selves had become beautiful in clothing her; long. They lay their case before God for years, following the slim satin hand as it flitted to and and only make up their minds when they feel fro over wild shaggy heads, laying hold of rough assured by long trial that he wants them to do horny other hands, reducing all things around his work in this way. Your call, I have little to a sort of order in peace, leaving hush and doubt, is elsewhere. Yet never fear but we will comfort in its track, as with the influence of a love you and protect you all we can. And you holy magnetism. "This is her daily work," shall always be our sister, wherever may be said Hester, "and I? I have been think- your place, whatever may be your work." ing about whether or not I was to live a lady!" One dying woman, with the very print of death upon her face, was raving meekly about her home and her children; her husband, who was trying to keep things together till such time as she might be cured and come back to laugh over his troubles, bis makeshifts, his help-bony hands stitching feebly, the hair banded lessness, in her absence; about the baby who badly wanted the tender hands about his little body, who wailed now through the nights and would not let the neighbours sleep, but who would coo and be comforted when next she chirruped in his face; about the tender little daughter of few years, who had a burden upon her shoulders too much even for a woman to bear.

'And, mother!" she said, "Won't the good man be right glad to see me? And won't he be surprised to see me walking in to him? And how he'll be going to his work in the morning without the house and the children on his back as well as the hod of mortar. I'll be there some evening before him when he comes home. And won't the lonesome look go off his face. And won't he give me a kiss ?"

So spoke the dying heart; with its little hopes so green and flourishing on the earth, while their root was already torn from them and shrivelling into dust.

"Oh, yes!" she said, in answer to the nun, "I'll be willing enough to go, when so happen the Lord may want me. But sure I am he doesn't want me yet. I couldn't go to heaven till I rear my little baby."

In another corner a candle was burning, two nuns were praying, and a soul was passing away. Hester and the mother knelt also at a distance, till the supreme moment of a fellowcreature was over. And a few minutes after, in a quiet passage leading from the ward, with a door closed between them and the dead and dying, Hester was weeping with wild sobs in the mother's arms.

"Let me stay with you," she whispered. "I am not much use now, but I might learn, and I could help."

"No, no, my dear, not for always, at least," said the nun. "You do not know what you are asking."

"I could make these black robes, dear madam," pleaded Hester. "And I could sit up at nights."

The next ward visited was a pleasant room upstairs, a place in which the sick people were getting better. In one bed near a window a woman was propped up, with some needlework in her fingers; a white happy face, only newly rid of pain, newly enraptured with peace; two

with smooth care, the head crowned with a snowy cap, the whole figure arranged with festive joy, and raised up out of prostrate weakness to give a grateful welcome to the return of life. A friend had come to see her; had brought flowers. A child sat between them reading aloud from a book. In another bed a fragile looking girl was lying dreaming about her mother in the country, dreaming with wideopen eyes that followed curiously all the gambols of the flies upon the ceiling. She wanted a letter written to her home. And Hester undertook to write the letter.

While that letter was getting written the mother was called away, and Hester remained sitting by the sick girl's bed; who told her about the hills amongst which she had lived, about the pleasant wooded valley where her mother's cottage stood, about her hens, and her dairy, her churning, and her gardening.

And nothing would do for me," she said, "but I must come up to London to be a milliner. And my mother cried sore. And the town air choked me, after the wind that goes blowing through our hills. But now I am getting stout and well, and I will go back to the green fields. The sister gives me a little bit of lavender sometimes, and I snuff it on my pillow here when my eyes are shut. And it has just the old smell of mother's parlour at home."

Meanwhile the Mother Augustine sat over her desk, in her little room.

A letter was unfolded before her, with the Munro arms at the top; and the date showed it written from the Castle of Glenluce, a full month before that present hour.

"Our dear Janet is a very sunbeam under our roof-so brilliant—so piquant

"Ah, that is not the place," said the Mother Augustine, and turned a page.

"It is a want we really feel in our seclusion"—yes, this was the part that the mother wanted to refer to-" in our seclusion." And the mother folded and straightened out the

looked so beaming, so benevolent, so perfectly convinced of and satisfied with the generosity of the world, as in that hour which saw her present herself in the quiet reception room of the convent, to look after her charming Hester, and to thank that dear courteous abbess for her hospitality to the poor child.

