TOM ORCHARD returned from school soon after four o'clock, and was immediately sent by his mother to Mr. Talfourd's house with the packet of letters found in Mary Burton's pocket. Mr. Talfourd was at home when Tom arrived: Janet was in the town shopping. Almost at the first glance the minister knew the handwriting and initials. The impression conveyed to him by the direction was that Mary was already dead; he eagerly tore open the envelope, and recognised his own and his sister's letters.

Then he turned to Tom for information, but it was little he could gain from that quarter; the boy_had heard but a hurried, confused account of the accident. Having a fertile imagination, he had filled up minute details for himself as he came

along, so that the description he gave Mr. Talfourd was rather sensational than correct. In despair, that gentleman took up his hat, thrust the packet of letters into his desk, and, bidding Tom show the way, set off at once for Mrs. Orchard's house.

Here he heard what had happened.

"The doctor told me to send for her friends,' said Mrs. Orchard, "so I thought it best to let you know, as then you could tell her relations. She ought to have some one with her whom she knows."

"She has no relatives in this town-no relations anywhere, I believe," answered Mr. Talfourd.

But I will send a friend to her,'

he added, as he thought of Mrs. Clavering; and presently he rose to depart, thankful that there was something he could do. The suddenness of the affair had unnerved him for the time, and he did not feel equal just yet to calm thought about it; the excitement of rapid walking was a positive relief.

He soon reached the house where Mrs. Clavering lived.

"She is out; I believe she has gone to see Miss Burton," was the reply of the servant who had opened the door to him. Mr. Talfourd at once decided to follow her.

It so happened, however, that Mrs. Clavering was making one or two! calls on her way, and Mr. Talfouri reached Mary's lodgings first. He guessed how it was, and waited in Mary's sitting-room for Mrs. Clavering's appearance. How long the moments seemed as he paced restlessly to and fro ! On the table was lying one of Mary's favourite books. one which she prized above most others-one familiar no doubt to the greater number of my readers "Sermons preached at Manchester." He opened it mechanically, and h eye caught a few sentences underlined with pencil-marks which dre his attention to them. Where G sets us, we must stand, if we de What God has given us to do we must do. The duties that in our weakness become impediments and weights, we must not leave."

Was it, then, some conviction of this kind which had kept her at the

chapel, he asked himself, when many would have left it in temper or from pride? He had often been surprised to see her there, always, when well enough, in her accustomed place. He had sometimes wondered whether (as Mrs. Sheriff would occasionally insinuate) she was so callous that she did not feel, or so obstinate that she came in a spirit of bravado.. But the words thus underlined, the appearance of the pages which indicated that they had been read again and again, made him understand better the workings of Mary's mind. An intense desire, a fixed resolve to remain where God had placed her, had been the motive power which had given her strength to bear the coldness of those she loved.

While Mr. Talfourd was pondering these things, Mrs. Clavering arrived. In a few words, and in rather an unconnected way, he explained his errand.

"Of course I will go to her at once," said Mrs. Clavering.

"There is no need for that," he replied. "Mrs. Orchard, in whose house she is, told me she was sleeping, and the doctor wished her to be kept quite quiet for a time. Her arm was broken, and it has been set" (and Mr. Talfourd shuddered as he spoke). "She is sleeping, no

doubt from exhaustion after the pain. There is no immediate necessity for your going."

And then, talking about Mary, Mrs. Clavering did what she had often longed for an opportunity of doing told Mr. Talfourd of Mary's steady, quiet life, of her patient endurance of her great sorrow, adding to this the facts in reference to Amy and her extraordinary likeness to her cousin, which Mary had told her the previous afternoon.

"As for your personal reasons for displeasure,' continued Mrs. Clavering, "I think, Mr. Talfourd, you ought to have forgotten and forgiven that long ago. Some one repeats to you things Mary

Mr. Talfourd would have been offended had many spoken to him in this plain, straightforward way, but he had too high a respect for Mrs. Clavering to take offence readily at her; and the calm, dignified, yet gentle manner in which her words were uttered took from them all that might otherwise have been irritating to his pride. He sat for many minutes after she had ceased to speak without offering a reply. His elbows were resting on the table, and his face was buried in his hands, so that she could not judge whether her plain speech had grievously affronted him. From his long silence she fancied it must be so; but she was no coward, and would certainly have done the same thing over again had it been needful.

sentenced her in the very first communication that passed between you. You both assumed that she was guilty of various things before you even named her offences to her! Forgive my plain speaking; but I don't think you could expect even Mary, with all her affection for your sister and yourself, to volunteer explanations after such treatment as that."

"If she had valued our friendship I think she would have done so."

"If she had valued your friendship!” repeated Mrs. Clavering, with a little indignation as she thought of the suffering Mary had endured. 66 You forget, Mr. Talfourd, that your very first communication told her all friendship was at an end."

He could make no answer to this, and Mrs. Clavering, not feeling disposed to continue discussing the subject just then, expressed her anxiety to go to Mrs. Orchard's, so as to be there when Mary should wake. She held out her hand to say good-bye.

