-the battle rages within him—the stronghold of pride and long-cherished anger is sore assailed, but is not yet taken.

"Dear husband," said his wife, in her quiet yet constraining accents, "Mr. Le Maistre has come with me from his lodging this wild winter night

to see you. Will you not receive and welcome him-Mary's husband, Laurence?"

The little girl, who had accompanied her father, when she heard the name, stept softly up and looked into her uncle's face, with a sweet smile and a look of childish wonder, and touching his hand said

"Are you my Uncle Laurence, that papa taught me to name in my prayers night and morning?"

The batte is won, the stronghold is carried, and the evil ones are driven from it for ever. Out of the mouth of the babe has God ordained the strength that gave the victory. Kennedy raised the little one in his arms and kissed her, and then setting her gently down, held out his hand to Le Maistre

"Come in, brother Le Maistre; come in and sit down with us. With my whole heart I make you welcome."

The women wept silently, but the child shouted gleefully and clapped her hands. She was fresher from heaven than they, and her spiritual sensations were yet akin to those of the angels; like them, she rejoiced over the sinner that had repented.

After a little time, the door was opened, and a head thrust hesitatingly into the room.

"What the devil is wrong now?" asked Kennedy impatiently.

He felt half-ashamed that any one except those around him should witness his emotion.

"There's nothing wrong now, sir, but all's right; and it was not the devil at all, but a figure that was left out in the last entry in your own private account, and so I put it down to your credit; and all's right now, and the books balance to a farthing.'

"Come in, Goggles come in, old fellow; all is right, thank God, in my accounts with the whole world. See, here are old friends; won't you wish them a happy new year?"

Goggles obeyed the summons, and

walked up to the fireplace, where they were all sitting.

"Lord save us! who's this at all? Blessed Virgin! it cannot be! Yes, but it is. Ah, dear Miss Mary-I beg your pardon, Mistress Le Maistre. Is it possible?-alive, alive as sure as two and two's four. Mr. Le Maistre, I'm proud to see you once again: Ah, sir, you've been at the multiplication table, I see, since you left us;" and the old man gave a low chuckle as he looked at the child.

Goggles was a wag in a small way, but his jeux d'esprit and figures were always arithmetical.

"Ay, and a great addition to their happiness, Goggles," said his master, humouring the old man's foible.

"He! he he! Very true, sir. Thank God, there's an end to the long division, at all events."

"Sit down, old friend; you shall share in my joy as you have known my sorrow. Come, drink the health of our friends here in a glass of wine, and wish them a happy new year."

As he spoke, the bells of St. Patrick's Church rang out a jocund peal upon the night. The old year had passed away-passed with all its sins and its sorrows, all its good and its evil passed away from Time into Eternity-gone to be written up in God's register, against the last day of accounting, when Time itself shall be no more. And one bright entry will appear under the head of that old year of 179-, the record of pride subdued, of anger overcome by love, of estranged hearts united; and whatever sins were registered in the page of that year against any of those who then sat lovingly together at its close, I well believe that the earnest repentance of that last half-hour will be availing with a merciful Judge, and that the finger of God's love will set that repentance and sorrow and suffering against the pride and enmity and anger, and so balance that account at the great day of reckoning.

"Hem! I thought as much."