"Ah, good madam !" she said to the Mother Augustine, while shaking her finger playfully at Hester, "how well it is for the world that such charity as yours is to be met with occasionally! When naughty girls get astray from their chaperones at balls, they do not deserve to be rewarded with such a treat as being taken into such a delightful home as this, being entertained by such a charming person as you. How shall I ever thank you enough? And your noble brother. You must please make my acknowledgments to Sir Archie Munro. I have the pleasure of knowing him slightly, through my son."

quent than ever-and it is vexatious to sit down to dinner with fringe around one's shoulders, when one knows it is out of date, and one ought to have puffings, or falls of lace. I have talked upon the subject to your aunt Margaret Hazeldean, but it is of no use asking her advice upon such matters. She only laughs in a provoking way, and says the dressmaker in the village the same who makes stuff gowns and petticoats for the farmer's wives is quite good enough for her. Poor Madge has been the only person to sympathise with me till lately and you know I never like to take an important step without support-but even she is so very odd, has so many fantastic ideas about embroideries and furbelows that we never could come to agree in our desires on the subject. But now that our dear Janet is with us-and likely, I trust, to remain with us for life-I think it is high time I set to work to supply this deficiency in our domestic resources. The dear girl has such exquisite taste, is so fasti- Now, behind Lady Humphrey's smiles there dious about everything she will wear-she is lurked a puzzle in her mind. Did this sister of quite after my own heart in this; as indeed I Sir Archie, this daughter of Sir Archie's may say in everything else. And apropos- -"mother, recognise in her, Lady Humphrey, that But the mother went no further. She joined her hands above her desk, and leaned her brow upon them thoughtfully.

"I wonder how it would do," she said, softly to herself. "I wonder if they would be tender and kind to her, if I sent them a stray lamb to be folded at Glenluce!"

After pondering thus a little time longer, she drew forth a sheet of paper, with a sudden impulse, and wrote a letter of consultation to that very Aunt Margaret who could laugh so provokingly over the trouble of wrinkles in a dress, and who was simple enough to wear gowns made by homely village hands.

A letter about a Red Ridinghood who was flying from a wolf, about a young spirit that had been tried, a young heart that had known the danger of growing embittered, a young will that was resolved to do work. She said: "The case is an exceptional one. The girl would do her part, I believe, but I should in all respects require that she should be treated like a lady." The pith of the letter was, "Think, observe, question, and let me have your advice; by which I shall act, if that be possible."

And so it happened, that on an evening soon after this, in a far distant house near the village of Glenluce, a face that was soon to shine on Hester's path, a bright dark face full of strength and sweetness, was bending over this letter with interested attention; considering the matter of its contents-which was the fate of Hester-wisely, sympathisingly, with all the earnestness and generous zeal of a strong fer

vent heart.

CHAPTER XII. HESTER'S CHARACTER DESCRIBED. LADY HUMPHREY's carriage, rather dingy, though with a look important, was seen stopping, soon after this, before that black ancient archway in Blank Square.

Never in her life, perhaps, had this lady

Judith Blake whose young days were remembered amongst the elders of her home, who had truly not been approved in the days that were so remembered? If not, it would be well; but if luck were so far against her, then it would now be her part to remove, by appearing in a new character, whatever hostile or doubtful impressions might have laid their mark upon the mind of this good abbess.

"Such enthusiasts are apt to indulge charitable opinions," she reflected, and she set about winning the full faith of this new ally; for an ally in some shape or other Lady Humphrey had resolved that she must prove. She had once known an abbess before, but she was a homely old woman, with the poor of a country district under her wing-as homely as a hen among her chickens. But a young abbess like this must be of the kind known in poems; where she is usually found sitting with her back to a medieval church window, with an unfortunate love story in the background of her life, a crushed heart ever open to the public inspection, and with an unhesitating belief in the virtue and misfortunes of all who may draw near to hear the story of her sorrows and see her praying by moonlight.

"It should be easy to manage her," thought Lady Humphrey, but looked in vain for the seraphic although heartbroken smile, the lackadaisical self-conscious drooping of the eyelids; listened fruitlessly for the half-smothered, taletelling, egotistical sigh. This was no etherealised victim of romance whom Lady Humphrey had to deal with; and indeed the graceful young woman, in her black garb, was so very much, in very honesty, like the creature she had been born to be, to wit, the good guileless daughter of one-of two-whom Lady Humphrey could remember, that, albeit her ladyship held a stout heart within her body, she had some twitches at her conscience, some pains about her memory,

which threatened a persecution from unwhole-sively. "Ah! how pleasant it is after years some recollections.