"I will see you early to-morrow, to hear how she is," said he, rising too. "I am glad to think she will have you with her now."

They were the first kind words he had spoken of Mary since their quarrel, and Mrs. Clavering marvelled as she heard them. She had long since given up any hope of Mr. Talfourd's feeling otherwise than resentful towards Mary; but could it be that a kinder, a more forgiving spirit was come at last? She knew well that Mr. Talfourd cherished no ill-will, that he would not have injured Mary could he have done so; but she was too experienced a Christian not to be aware that the mere absence of positive ill-will is far from being all that Christian love and forgiveness implies. She had deeply sorrowed over the estrangement between Mary Burton and her friends. Now she left him with a faint hope that there would be peace between them even yet.

Peace was near at hand; but under what a different form to that which Mrs. Clavering expected!

The minister walked home to shut himself up in his study, and loos over the contents of that packet, undisturbed. The letters he had sent her when first she had come under his ministry he put aside; he had little curiosity to read them, at any rate just now; he knew that they had been written as exhortations and counsel in her newly awakened religious life; but the other packet -those few letters written principally by his sister at the time of the quarrel-were those he wished to read again.

My reader, have you ever writer an angry, vehement letter, when just stung by real or fancied iltreatment, and then read it o more in calm moments after a lapse of many months or years? If so, : you will understand without description the surprise, the remorse, the sorrow with which Mr. Talfourd read through those letters. His pity and tenderness (and he was one of the most tender-hearted men that ever lived) had been stirred by Mary's accident; his faith in Mrs. Sheriff had been shaken by Mrs. Clavering's clear, calm explanations; and now these letters made him realise how he had made to quiver with pain the heart whose greatest fault had been in loving him and his sister too wel

At length he came to that last letter which Mary had never t had come really from him. Ho well he now remembered the writing of it! He was at the chapel one day, some three months after Janet's first letter to Mary, transacting business and meeting "inquirers." It so hap pened that Mary had been compelled to see him on some chapel matter, and had, with a beating heart, taken this opportunity of doing so. Her business was soon ended, and she was turning to go, when a longing for peace between them came over her; the friendship might be gone,

but she craved for one word of reconciliation. Wondering at her own daring, she exclaimed, "Have you no forgiveness for me, Mr. Talfourd" And he had answered, "You haven't given me much time for forgiveness yet!" "Not much time!" and it had seemed so long to her!

Going out, crushed and brokenhearted, she had encountered Mrs. Sheriff; for that lady had chanced to see Mary near the chapel, and, conscience making her cowardly, she feared the effects of an interview between Mary and the minister. Her only hope of keeping friendly with the Talfourds was to nip in the bud anything like reconciliation. She decided on a bold stroke-she would make some excuse for seeing Mr. Talfourd the moment Mary came away, and be guided by circumstances how to speak. Could Mr. Talfourd have seen the look she cast on Mary as they passed each other, he would have understood her character then as he understood it later.

"I met Miss Burton; I wonder she dared to come and speak to you." Thus she introduced the subject; and then with a subtlety and cleverness worthy of a better cause, she went over with irritating, galling distinctness all that Mary had said or done to offend; she knew his weak points, knew so well how to rouse his resentment and pride.

So was written the letter, which, as Mr. Talfourd now read it, he tore impatiently into shreds, grieved that such a one had ever been penned by him.

The days went by, and Mary became better or worse by fits and starts. Her arm had been broken, but it had been set and was going on rightly enough; yet she herself grew weaker. It puzzled the doctor; it didn't puzzle Mary. She knew that those nights of sore anguish, when she had wept and prayed instead of sleeping, that the

daily, hourly battle to feel rightly towards those who had so cruelly injured her, the never-ceasing sorrow which she had striven to bear patiently and humbly till Christ should see fit to remove it - she knew that all these had so shattered and broken her health, had so taken all vitality out of her, that she had not strength to rally from the shock of the accident. Gradually the truth dawned on Mrs. Clavering; so one day when Mr. Talfourd called, she was not surprised that Mary begged she might be allowed to see him, and to see him for a few moments alone.

He had not seen her since the accident; she had always been too weak or asleep when he had called before. He was struck now by the white face, and the large, wistful dark eyes that met his.

There was a chair by the bedside, to which her eyes directed him; he could see that her lips were quivering too painfully to speak. He sat down beside her without saying a word.

You are very kind to come," said she, presently, making a strong effort to break the silence. know how you dislike seeing sick people-it is very good of you to come to me."

"Of course I came

"I have wanted to see you so much," continued she, not looking at him, but speaking each word slowly, deliberately, with such an utter absence of her old impulsiveness as surprised him; he understood it presently. "I have wanted to see you so much. I wished to say, that if ever a time should come when Miss Janet and you felt differently about me, don't vex yourselves at all this pain which you have caused me, or think I ever blamed her or you, for I never did; I knew you could not be intentionally unkindonly you were misled, and it is easy for me to forgive you that. And I want to tell you that I have from the bottom of my heart pardoned her