have passed away to find the memories of one's It was ominous to Lady Humphrey to see youth still shared by friends, even if-as, alas! Hester affect no joy at their meeting; to see her has been my case-those friends have been take a pale grave stand at her new friend's right estranged from us. I knew your father and elbow; to feel the confidence which already your mother, when they and I were boy and existed between these two, the conviction that girls. I loved them dearly, as a sister, and I her own late efforts to bind Hester to herself received much kindness from their hands. But had failed, while that a stranger had accom- I was a sadly wild girl in those days, my dear plished in one night and a day what she could madam, and it was easy for evil tongues to do not effect through all the years that had changed me a mischief if they would. Unkindness and a babe into a woman. interference divided us, and I fear much that And Lady Humphrey was now in a difficulty. cruel stories, perhaps provoked by my wayShe wished to appear anxious to take Hester backwardness and foolishness, must have lingered into her arms, and yet she hoped that the nun at Glenluce with the memory of my name. might yet assist her in getting the girl trans- But ah! how the world tames one, dear ported into Ireland. She must let this daughter madam!"

of Glenluce see the uneasiness of her kind And Lady Humphrey cast her eyes upon the heart; how she did long to keep the girl with backs of her nice gloves, and studied them with her, be a mother to her, yet found herself dis-a sorrowful little smile, as though she saw her abled by circumstances from indulging this youthful follies mirrored in the shining kid, fond desire of her affection. It was impossible and compassionated them out of the depths of to do this while Hester was standing by so her mind, now grown so sage, of her heart, now quiet and so resolute; so wickedly forgetful, it grown so sober. would appear, of all the gratitude and enthusiasm The nun smiled in good faith and goodthat was due from her to this tender benefac-humour. She was willing to believe all she tress of her youth. But Lady Humphrey was could, through the charity of her desire. not to be daunted by a trifle.

"If all the world of the good were to be judged by the hastiness of their youth, Lady Humphrey," she said, "I fear there would be but few to receive honour or praise. It is after the battle that the victor is crowned. No fight

"I must ask you, my love," she said, "to allow me to have a few words with this dear lady in private. You look tired, my Hester, after your raking and your fright. Go and rest, my dear pet! You need not weary yourself with attend-ing, no laurels." ing to a tiresome conversation.'

"To the garden," said the Mother Augustine; and Hester sat under a sunny wall with ripe plums about her ears, and saw the sun set in a fierce glare behind the city spires and chimneys, and heard all the clocks, from towers and churches, dropping down their music or their clangour, many times round and round, before Lady Humphrey's lean horses took their way out of Blank-square, and the Mother Augustine might be seen coming thoughtfully along between the lavender and the rose bushes casting about her glances, looking for some

one.

But the conversation in the parlour had gone on somewhat in this way.

Lady Humphrey glanced furtively at the mother's sweet, serious face, and was satisfied that her story had been fully known, that her apology had been received. She sighed, and resumed.

"Ab, yes! there is fighting needed, as you say, and it costs care and anxiety to the friends of youth before the training can be happily accomplished. I was even wilder, I believe, and more difficult to manage than that dear girl who has just left the room. And it is about her I would take your counsel, dear madam, knowing your charitable interest in all good works and honest cares. You see me with this poor girl. She is an orphan, and has depended on me for food, and clothing, and You may have heard my name mentioned protection, since she could speak. I have edu before, dear madam," began Lady Humphrey, cated her well, and yet of late I have found it cautiously, fully alive to the importance of necessary that she should be taught some being sure of the ground she trod, before ven- means of supporting herself. I had wished, is turing to take an excursion of any length into is true, to make her independent of such need, ways where she had any cause to doubt the but that is impossible. I cannot keep her as a foundations under her feet. Had the Mother daughter under my own roof, and this displeases Augustine said "no," she was prepared to back her. Her tastes, alas! are beyond her station, from her suggestion with some graceful apology. and I tremble to think of the dangers which But the nun, not having a taste for the art of surround her in this great city. She is wild, I dissembling, gave her a knowledge of her posi-will own to you, and frets at my control. I tion on the instant.

"Yes," she said, readily, "I have heard your name before, Lady Humphrey. My brother has mentioned it to me. And I understand, moreover, that you had some acquaintance with our family many years ago."

"It is true," said Lady Humphrey, pen

fear she is not grateful. I fear she is inclined to be rebellious and a little vindictive. But, ah! dear madam! I need not tell you, who must know it so well, that we should not do good in this world through a seeking for gratitude. She is not a bad girl, I believe, only, as I have said, a little wilful and wild. You have

"Good, yes, surely, in the main-I trust so," said Lady Humphrey; "but so charming, as you say, and so impatient of control-alone, as And so, after having detained the nun in conshe must be when following her employment, inversation for some time longer, ingeniously exLondon! Do you wonder at my uneasiness, dear madam ?"

that I read of his appointment in the Times. By the early mail-train of Tuesday morning he left Northenville for town, and at noon that day the nomination of members for the borough took place.

The mayor of the town opened the proceedings in the usual form. His speech was not long, and was listened to with attention by the crowd. When he had finished, Sir George Staleybridge came forward and proposed Henry Mellam, Esq., of Narlands Hall, as a fit and proper person to represent the borough of Northenville in the parliament of the United Kingdom. Sir George was no orator, and, indeed, his views of men and things in general were as a rule somewhat misty. I had therefore taken the precaution to have the commencement of his speech written out for him in a plain bold hand, with a hint in it that, at a certain point, he might launch out in abuse of the ministry and its supporters; that he was to deem all men who voted against ministers to be independent, and to praise them accordingly. This part of his speech I left to his own invention, merely noting here and there sundry hints for his guidance. At one place he was told to "praise the church;" at another to talk of our glorious constitution ;" at a third to appeal to his hearers to come forward and support "everything that is dear to us."

themselves hand and foot, body and soul, to support, right or wrong, through good report or evil, a ministry of which every honest earnest man in the kingdom was heartily tired, and who seemed to remain in office because they considered they had a prescriptive right to the treasury benches." There were not many of those who stood nearest the hustings that understood what Mr. Holstoff said; but his manner and way of speaking had evidently considerable influence upon them, and they cheered accordingly, the more so as most of them were pledged supporters of Mr. Mellam's. I had taken care to have my forces up early, and with improvised breakfasts in their pockets, they had surrounded the hustings before the enemy was aware of their movements. The morning was cold, and at all the public-houses in our pay were hung out notices that early purl was to be had within. For a pint of this, when payment was offered it was refused ; and every man wearing our colours-mauve-was served with a pint of purl and a good crust of bread, with a piece of cheese, to keep the cold off his stomach. The advantages of thus providing for the commissariat of our troops will be seen hereafter.

When Mr. Holst off had finished speaking, Mr. Hodgson (the cheesemonger, to whose wife Lady Vance had sent medicine for her baby of Mr. Mellam's seconder was Mr. George Hol- the same kind that was used in the royal stoff, eldest son of the great brewer (Buddel, nursery), came forward to propose Captain Grongal, and Holstoff) of Northenville. Getting Bertram Streatham, commonly called the this gentleman to support us on the hustings Honourable Bertram Streatham," as a fit and was a piece of policy for which I took great suitable person to represent the borough of credit. I have great faith in publicans at an Northenville in parliament. Thus far the election. In England they have as much in-worthy tradesman was allowed to proceed fluence upon a great number of electors as the with his speech, but hardly a word more priests have in Ireland. Now, to the publi- was heard. At a prearranged signal from me can the brewer-provided the two deal to- as I stood on the hustings, our supporters gether is very much what the Irish Roman began to shout and roar at the top of their Catholic bishop is to the priest. Get the good-voices, and make playful allusions to the busiwill of the Right Reverend Doctor, and his clergy will be your friends. Get a wealthy local brewer to support your candidate, and the publicans will follow his lead.

Not that Mr. George Holstoff knew anything either about the brewery or the publicans who bought so largely of his father's beer. He was a Cambridge man, had been called to the bar about five years, and was very fond indeed of airing his oratory whenever he got a chance. Beyond drawing his four hundred pounds a year allowance from his father's London banker, he knew nothing whatever of business. But his name was good. He was liked in the neighbourhood, and if a seconder can do a cause any good, he certainly was a good card for us to play. He spoke of the business-like habits and great local interests of Mr. Mellam, and contrasted these with the claims of Captain Streatham, whose only merit as a candidate (said Mr. Holstoff) consisted in the fact that he was son of the Earl of Basement, who was a cabinet minister, and that if the honourable Guardsman were returned to parliament, the electors of Northenville would "merely bind

ness of the speaker, and his supposed shortcomings in dealing with his fellow-men. "Now old Double Gloucester, how many ounces go to the pound?" was the first salutation which he received, and many more in the same strain would no doubt have followed had I not by a motion of my hand shown the free and independent that stood below the hustings that Tom Spavit stood near me. Of course, this was the signal for a long series of personal remarks about Spavit's well known financial troubles, questions being shouted out as to when he was last at the County Court, how much he owed for blacking, whether he got credit for the new hat he had on, and asking what tailor had suffered by "booking the evidently new top-coat he wore. This hubbub lasted nearly the whole time of Mr. Hodgson's speech, during which was heard now and then the words "fit and proper person to represent this our famous old town;" connected for several generations with the interests of the county;" "well known to my fellow clectors;" "gallant officer;" "consistent supporter of ministry;" "upholder of the people's rights;" and so